Acts chapter 23. We have several
tonight at graduations, and so we're a few here, but we'll go through these 12 or so verses, 10 or so verses
here. Acts 23 verse 11. 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. And the Lord's promised Paul.
He's promised him that he'd be delivered to Rome to preach the
Gospel. We have God's Word to us to believe
Him, that Christ shall be a sanctuary for all those who put their trust
in Him. We have His Word that He will
speak peace in our hearts, that He'll stand by us and He'll deliver
us to the end that He's appointed for us, that new heavens and
new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We have His Word on that. Well,
here's how the Lord began to set the whole course in action
for Paul. Paul's going to be delivered
to Rome to preach the Gospel. Here's how it started about. And when it was day, certain
of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under a curse,
saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed
Paul. And they were more than forty
which made this conspiracy, and they came to the chief priests
and elders, and said, we've bound ourselves under a great curse,
that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul. Now, therefore,
ye with the council signify to the chief captain that he bring
him down unto you tomorrow, as though you would inquire something
more perfectly concerning him, and we, or ever he come near,
are ready to kill him. All of us, or whoever he comes
closest to, we're going to kill him tomorrow. Well, we don't
despise the day of small things. Never despise the day of small
things. The Lord speaks in a variety
of ways. And Paul knows that the Lord
has promised to deliver him. Paul knows this. But Paul is
going to use the means God's given him. Now look at verse
16. And when Paul's sister's son
heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the
castle and told Paul, Then Paul called one of the centurions
unto him, and he said, Bring this young man unto the chief
captain, for he hath a certain thing to tell him. So he took
him, and brought him to the chief captain, and said, Paul the prisoner
called me unto him, and prayed me to bring this young man unto
thee, who hath something to say unto thee. Then the chief captain
took him by the hand, and went with him aside privately, and
asked him, What is that thou hast to tell me? And he said,
the Jews have agreed to desire thee, that thou wouldst bring
down Paul to Mara into the council, as though they would inquire
somewhat of him more perfectly. But do not thou yield unto them,
for there lie in wait for him of them more than 40 men, which
have bound themselves with an oath, that they will neither
eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now are they
ready, looking for a promise from thee. So the chief captain
then let the young man depart and charged him saying, see thou
tell no man that thou has showed these things to me. Now, as the
Lord promised, he's going to deliver Paul. He's going to deliver
him. Nobody would have ever imagined
how the Lord would deliver him, that the Lord would use the entire
Roman army to protect Paul so that he wouldn't have to run
or be dragged on a sled or be dragged off his feet, but would
ride in ease on their own beasts. Look at verse 23. And he called
unto him two centurions, saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers
to go to Caesarea. and horsemen threescore and ten,
and spearmen two hundred at the third hour of the night. And
provide them beasts that they may set Paul on, and bring him
safe unto Felix the governor." Not only this, but the Lord uses
this Roman chief captain to write a letter to Felix and to defend
Paul, that he had done nothing wrong. Look at the next verse.
And he wrote a letter after this manner. Claudius Lysias, unto
the most excellent governor Felix, sendeth greeting. This man was
taken of the Jews and should have been killed of them. Then
came I with an army and rescued him, having understood that he
was a Roman. He bent the truth a little bit there on that. And
when I would have known the cause wherefore they accused him, I
brought him forth into their council, whom I perceived to
be accused of questions of their law, but to have nothing laid
to his charge worthy of death or of bonds. And when it was
told me how that the Jews laid wait for the man, I sent straightway
to thee and gave commandment to his accusers also to say before
thee what they had against him. Farewell. Then the soldiers,
as it was commanded them, took Paul and brought him by night
to Antipatrus. And on the morrow they left the
horsemen to go with him and returned to the castle. Who, when they
came to Caesarea and delivered the epistle to the governor,
presented Paul also before him. And when the governor had read
the letter, he asked of what province he was. And when he
understood that he was of Cilicia, I will hear thee, said he, when
thine accusers are also come. And he commanded him to be kept
in Herod's judgment hall. Now, I want to show you two things
from this, God's sovereignty and God's use of means. God orders
everything in providence to bring to pass His purpose. That's what
we mean when we say God is sovereign. He orders everything in heaven
and earth to bring to pass His purpose. He is so absolutely
sovereign that He uses the wrath of man to bring to pass His purpose. These men that laid in wait for
Paul, along with all the chief priests and the elders that were
conspiring with them, they had their hearts set on the most
dangerous endeavor that a man can set his heart on, touching
God's anointed. This was dangerous business.
Of everything they could have contributed in their lives, of
everything that they had ever done in their lives or could
have ever contributed in their lives to leave their mark and
to leave their legacy behind, this is their 15 minutes of fame
right here, recorded in God's Word forever. They sought to
kill the very man whom Christ stood by. That's all that's recorded
to these men. Will they prevail? Will men like
this prevail against Christ, against His people? Let's look
at some scripture. Turn with me to Psalm chapter
76. Psalm chapter 76. You hold your place in Psalms.
We may come back here in a moment. Psalm 76, look at verse 7. Psalm 76, 7. Even thou art to be feared, and
who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? Thou didst
cause judgment to be heard from heaven. The earth feared and
was still when God arose to judgment to save all the meek of the earth.
Selah, that means think on that, think on that. Surely the wrath
of man shall praise thee. The remainder of wrath shalt
thou restrain. Vow and pay unto the Lord your
God. Let all that be round about him
bring presents unto him that ought to be feared. He shall
cut off the spirit of princes. He is terrible to the kings of
the earth. Turn over to Psalm 105. Psalm
105. The wrath of man will praise
Him and the remainder, He'll restrain it. Won't allow it to
come to pass. These men were doing exactly
what they wanted to do. Exactly what they wanted to do.
And God just took the yoke off of them and let them do what
they wanted to do. Psalm 105 verse 12. When they were but a few men
in number, yea, very few, and strangers in the land. He's talking
about the children of Israel. When they went from one nation
to another, from one kingdom to another people, he suffered
no man to do them wrong. Yea, he reproved kings for their
sakes, saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets
no harm. Can God really bring good out
of the wrath of men, out of the evil of men? We've looked at
this before, but turn with me back to Acts chapter 4. Acts
chapter 4. We always go to the cross. We
always go to Christ if we want to see these things in truth. Acts 4 verse 26. The people are singing the second
Psalm. They said in verse 25, Who by
the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen
rage and the people imagine vain things? Anybody that wants to
rage against God, against His Christ, against His people, against
His church, they're imagining vain things. The kings of the
earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against
the Lord and against His Christ. These are the rulers and the
kings of the earth. They stood up together against
the Lord and against His Christ. For of a truth against Thy holy
child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, they were gathered
together for this reason. Are you reading this? Verse 28.
For to do whatsoever Thy hand And that counsel determined before
to be done. And when you look at Calvary's
tree, and you behold the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, looking like no other man. He'd
been beaten and abused so badly. And yet they're at the hands
of men doing exactly what they wanted to do. Doing exactly what
was in their heart. Wrath against God. Wrath against
His Christ. These kings and these rulers
together with the Gentiles and the Israelites raised up together
to slay Christ on the cross and they did exactly what God determined
before to be done. And when you see that and you
see how evil and how the highest display of man's hatred against
God, right there on the cross. God brought out of that the justification
of His people, the sanctification of His people, the redemption
of His people, the complete and total acceptance of His people
with God through that wrath of man. And whatever else they wanted
to do, He restrained it. because all that He would allow
them to do was what He had determined before to be done. He determined
before the foundation of the world to save a people He put
in Christ. He determined before the foundation
of the world that Christ would come made of a woman, made under
the law, that He would be made sin for His people, hung upon
the cursed tree, made a curse for His people, and God's holy. God's not going to hang His Son on that cross? How
is His Son going to be brought on that cross? Through the hands
of sinful men who hated God and hated His Christ and wanted God
to be just wiped out. And the Lord determined before
for it to be done. We saw last week in Isaiah how
that He sent blindness upon the people. They wouldn't walk after
His Word. They wouldn't heed His Word.
They drew near with their mouth, but their hearts were far from
Him. They wouldn't walk in the light God had given them. And
He gave them over to a reprobate mind. He blinded them. And He
did it for that purpose so that when Christ came, Their table
would be a snare and a stumbling block to them, and they would
put Christ on the cross and nail Him to the tree. Everything was
determined before to be done exactly as the God of heaven
and earth determined for it to be done. And so it is in our
day. Everything that takes place in
this earth that's wicked and evil and sinful and hateful at
the hands of men, by the hands of men, happens according to
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Everything. Everything. These men were doing what they
wanted to do towards Paul, just like those men were doing what
they wanted to towards our Lord. Time and again, the Scripture
says, time and again, they sought to lay hands on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and they couldn't do it. You know why? His hour had
not yet come. The hour was appointed. Are these
men going to be able to lay hands on Paul? Are they going to be
able to take Paul, lie in wait, and when he comes walking along
down to the council, are they going to be like Jack Ruby and
jump out there and shoot him like he did Lee Harvey Oswald? Not a chance. Not a chance, because
Paul's hour hasn't come. The Lord Jesus Christ has promised
Paul, Paul, as you've testified of me at Jerusalem, you're going
to testify of me at Rome also. I want you to read Psalm 2 at
your leisure tonight. When you go home or you have
this message on your mind, read Psalm 2. Why do the heathen rave? Why do they imagine a vain thing?
But it comes down and it ends with this word. Be wise now therefore. Be wise now therefore. He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not
the Son hath not life, and the wrath of God abideth on him. Let me ask you this. Will you
bind yourself under the curse that you will not eat bread from
heaven? You will not eat this bread from
heaven till Christ be put out of your presence and out of your
midst. I know many young people who
went to the church house with their mother and their father,
and it was their determination, as soon as I get old enough,
I am out of here. And I'm not going to that place,
and I'm not hearing that gospel ever again. And that's what these
men did, in essence. They bound themselves under a
curse. They wouldn't eat anything until
God had been put out of their midst. Will you bind yourself
under a curse and not eat the bread from heaven? Not eat this
belief on Him by faith? Cast all your care on Him until
you be to a place where you can just turn your back on Him forever
and not hear Him? To reject Christ? to reject Christ's
ambassadors or his witnesses. These men and women here that
know the gospel, you men and women here that know the gospel,
to reject Christ's preachers, to reject his witnesses, which
you are, you've been called to that, to reject His ambassadors
or his witnesses is the same as rejecting Christ. To stiffen
up our necks against the gospel, to harden our hearts against
the gospel, to harden our hearts, to close our eyes to the light
God has given us, it's murder toward God and toward His people.
That's what they had here towards Paul. But listen to this now.
This is what Solomon said in Proverbs. There's no wisdom,
nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. None that's
going to prosper. None whatsoever. Take counsel
together, Isaiah said. It shall not stand. Take counsel
together, it shall come to nothing. Speak the word, it won't stand.
Why? For God is with us. God's with
His people. And this is how the Psalm 2 ends. Kiss the Son. Kiss the Son, lest
He be angry and ye perish from the way when His wrath is kindled
but a little. Blessed are all they that put
their trust in Him. Somebody asked, one of the young
people asked, in their questions they asked for the Friday night
Bible study, they said, this is a good question, they said,
how do I come to Christ? I hear you say, come to Christ. How do I come to Christ? when the heart has been made
new by God and you have a longing after Him? I'm encouraged by
that question because somebody that's asking that question obviously
wants to know how do I come to it? You come to Christ in your
heart. You come to Christ through faith.
You come to Christ in the inner man where you resolve and you're
brought to the place where you realize, I have no salvation
but Him. I have no righteousness but Him.
I have no holiness but Him. And you cast all your eternal
care into the hands of Christ Jesus the Lord. That's kissing
the Son. That's eating the bread from
heaven. That's casting all your care on Him, for He careth for
you. That's coming to Christ. And
once you believe on Him and trust Him, you'll want to profess Him,
you'll want to make a public confession of Him, ask me, call
me and say, Pastor, I'd like to confess the Lord in believers'
baptism. And we'll go over there to the Santa Maria swimming pool
like we did with Sister Patty, and we'll baptize you in the
swimming pool. That's how we'll do it. You'll confess that when
Christ died, you died. And when you go under that water,
you'll confess when he was buried, you were buried. Your old man's
dead. It's already dead. It's been
judged, and it's dead. Everything you are by your first
birth is over. That's what you're confessing.
I've died already. And when Christ rose, He rose
to newness of life, not under the law, not bound with sin,
at the right hand of the Father, and you're confessing, this is
my new life. I have eternal life in Christ. When He rose, I rose, and I'm
one with Him. That's coming to Christ and that's
making a public confession, letting the world know this is where
I stand. I'm in Christ alone. All right,
let's look here now at this second thing. As saints of God, we must
use every means God makes available to us. Now, the first thing that
Paul had was he had the Lord's Word. You who are born of God
have the Word abiding in you and you have the written Word.
That's what Paul had. Paul had the Word of Christ abiding
in him and he had the Old Testament Scriptures. And the Lord came
to Paul and He spoke to Paul audibly. by him and said to Paul
in verse 11, The Lord stood by me and said, Be of good cheer,
Paul, for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou
bear witness also at Rome. Turn over to 2 Peter. 2 Peter
chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1. You might
think, well, Paul had so much more than I have because the
Lord stood by him. Turn over with me to 2 Peter
and listen to what Peter says. Verse 16. 2 Peter 1 verse 16. Peter says, We have not followed
cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses
of His majesty. We saw Him with our own eyes.
For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when
there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, saying,
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice
which came from heaven we heard when we were with Him in the
holy mount." Now listen to this next word. We have also a more
sure word of prophecy. Whereunto ye do well, that ye
take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until
the day dawn and the day star arise in our hearts, knowing
this first, that no prophecy..." What's he talking about, this
more sheer word of prophecy? No prophecy of the Scriptures.
He's talking about the Word of God. No prophecy of the Scriptures
is of any private interpretation. I'm not just telling you something
I made up, that by myself I'm coming up with. I'm trying to
show you in Scriptures that our God's absolutely sovereign. It's
a useless endeavor to fight against God, to fight against His anointing. But bow, kiss the Son. I try
to show you that in the Scriptures. And here I'm showing you we have
the Word of God, something more sure, more evident and used of
God more than He used anything like He used with those apostles.
There was folks who walked in His day who saw Him face to face,
who walked with Him, touched Him, who followed along with
Him, and they never knew Him. They never believed on Him. But
there's been untold more saved through these Scriptures right
here, through this Word, through the Gospel. through the Old Testament
Scriptures and the New Testament Scriptures. We've got a more
sure word of prophecy. We've got the Word of God, the
complete Word of God from beginning to end to teach us who God is
and how He saves and where He is. Use these means. We need
to use these means. Every believer knows our God
is going to stand by us. Every believer knows that He's
going to speak comfort into our hearts. We know He's going to
deliver us. He has, He is, and He shall.
We know that. We've experienced it. We know
it for a fact. But our Lord teaches us that
providentially, between point A and point Z, or where He's
brought us from and where He's taken us to, there's going to
be fire and floods, and suffering, trials I'm talking about. Trials
of suffering. And sometimes the way is not
going to be plain. This is the way of the believer. Read that
again, verse 11 and 12 back there in our text. Verse 11 and 12. 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. And here's how it started coming
about. And when it was day, certainly the Jews banded together and
bound themselves under a curse, saying they would neither eat
nor drink till they had killed Paul. The Lord says, I'm going
to deliver you to Rome, but he doesn't say how I'm going to
get you there. He doesn't say that on the way there, there's
not going to be some assassination attempts made on your life either.
He just said, I'm going to get you there. I'm bringing you there.
I'm bringing you there. And yet, in all this, we don't
find Paul acting rashly. We don't find Paul trying to
make some kind of attempt to escape out of prison. Paul didn't
say, when I know it's the Lord's sovereign will for me to be delivered
from this prison to Rome. Those bars up there, they look
like I might catch any of those loose and get out of here. It
looks like They've got me under such light restraints here, this
Roman chief captain, that I might be able to slip down this hallway
and slip out the back and nobody will ever know I've gone. After
all, it's God's will that I do that. It's God's will that I
be delivered from here to Rome. No, Paul waited. Paul waited. He sat there and he waited on
the Lord. You know what he did that night
when he was in the prison at Philippi? You remember that?
It says, at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed, and they sang praises
unto God. What do you reckon Paul was doing
while he was spending this time there? He was praying, he was
singing praise, he was rejoicing in the Lord. He had a lot to
rejoice in. What the Lord had told him, Paul,
you're going to be delivered. You ever brought into those trials
and those situations, you think where Paul was at there, and
he's sitting there, and you brought into those trials and you think,
Lord, I know you've said you're going to deliver me, but I see
absolutely no way it's going to happen. And you're not doubting
the Lord, you're just, you're sort of some anxious anticipation
and looking forward to seeing just how the Lord's going to
work everything and deliver you out of it. You ever get to that
place? where you know He's going to
do it, and it's almost a joy in your heart that you're content,
and you just wait and say, Lord, I can't wait to see the wisdom
you display in delivering me from this. Because you know you
can't do it yourself. Well, the second thing here is,
not only do we use the means that God's given us in His Word,
in praying and seeking His face, and assembling to hear His gospel
priest, and these means He's provided, But we also use the
means which the Lord brings our way providentially. Now, Paul
knew the Lord's will was to deliver him. Paul knew he was going to
be brought out of this somehow. And he knew the Lord could do
it any way He chose to do it. Two times the Lord sent, it says
He sent the angel of the Lord and opened the prison doors for
Peter. And once there in Philippi, you remember that? The Lord sent
a great earthquake so that Paul's bands were loosed from off of
him. And the Lord delivered him that way. But this time the Lord
uses Another means, the Lord uses a young man, Paul's nephew. Look there, verse 16. And when
Paul's sister's son heard of their lying in wait, he went
and entered into the castle and told Paul. Then Paul called one
of the centurions unto him, and he said, Bring this young man
unto the chief captain, for he hath a certain thing to tell
him. Now Paul used some wisdom here. He wasn't a fatalist, was
he? Paul didn't sit back when his
nephew came in and he told him this news. Paul didn't say, well,
just as he didn't try to escape by his own hand, when this news
came to him, he didn't turn that boy around and say, well, the
Lord's going to deliver me. You go on now. He heard what
this boy said, and he used some discretion. He called that centurion
to him, and he didn't tell the centurion the matter, because
the centurion might have went and told his enemies, or the
centurion might not have went to the chief captain. He told
the centurion, take this boy to the chief captain so he can
tell the chief captain face to face. He's got something to tell
him. And the centurion, Paul, had behaved himself in such a
manner in that situation that the centurion had enough respect
for him that when Paul called him, he went over and listened
to Paul. And when Paul asked him to deliver that boy up there,
he did. He did it. So this means when
we speak of honoring the gospel, walking in a way that's honoring,
not becoming rash and when you fall into trial acting like a
chicken with its head cut off. This served the purpose of God. God used that so that Paul could
talk to that centurion. And then when his nephew comes
to him, Paul Paul said, go up and tell the chief captain this.
Paul still doesn't have any idea what the Lord's going to do.
He has no idea what's going to come about. But he used the means
God put in his hand. You know, in the Scripture, the
usual pattern in all of Scripture is that God uses to do His spiritual
work, He uses means that are disproportionately, they're small
and weak things. Remember Naaman the leper? He
comes down and the prophet, he didn't even go out to him. And
then when he went out to him, he said, go to Jordan and dip
yourself in Jordan. And Naaman looked at the Jordan
River and he thought, that's beneath me. To go dip in that
little river? Do you know the mighty rivers
we have where I came from and you want me to go dip myself
in that little Jordan River? The Jews, when the second temple
was built, they looked at it and they compared it to Solomon's
temple and they said, this thing's nothing. And he sent Haggad with
a message to them, don't despise the day of small things. The Lord's coming to this temple.
This temple's going to have something Solomon's temple never had. The
Lord himself's going to step foot into this temple in human
flesh. When Christ came, He came up
a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground. There was no form
or comeliness about Him. When we would see Him, we would
desire Him. He was despised and rejected of men. And here we
see the same thing with this. The Lord uses a young man. That's what He's called here
in verse 17, a young man. And that's what He uses to set
this whole thing in motion with the chief captain. And you think
about this, I wonder how often the Lord sends us a small messenger, a small messenger
like this. But we're so busy seeking the
Lord's will, waiting on something big to make it clear to us that
we miss God speaking to us. Just like he did through this
lad right here. And all of this, brethren, because the Lord uses
His Word, the Gospel, because He uses preaching, because everything
Paul was being delivered for was to preach that Gospel. Paul
had the Word, and he was being delivered so he could preach
the Word. God uses means. And He used this young lad as
means to teach Paul what Paul needed to do. to come and bring
him this news, to alert Paul to this matter. The Lord uses
these things and it's no less a work of God's sovereign mercy
because He used man as estimates to accomplish it than it is if
He did it without man's hands at all. It's no less a work of
His mercy. We see it there with those wicked
hands doing what He determined before to be done on the cross.
It was no less a work of God's mercy and God's grace to His
chosen elect people, even though it was done through the instrumentation
of man's hands. God said, I did it. I did it. The eyes of the Lord run to and
fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong in the
behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him." You know
how you have a perfect heart toward Him? You have a heart
toward Him. It's cast on Him. And you're
asking Him, Lord, save me. I can't save myself. Now I want
you to think of this. All the times and all the means that God has
provided, used to provide for you and I. All the times and
seasons and means that He's used to provide for us. We have some
things to use. We have His Word. It's by going
to these scriptures and reading this word that we find the comfort
of knowing that He is absolutely sovereign. In the midst of the
worst trial, whether we're on the mountaintop or we're in the
prison, or we're somewhere in between, He's working all things
after the counsel of His own will. We find that in this word.
We hear it by assembling together and hearing the Gospel preached.
This is God's means. He chose to save through the
foolishness of preaching. That doesn't mean just calling
you out in the first hour. That means continually speaking
to you through His messengers, through His Gospel in the place
where He is raised up, where He has assembled His saints together
for the good of one another in that local assembly. This is
how He's chosen to save us, how He's chosen for us to come together
and to read these scriptures and to make sense of all this
stuff that's going on around us. These floods and these earthquakes
and these crazy rulers and kings and kangaroo courts and all this
stuff that goes on that we see every day. This is how we understand
God's reigning. This is all being done by the
hand of God. He's given us His promises. Meditate on those promises. Think
on those promises. He's given us songs. He's given
men who can write good songs for us to sing. He's given us
the Psalms to sing. Let's sing and rejoice in our
Lord. He's given us access through
Christ into the throne room of God where we can draw near in
prayer and ask Him to be merciful and gracious to us, to give us
grace to endure the trial. And let's ask Him for grace to
recognize when He sends a little lad and he's talking to us. I tried my best to think. I've
seen some joke or something that somebody's passed around that
one of these things that goes around on the internet about
the man who People kept coming to him and saying things to him,
and he kept saying, oh, I trust the Lord. I'm waiting on the
Lord. And eventually, you know, it ends up, the whole story ends
up, and the Lord said, well, I sent three folks to you. I
sent three people to you, telling you, speaking to you the whole
time. Well, in all these providential things, the Lord's speaking.
When we see a flood, the Lord's speaking loud and clear. He's
speaking loud and clear. He said, except you repent, you
shall all likewise perish. Everything Pete said to you before,
when you saw in the beginning God created it, it wasn't like
it is now. This is the curse of man. That tells us, when you
see a flood, and you see a hurricane, and you see evil at men's hands,
and you see all of these things come about, you know what that
ought to tell us? Don't trust man. Cease from man. Where is he to be trusted? That's
how this all came about. That's how this curse came about.
But trust God. Trust Him. And ask Him. And in
all this, look now back there at verse 23. God used this to
deliver him, to protect him and deliver him. The chief captain
called unto him two centurions saying, make ready 200 soldiers
to go to Caesarea. There's no way Paul could have
got 200 Roman soldiers to protect him and bring him to Caesarea.
No way he could have done that with his hand. And horsemen,
3 score and 10, get 70 horsemen together. And spearmen, 200,
470 soldiers to protect him. All on Rome's dime to protect
Paul. And look, and provide them beasts
that they may set Paul on and bring him safe in the Felix to
governor. Can you just picture Paul setting up there on Rome's
horse, riding along and looking around him at 470 folks ushering
him along in safety in the third watch of the night. Can't you
imagine Paul thinking to himself, Lord, this is beyond anything
I ever would have imagined. Isn't that what happens? When
He delivers you, you look back on the whole thing and you say,
Lord, I never in a million years would have done it that way or
had the wisdom to do it that way or ever imagined how you
delivered me. And yet He did. He did. I got
to end with William Cowper's song. God moves in a mysterious
way His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the
sea and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable minds of
never failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and works
his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage
take. The clouds ye so much dread are
big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge
not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace.
Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. His
purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have
a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief
is sure to err, and scan his work in vain. God is his own
interpreter, and he will make it plain. Amen.