I'd like us to turn to Acts chapter
22. We've been following the journey
of the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, soul of Tarsus as he was
as a Pharisee. Now, Paul, the Apostle to the
Gentiles. And I'd like to read what is
a lengthy passage of scripture if you'll turn with it, turn
to Acts chapter 22 with me. I'd like to read from Acts chapter
22 verse 14. You know in the previous verses
Paul has been taken before this crowd in Jerusalem and given
the opportunity by a sovereign hand of God to speak the gospel
to them and he As the Lord had promised him,
he bears witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. He bears witness
to a light from heaven that reveals who Saul really is. A proud Pharisee,
now a man put in the dust, a man who has seen the light of heaven,
the light of the world, shine upon him. He has met God and
survived. He has met God and thrived. Let's begin our reading in verse
14 of Acts 22, and he said, this is Ananias speaking to him, Why tarryest thou? Arise, and
be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of
the Lord. And it came to pass that when I was come again to
Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance,
and I saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly
out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning
me. And I said, Lord, they know that
I imprisoned and beaten every synagogue that believed on thee.
And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was
standing by and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment
of them that slew him. And he said unto me, Depart,
for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. And they gave
him audience unto this word. and then lifted up their voices
and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not
fit that he should live. And as they cried out and cast
off their clothes and threw dust into the air, the chief captain
commanded him 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. And as they bound him with thongs,
Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for
you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned When
the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain,
saying, Take heed what thou doest, for this man is a Roman. Then
the chief captain came and said unto them, Tell me, art thou
a Roman? And he said, Yea. And the chief
captain answered, With a great sum I obtain this freedom. And Paul said, But I was born
a freeborn. Then straightway they departed,
from him which should have examined him. And the chief captain also
was afraid after he knew that he was a Roman and because he
had bound him on the morrow because he would have known the certainty
wherefore he was accused of the Jews. He loosed him from his
bands and commanded the chief priests and all their council
to appear and brought Paul down and set him before them. And
Paul earnestly beholding the council said, Men and brethren,
I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. And the high priest Ananias commanded
them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth. Then said Paul
unto him, God shall smite thee, thou white at war. Forsittest
thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten
a contrary to the law. And they that stood by said,
Revilest thou God's high priest? Then Paul said, I wist not, brethren. that he was the high priest,
for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of
thy people. And when Paul perceived that
one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out
in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a
Pharisee. Of the hope of the resurrection
of the dead I am called into question. And when he had So
said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the
Sadducees, and the multitude was divided. For the Sadducees
say, there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but
the Pharisees confess both. And there arose a great cry,
and the scribes that were of the Pharisees' part arose and
strove, saying, We find no evil in this man, but if a spirit
or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God.
And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain,
fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them,
commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force
from among them, and bring him into the castle. And the night
following, the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer,
Paul, for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, So must thou
bear witness also at Rome. May God bless his word and the
reading of it to our souls. I thought I might read one of
the hymns that we sing. It's number 28 in our hymn books. It's a hymn that Don Fortner
wrote some years ago. For me the spotless lamb agreed,
his father's wrath to bear. For me his precious blood he
shed, my guilty soul to spare. I see his head, his hands, his
feet. I hear his groans and cries. For me he bears hell's awful
heat. For me the surety dies. For me, Christ rose, O blessed
day, in triumph o'er the grave. He rules all things with sovereign
sway, my helpless soul to save. A mighty advocate and priest,
Christ pleads for me above. My name is written on his breast,
inscribed by grace and love. For me my Saviour's blood avails,
almighty to atone. The hands he gave to piercing
nails shall lead me to his throne. And when I stand before my God
from sin completely free, I'll praise him for his precious blood,
so freely shed for me. As many of you are aware, Noah
was baptised yesterday and it's lovely to think that we are here
reading of a testimony that God inspired of himself before this
religious crowd and we rejoice and pray for Noah as he bore
testimony publicly to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in his
life and we long We long, as other
churches throughout the world do, we long for the time when
we can share sweet fellowship together, we can embrace each
other in Christian love. And we do also want to pray for
the leaders of this world as they guide and direct our country. But we have a God, we have a
God, who rules and reigns sovereignly. I want us to look at several
things this morning out of that passage that I've just read.
I want to look at the apostle's message, the message which causes
such a stir, the message which stirs the hearts of religious
people, stirs the hearts of religious, reformed, conservative people. I want to look and rejoice in
seeing the sovereign hand of God in directing gospel preaching. But also I want to see, and I
want us to see together, the sovereign providence of our God
reigning and ruling over all the events of this world. I want
us to rejoice with Paul in what it is to be freeborn. To be freeborn. and I want us in the midst of
all of this to see the emptiness and the hypocrisy and the danger
and the entrapment of religion which speaks of God but has no
living knowledge of Him. So I'd like us to begin in Acts
chapter 22 and I love the fact I love the fact that so many
places in the scriptures we have the interaction of our great
and almighty sovereign God with his people and the delightful
intimacy of it. If you look at there, you look,
Paul is told to arise and be baptized. Resurrection Resurrection
is pictured in baptism, a resurrection in this life and a resurrection
in the life to come. But Paul gives his history. He's
given the history of his meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
given his history of Ananias coming to him and proclaiming
the purpose of God in his life and the call of God upon his
life and the hand of God upon his life. And it's all a declaration
free and sovereign grace Paul had nothing to commend himself
to God in any way at all absolutely nothing it is all it is all salvation
is all of grace always all of grace but he speaks also of this
meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ in the temple verse 17 and it
came to pass for Luke loves that expression it came to pass he
came to pass is the sovereign purposes of God come to pass
brother and sisters Everything that happens in this world is
a coming to pass of God's sovereign purpose. That when I was come
again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was
in a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, get thee
quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony
concerning me. And I said, Lord, they know. that I imprisoned and beat in
every synagogue them that believed on thee, and when the blood of
thy martyr Stephen was shed, I was also standing by and consenting
unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.
And he said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence
unto the Gentiles." This may have been And it's hard to know
with any certainty because the Holy Spirit has cast a veil over
it. Maybe what Paul is referring
to in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, where he speaks of a man, a man
who was, he said, I knew a man in Christ about 14 years ago.
Whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body
I cannot tell, God knoweth such an one caught up to the third
heaven. And I knew such a man, whether
in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth how
that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words,
which is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will
I glory, yet of myself will I not glory. but he'll glory in his
infirmities he goes on to say in 2nd Corinthians
that the Lord left him a thorn in the flesh I think the thorn
in the flesh is the flesh itself which wars against it but we
have a God with whom we can converse we have a God who condescends in the glory of his relationship
with his people and for their good in this world. He speaks
with them. You might recall some of the
great conversations throughout the scriptures when men come
into the presence of God. I often think of Abraham discussing
with God and debating with God and challenging God about the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If there are this many righteous
people in Sodom, would you destroy it if there were that many righteous
people there? Abraham had a meal with the Lord Jesus Christ, and
he conversed with him. Moses conversed with God. And
it's extraordinary, the intimacy and it's extraordinarily the
honesty with which these men conversed with God. My point
simply is, We have a God who speaks. We read about it in Psalm
28, and you can read it in multiple times throughout the scriptures.
We have a God who speaks, and we have a God who hears, and
we have a God who listens. And so much of what we think
is prayer is not prayer at all, and the times when we really
feel as if we pray and are really praying, are very few and often
very far between. But I'd love to think that because
of the promised presence of our God, we might consider an intimacy
of conversation with him. So these men just laid out the
reality of their lives as they saw it before them. Paul said,
he said, they won't receive my testimony. The Lord said they
won't proceed in the testimony. He explains to them, explains
to them what he was as a sinner and an enemy of the gospel. We need to delight in the fact
that our God speaks and he now always and necessarily only speaks
by his son. And he speaks from heaven. We
have in the scriptures, the very words of God from heaven. And
my prayer often is that the Lord would take his words, take those
words that are just ink on a page. And as he says in John chapter
six, that they might become spirit and life unto you. We can speak
to our God. We can speak to our God at all
times. we can lay out our life before
him as it is knowing that he knows all of it knowing that
he has directed it and directed the circumstances the it came
to pass events of our life to bring us to such a point and there is a message isn't
there I love how The Lord describes the testimony, the testimony
of God's servants, is the testimony concerning me. It's not the testimony
concerning men, it's the testimony concerning the Lord Jesus Christ,
the testimony concerning who he is. It's the testimony that
enrages people. It's the testimony of the Lord
Jesus Christ which enraged Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road.
It's the testimony that Stephen bore of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When he saw heaven open, he saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing.
He was standing in heaven. He's normally seated in heaven,
but when his saints are going home, he stands. He stands to
welcome Stephen home. And Paul was enraged as this
crowd was enraged and he says to them he was like them. He
was like them until he met the sovereign almighty God in the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is a necessary testimony
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ that God's witnesses will bring
to this world and whether this world accepts it or not They
will continue to bring it to this world, because it's a testimony
of God concerning me. I love what Paul said to the
Galatians. In Galatians chapter 1, he says,
he says, For do I now persuade man or God, or do I seek to please
men? Galatians 1.10. For if I yet
pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. There is a testimony that Paul
bore witness to. It was a testimony about the
work of God in his own life. He doesn't bear testimony about
other people. He just bears testimony, a personal testimony. He gives
his story, his story of God meeting him. his story of him meeting
God in his sovereignty. And there are some necessary
things that accompany a meeting with God. A meeting with God
will be a revelation, a light from heaven, a revelation of
the absolute sovereignty of God. It will bring a declaration of
the distinguishing love of God. of his absolute sovereignty,
his absolute sovereignty. It will always be a message from
God, a testimony concerning me, of God's eternal choice of his
church before all worlds. And it's a very simple matter,
it's a very simple matter to have peace in this religious
world. and it comes about by hiding
or somehow putting those glorious attributes of God. Christ's particular
successful redemption of all that the Father gave him, his
special love, the distinguishing grace of God the Holy Spirit,
the fact that he will send this testimony knowing that people
and religious people especially will be offended by it. When those things are declared,
when those things are declared with the simplicity with which
Paul declared them before this crowd, there will be, there will
be a rising up in the hearts of people, in all the hearts
of those who haven't met God. It's almost like an erupting
volcano as they find it so offensive. They can speak much and know
much scripture about the Christ of God and these men would have
believed in a successful Christ. They would have believed in a
God who is absolutely sovereign. They would have believed that
this Christ of God was going to come and particularly reign
and rule for a particular people. They had all of this knowledge.
They had all of this knowledge in their head and nothing, nothing
of it born in the new creation that God alone brings to the
hearts of his people. It's the testimony concerning
me. We often speak of the Ethiopian
eunuch and Simon mentioned Him again yesterday at Simon's baptism. And the Ethiopian's confession
was not a confession about anything that he believed about himself.
He simply said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. See, our confession is what we
believe about God, not what we believe about ourselves. You see, there's nothing in Paul's
testimony Nothing in Paul's testimony that glorifies Paul. Everything
in Paul's testimony before these people glorified the Lord Jesus
Christ. A testimony that was begun by
the Lord meeting him. A testimony begun by a light
shining from heaven and revealing the glorious Lord Jesus Christ,
the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. reigning and ruling and sovereignly
commanding and directing. You see, religious men find this
offensive. What they find offensive is the
reality of an intimate personal relationship of grace that's
begun by God, that reveals His grace, reveals the helpless weakness
and infirmity of the flesh of men, See, men, religious men, will
tolerate the things of God until it reaches and exposes their
self-righteousness, until it dethrones them and enthrones
the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan's poison, which courses
through the veins of all of Adam's race, is you shall be his gods. You shall be his gods. You'll
stand in judgment of God. You'll determine what is good
and evil, and you'll be able to choose what is good over what
is evil. And the Lord Jesus Christ confronts
men. Our great and living God confronts
men as the Lord Jesus Christ is preached, in the glory of
His sovereignty, in the wonder of His particular redeeming love. in his reign and rule over all
things, and that all flesh is in his hands, when his glory
is proclaimed, when his sovereignty, his righteousness is revealed,
then men, religious men, will find a hateful enmity rising
in their hearts. They gave him audience until
this word then lifted up their voices, Acts 22, 22, and said,
away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit
that he should live. The testimony that Paul bears
of the Lord Jesus Christ receives exactly the same response from
the religious men after these 20 years of witness in Jerusalem,
receives exactly the same religious response as it did when the Lord
Jesus Christ came and proclaimed himself preached himself and
displayed himself as the Christ of God before them in such clear
unmistakable ways that only willful, blind, satanic deception and
captivity by the evil one could cause men not to see it. John 3 19 the Lord Jesus Christ
is having that conversation with Nicodemus who came out of the
dark into the light and we trust and pray that his coming before
the Lord Jesus Christ and coming and taking that body and anointing
that body and bringing those spices to bury that body in Joseph
of Arimathea's tomb with great honor is indicative of the fact
that coming to that light on that night and being exposed
as being an extraordinarily knowledgeable man, and an extraordinarily ignorant
man. This is the condemnation, John
3, 19. This is the condemnation. That word condemnation is the
word we have, crisis. It's our word, crisis. This is
a crisis. When the Lord Jesus Christ is
presented to people, there is a crisis. And whether men find
in that crisis a saving hand of God as they are brought to
bow before the Lord Jesus Christ, or whether that crisis is revealed
as a crisis of their damnation, it's still a crisis. There is
nothing light and flimsy and insignificant about the declaration
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a saver of death
unto death, and it's a saver of life unto life. This is the
condemnation, John 3.19, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds
were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, and neither cometh to the light, lest his
deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest. that they
are wrought in God. It is the light of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ that draws his people to that light. And Paul has recounted before
these people the entrance of that light into his life and
in that heavenly light That heavenly light that shone from our resurrected
Lord Jesus Christ, Paul saw the reality. He saw the reality of
who he is. He saw the reality of his absolute
and utter ignorance of who the true and living God is. He saw He saw the resurrected Lord Jesus
Christ. It's very interesting that in
these defenses that Paul makes here, he speaks of a resurrected
Christ. Again and again in Acts chapter
23, we might get to read it later on, he speaks of the resurrection
of Christ. In Acts 24, he speaks of the resurrection of Christ.
In Acts 26, 7 and 8, he speaks of the resurrection of Christ.
The resurrected Christ and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ. is very uppermost in Paul's mind. It's such a significant
part of his testimony. You see, we have a resurrected
Christ. We have a reigning Christ. We have a living Christ. He has
finished the work the Father sent him to do. He now, in glorious
resurrection, reigns and rules over all things. He bears, right
now, in heaven, the very marks the very marks of our sins being
put away brothers and sisters in Christ he bears in his body
the very marks of our justification that our sins are gone all God's
messages will be made of God made of God to bear testimony,
as Paul describes it, as the whole council of God. It's the
true character of God. It's Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They find, all of God's servants,
they find His glorious attributes, their delight, His works, their
pleasure, His righteousness, His righteousness and his legal
obedience, they're only covering his predestination, his covenant,
his cross, their hope for this world and the next. See, only light from heaven can
penetrate the darkness which is in the human heart by nature. Man loved the darkness. He's speaking about religious
men. Religious men love the darkness
rather than the light. The creation of a believer. The
new creation of a believer is the stupendous work of the Triune
God. It far exceeds the work of creating
a universe. The work of creating a universe
by just speaking a word is a glorious evidence of the power of our
God. But it takes nothing less, it
takes nothing less than the death of the Son of God under the curse
of the wrath of God to bring a sinner from darkness to light. Paul is bearing testimony to
that light. It's a glorious work, isn't it?
It's a glorious work. It displays
the sovereign power and glory and love of God in ways that
a million creations could never display. I love how Paul writes
to the Colossians. He's going to spend the next
several years in jail and mercifully in that time in prison We have
some of these letters where he speaks with such power and glory
to the saints of God and throughout until our time. It says in verse
12 of Colossians chapter 1, giving thanks unto the Father which
hath made us meet, made us to be qualified to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light. who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the
kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his
blood, even the forgiveness of sins. And Paul in Colossians
chapter 1 speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ with such a glorious
glorious words. In verse 15 he says, who is the
image of the invisible God, the exact representation of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creatures. He talks about his creation.
And then he says in verse 21, and you who are sometimes alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works. You didn't see those works
as wicked works. You don't see religious works
as wicked works until the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to you
in the reality of his glorious works in his glorious present
your enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he
reconciled in the body of his flesh through death nothing less than the death of
the Son of God can take people from this religious darkness
into this glorious light to present you wholly unblameable
and unapprovable in his sight. Let's go back to Acts chapter
22. Verse 23, and they cried out
and cast off their clothes and threw dust into the air. There is the sovereign hand of
mercy in Paul declaring the gospel, isn't there? What a glorious
thing. It's a glorious thing to contemplate,
isn't it? The simple calmness of our Saviour as He walked through
that world and dealt with those religious crowds. They were in
uproar so often, and he just walked through the midst of that
crowd. As James says in 3 verse 16,
for where there is envying and strife, there is confusion and
every evil work. God's sovereign hand have brought
Paul to this place. And this is the last time, it's
a good thing to contemplate brothers and sisters, this is the last
time in the history, this sacred history of the church, we have
a record of God's dealings in Jerusalem. We have no question
of the Jerusalem church went on and its witness was maintained
until the destruction of that city. But this is the last time
in the history of the church, Luke's history of the church,
we have a record of an apostle of God speaking there and in contemplating that reality
we have great reason to consider that the Lord witnessing to himself
by a hand of providence to bring this testimony before this religious
crowd to once again before those people in Jerusalem to declare
the risen resurrected reigning, glorious Lord Jesus Christ. A Christ who is united to his
people, a Christ who works all things for the glory and for
their good, for his glory and their good. This religious crowd in Jerusalem
have there been for now over 20 years in decided opposition
against the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it would
appear that the Jerusalem church had wanted Paul not to come there
and stir up this crowd. It appears that by close association
and in some ways compromise with the Jerusalem church, something
of their testimony had waned. And the Lord brought, as he does
so often, he brings this contention that he might be proclaimed So
it's not Paul as he had planned and the Jerusalem elders had
instructed him in bringing and aiding others a blood sacrifice,
but him bringing a clear unequivocal witness to sovereign grace, the
reign of the living and true God and his hand of mercy upon
those loved and protected by him in the internal covenant
of his love and grace. And this only, Paul has declared
to them, is revealed as a light from heaven shines. That Shekinah
glory, that light from heaven. It's not Paul revealing the activities
of man, but Paul revealing the activities of God. It's not Paul
seeking to continue a peace between unbelieving Jews and the church
that allowed members of the church to go into the temple and offer
blood sacrifices, but now a testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul loved these Jews and maybe
his love drew them, as it may often draw us at times, to places where we, in some ways, soften
the witness because of the depth of our fleshly love for people
around us. But ultimately, ultimately, true
love for people is love that brings them the gospel. true love for people and declares
our sovereign savior in the reality of who he is. I love his prayer
in John 17. He lifted up his eyes to heaven
and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son that thy
son may also glorify thee as thou has given him power over
all flesh. Paul was told they're not going
to believe your testimony. I'm sending you to the Gentiles.
I'm sending you to a people who will receive your testimony.
He's given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal
life. Eternal life is a gift. It's
not a purchase of man. It's the purchase of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He should give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given him. There is. There is. people in
this world as Paul was told in in Acts chapter 18 he says I
have many people in this city you preach on in Corinth Paul
doesn't matter about the opposition you preach on that he should
give eternal life to as many as thou has given him and this
is eternal life that they may know thee the only true God and
Jesus Christ whom thou has sent salvations knowing him So anything
less than declaring Him, to the extent that God would allow us
to declare Him in the glory of His being, the reality of His
present reign and rule, is not loving people. In reality, it
is loving our flesh. And that's why God's servants
don't hide the glorious attributes of God. They may not be given
an opportunity always to speak, but as we see in these Chapters
here, at the close of Acts, Paul is given extraordinary opportunities
to speak. Because of the opposition of
the Jews, because of the hatred of the Jews, he has more and
more opportunity to proclaim him. There is, there is in the opposition
of the religious world to the Gospel. a means by which God
causes there to be a testimony of himself. You think of how in the sovereign
hand of God he turns the enmity of people against him into balm
for the souls of his people. We grieve for them but in this
enmity of man and as Psalm 76 10 says isn't it the wrath of
man the wrath of man shall praise thee and the remainder thou shalt
restrain their will in their enmity be a cause for the lord
jesus christ to be lifted up and glorified so we see a sovereign
hand of god bringing this declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ and
we see a sovereign providence in all things. It is so good
for us to trace, as Paul has done, to trace the sovereign
hand of providence in the lives of God's saints. We can, as the
people of old did, erect our Ebenezers and say, thus far,
thus far the Lord has been faithful to me. Let's read in Acts 22
verse 24. So this is the first time that
Paul openly uses his Roman citizen as a defense from persecution. in Ephesus. He had friends amongst
the high officials of the Roman governors there. But let's use these events in
Paul's life. to find our rest as we trace
the sovereign hand of our God. You see, Paul was just about
to offer that blood sacrifice and was stopped. Paul was just
about to enter the temple and this riot began and the gates
of the temple, the great doors of the temple were closed to
him and closed to those other men. Paul was just about to be
killed by this crowd when the Roman army intervened. Paul was
about to be imprisoned and examined When he speaks these last apostolic
words to Jerusalem, he's given an opportunity by the captain
of the guard to speak to that crowd. Paul was about to be scourged,
and he declares his Roman citizenship. The next chapters will say that
Paul's about to be murdered by 40 Jews under an oath. And his
nephew happens to overhear their plot. And the Roman captain,
because of his is having bound a Roman citizen. He's so concerned about Paul's
safety that he sends him all the way to Caesarea with an army
to protect him from those Jews. See, nothing escapes, nothing
escapes the all-seeing and all-searching eye of our God. In all the circumstances
of our lives here are under his direct and complete control we spend so little time being
aware of that it's good in the quietness of our gatherings to
be reminded of that again it is so easy takes the tiniest
thing to rock us from that foundation but it's good for us to contemplate
it it's good for us to contemplate how closely how closely we get
to slipping as David said my feet almost slipped my feet almost
slipped I love what Robert Hawker says he says it is blessed to
observe how astonishingly at times The Lord manifests the
sovereignty of his power in the deliverance of his people. When
the enemy seems to triumph with a high hand, and all hope for
the moment seems to be gone, how suddenly and unexpectedly
the Lord then appears for them and displays his strength in
creature weakness. There was nothing in Paul's strength.
in any of these events, it was a glorious, gracious, sovereign
hand of God. Hawker goes on to say, And thus
was it with Paul, the Jews on one hand and the Roman power
on the other, and all foes to Paul. But when the Lord works
for his people, he works beyond all creature strength, against
all creature probabilities, and against all expectation of human
foresight and contrivance. Paul may have alerted to this
in 2nd Corinthians 1 verse 9 he says we have the sentence of
death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves but in
God which raises the dead. Hawker finishes by saying Blessings
of every kind are doubly sweet when the Lord's hand in the appointment
is discernible and the Lord's power is manifested in creature
wickedness. Have you seen the Lord's hand
of provident mercy? Not just in giving things to
you in this world, but in restraining you from the things that your
flesh would have desired and would have led you from him. Our God reigns in grace and mercy. Verse 26, And when the centurion
heard that, he went and told the chief priest, saying, Take
heed what thou doest, for this man is a Roman. Then the chief
captain came and said unto him, Tell me, Aren't thou a Roman?
And he said, Yea. And the chief captain answered,
With a great sum attained I this freedom. But Paul says, I was
born. I was free born. He's no doubt
referring to the fact that he was born in that city of Tarsus,
which had the privilege of being considered part of the Roman
Empire. Mark Antony made it so. But it is a glorious description,
doesn't it? as he is there chained and bound
by these Romans. Who's the one who's free? Who's
the one who's really free? We are children of God, free-born. We're citizens of heavenly Jerusalem. Lord Jesus Christ, the King of
heaven, has declared that city to be free. by the power of his
blood. And he did it long, long time
ago. Free-born citizens might be chained
by the chains of men, but they'll never be brought into bondage. Paul had been set free by a sovereign
hand of God. He'd been released from that
bondage. See, the Jews in Jerusalem were in the most extraordinary
bondage of all, weren't they? What an extraordinary binding
thing religion without Christ is. What an extraordinary binding
thing, blinding, binding, entrapping thing it is to have religion
that speaks much of Christ without a genuine meeting with Him, which
speaks of Him in so many ways and then denies in those same words. the reality
of who he is, as the Lord Jesus Christ said to those Pharisees,
you honour me with your lips, but your hearts are far from
me. Religious bondage is double bondage. And Christ alone makes sinners
free. Paul could stand, stand as a
freeborn child of God, Stand in the glorious liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free. He could stand before them and
speak to that council and say, Acts 23, verse one, he says,
and Paul earnestly beholding the council said, men and brethren,
I have lived in all good conscience before God unto this day. We spoke last week about that
washing, the washing of water by the word of God, the washing
of water which baptism so gloriously represents. You're washed, says Paul in 1
Corinthians 6. You were thieves. You were. You were idolaters, you were
adulterers, effeminate abusers of themselves with mankind. Such
were some of you, 1 Corinthians 6.13, but you are washed, you
are sanctified. You are justified in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. We
have, as free-born children, we have consciences which are
pure purified a conscience cleansed purged is that word washed white
as snow as Isaiah chapter 1 says your sins are scarlet but they've
been washed white washed white in the blood of the lamb Paul
is now set before this religious council and has another opportunity
to declare the risen Christ. I love how he's brought there. The sovereign hand of God brought
him to another meeting with these people and this captain of the
guard commanded commanded that they come and meet him. Verse
30 of chapter 22. He wanted to know for certain
why he was accused of the Jews and he loosed him from his bands
and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear.
Now the Romans are commanding these Jews. They said they've
never been in bondage to anyone. And he brought Paul down and
he set Paul before them. The Lord arranged yet another
testimony before this religious crowd. And Paul, earnestly beholding
the council, said, men and brethren, I have lived in good conscience
before God all this day. His conscience is clear. Paul had done, he had done nothing
in Jerusalem by his acts in those previous days to bring offense. Their accusations were baseless. May the accusations of those
who condemn us be baseless. May we be quick, brothers and
sisters, to own our frailties and our failings. May God graciously allow us to
live with a good conscience before God. What pain comes into this
world from consciences that aren't set free? He was freeborn, says
Paul. He has a conscience which is
good, which is clean before God. To have a conscience clean before
God is simply to trust his son, to look to him alone for all
of our righteousness. To be found in him, to be clothed
in him, to not have any righteousness of our own, to simply be trusting
Him, to simply have all of our righteousness as His righteousness. You see, brothers and sisters,
we have no personal righteousness to defend. May the accusations
of those who accuse us be found to be baseless as these were.
But we have a righteousness which now is in heaven, the very righteousness
of God, is the robe, that glorious white robe with which all of
God's people are robed. And it's put on them. It's put
on them. It's not a robe of man's weight
making. It's not those fig leaves which
Adam and Eve covered their shame with. It is a woven robe, a seamless
robe of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here
we have this religious crowd again. Just listen to the hypocrisy. Listen to the response. And the
high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite
him on the mouth. Paul now stands before them as
a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ and 20 odd years
of witness and testimony. Many priests coming, many witnesses,
many extraordinary witnesses in the temple like that lame
man that Peter healed. at the gate beautiful, so many
witnesses of the glory of the resurrected and risen and reigning
Lord Jesus Christ, the Christ of God, was displayed before
them, fulfilling all the scriptures, gathering his people to himself,
bearing witness to himself before them in ways that would cause
men, religious men, to have to confess, as Nicodemus said, that
these things can't be done unless God's with you. What did Ananias
do in response? He says, smite him on the mouth. The Lord Jesus Christ, in John
22 and in the other gospels, is the account of him at his
trial. In John 18, 22, the Lord Jesus,
go back to verse 20, he said, Jesus answered. He was asked
about his doctrine. asked about his disciples. He
said, I've spoken openly to the world. I ever taught in the synagogue
and in the temple, whether the Jews always resort. Paul had
just done the same as his master. He's just declared openly and
painfully who the Lord Jesus Christ is and the salvation that's
gloriously in him. And in secret I have said nothing. Why ask thou? Ask them that heard
me. What I have said unto them, Behold,
they know what I said. The words he said, the gracious
words he said, were said in public. And when he had thus spoken,
one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm
of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest? ever since the very first proclamation
of the gospel. Ever since, the garden, Satan,
and all those in captivity to him have wanted to silence and
quench the word of God. It's exactly what they did to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Away with him. Natural men, a tolerant of all
things. These religious men, as Paul
will go on to reveal, these religious men were at enmity one with the
other, but they had a unity as they came together, and they
are united in opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ is offensive to men, and in their offense,
and their offense is most clearly seen in the fact that they want
to silence it. You, like me, can bear testimony, brothers
and sisters, hear how much our hearts yearn that there would
be a door of utterance given to us, and we find that door
sadly shut in our faces again and again and again. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ
is offensive to religious men, and we mustn't, as Paul was told
by the Lord, we mustn't expect men to receive it, embrace it,
or tolerate it. unless they are born from above.
See, natural men are tolerant of every opinion and every religion
of man's making, but the gospel of Christ, the truth of God,
the glorious sovereign grace, the religion of salvation in
the scriptures, the message of free salvation by grace alone,
through faith alone, in Christ alone, the message of salvation
by blood atonement, imputed righteousness, divine regeneration is offensive
to all unregenerate men. You can read Paul's testimony
regarding it in 1 Corinthians 1.18. The reality is that men
by nature hate God. The gospel exposes men's depravity. The gospel exposes the spiritual
reality that God will accept the works of his son and that
man's works are nothing but filthy rags. And the gospel nullifies
men's goodness. The gospel reveals the evil of
men's righteousness and denounces man's religion as a worthless
thing, an empty thing. So the uproar at Jerusalem was
caused by one thing. Paul had preached with boldness. God's sovereign, electing, distinguishing,
saving grace. That he has a people amongst
the Jews and he has a people amongst the Gentiles that he
must bring in. They are loved of God from eternity. And the Lord Jesus Christ bore
their sins in his own body on the tree and bore them away and
now they're accepted in the beloved. And they are enraged and the
Jews hated it. You can read in John chapter
15 how the Lord Jesus Christ promised these things. And that
is why any attempt to modify, to take the edge or the point
from the sword of the Word of God will always fail. only the gospel in its unadulterated
glory will penetrate the hearts of sinful men and only the gospel
proclaimed by the power of the Spirit will bring about the glorious
transformation in Paul's life where a heart of stone has been
removed and a heart of flesh that believes, a heart of flesh
that repents, a heart of flesh that loves what it once hated,
a heart of flesh that glories in the person and the reign and
rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's loved, it's loved by the
new heart. just simply bears witness, and
he exposes the hypocrisy. He had no point, and he had no
command from God to speak to these people. And what he does
is simple, isn't it? Verse 23, and Paul said unto
him, God shall smite thee thou whited wall, for thou sittest
thou to judge me after the law, and commandeth me to be smitten
contrary to the law. He's calling Ananias, the high
priest, a hypocrite. You can read about it in Galatians
6, 12 and 13, Matthew 23, Paul speaks and warns us of the yeast
and the leaving of the Pharisees and in verse 27 he says Matthew
23 says woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for
you are like unto whited sepulchres they're beautifully whitewashed
on the outside which indeed appear beautiful outward but within
are within full of dead man's bones and of all uncleanness
even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men but within
are You are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. What a terrible
sentence of God upon these people. 20 years and nothing has changed. All self-righteous men who pretend
to live by the law and judge others according to the law are
hypocrites. None of them ever obey the law.
This word from Paul It seems as if it was an inspired word
of prophecy. This man, Ananias, within five
years, was stabbed to death. And Paul, thou that stood by,
verse 24, revilest thou God's high priest. Then said Paul,
I wist not, I didn't know, brethren, that he was the high priest,
for it is written thou should not speak evil of the rule of
thy people. Paul doesn't acknowledge Ananias
as God's high priest, but he says the high priest. God has
a high priest. Paul has a high priest. You can
read about him in Hebrews 6, chapters 6 and 7, a high priest
who is a king, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
This was just a human high priest, a hypocrite, full of iniquity,
full of iniquity. And when Paul perceived that
one part were Sadducees and the other part Pharisees, he cried
out to the council, men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a
Pharisee, and of the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am
called into question. And when he had said so, there
arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
The religious crowd will be exposed. will be exposed. They might join
hands against the Lord Jesus Christ, but it only takes an
unveiling and they are revealed in enmity against one another. For the Sadducees say there is
no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees
confess both. And there arose a great cry,
and the scribes that were of the Pharisees parted rows and
strove, saying, We find no evil in this man. They found nothing
but evil in him. They're lying. But if a spirit
or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God. Men will be condemned by the
words that they speak. God never forgets. And when there
arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing this Paul
should have been pulled in pieces then, commanded the soldiers
to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him
into the castle. Another one of those glorious
events where the sovereign hand of God intervenes and intercedes. And the night following, I want
to close with these glorious words. You can read about it
in 2 Timothy chapter 4, the same words are used of Paul. And the
night following, the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer,
Paul, for as thou hast testified of me, in Jerusalem, thou must
bear witness also at Rome." My prayer is that in our testimony,
in our bearing witness to the Lord Jesus Christ, we would know
that He stands by. He always stands by His people. He carries them in his arms. He'll carry Paul through all
these trials and carry him all the way to Jerusalem, to Rome,
to be a witness again to him. May the Lord stand by you, my
brothers and sisters in Christ. May the Lord preserve and protect
and honour his testimony in you and among you and through you
for his glory and your good and the good of his people in the
world. Let's finish by reading Jude 24 and 25, these verses
we sing at the end of our services normally. Now unto him that is
able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. to the only
wise God our Saviour. Be glory and majesty, dominion
and power, both now and ever. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we thank you. We thank you that your testimony
has been borne by your servants throughout time and throughout
this world. and has reached the farthermost
parts of this world. And we now here in far-flung
Australia can read the words of the testimony that you put
on the mouths of your apostles so long ago. We praise you, Heavenly
Father, that testimony reigns and rings true in your children. When heavenly light comes, and
we pray, our Father, that you might shine the light of heaven
into the hearts of your people to reveal the wonders and the
glories of the finished work of your dear and precious Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. We praise you, heavenly Father,
that in this world of turmoil and so much uncertainty, we have
a God who reigns with absolute supreme authorities now sitting
on the throne of heaven. and all things in this world,
all things in this universe, are directed and determined according
to the very counsel of our God and Savior. We praise you that
in that counsel, Heavenly Father, the gospel reaches your people. Those that the Lord Jesus Christ
said that he must bring in. Help us to be brought with joy,
Heavenly Father. again and again to the feet of
our saviour and may we know the reality that he never leaves
nor forsakes his people may he be found by us to be standing
by us we do pray heavenly father for the testimony that you have
revealed in Noah's life and we pray that you bless him in these
days and weeks to come in the trials that will necessarily
accompany the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless your
church, our Father throughout this world. Bless the preaching
of your gospel. Cause your son to be high and
lifted up and your people to find their rest in him. We pray
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory. Oh,
man.