Acts chapter 26 and verse 12. So Paul is speaking and he is
telling of his conversion and he says, Whereupon, as I went
to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests,
at midday, O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven. above
the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which
journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to
the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me and saying in the Hebrew
tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee
to kick against the pricks. And I said, who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom
thou persecutest, but rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a
witness both of these things which thou hast seen and of those
things in the which I will appear unto thee. delivering thee from
the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee, to
open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from
the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by
faith that is in me. Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I
was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but showed first
unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all
the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should
repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. For
these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about
to kill me. Having therefore obtained help
of God, I continue on to this day, witnessing both to small
and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets
and Moses did say should come. That Christ should suffer, and
that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and
should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles. And as he
thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul,
thou art beside thyself. Much learning doth make thee
mad. But he said, I am not mad, most
noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. For the king knoweth of these
things, before whom also I speak freely. For I am persuaded that
none of these things are hidden from him. But for this thing,
for this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest
thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then
Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God
that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day were
both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. And when he had thus spoken,
the king rose up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat
with him. And when they were gone aside,
they talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing
worthy of death or of bonds. Then said Agrippa unto Festus,
This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed
unto Caesar. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. We have heard the Apostle Paul
give his personal testimony several times before and it is lovely
to see the way in which the Apostle uses his own experience in order
to open up the gospel to men and women. And that is what he
is doing here again today. He is speaking to Agrippa and
Bernice and he is speaking to Festus and all the others who
are there gathered in Caesarea. Paul has been in prison for well
over two years and He is in bonds because of the preaching of the
gospel. So when this court is held and when Paul is brought
before Agrippa, who is a Jew, Festus, who was a Roman, and
he is caused to defend himself, he does so by once again giving
his personal testimony. And that is something that is
worth remembering. If ever we have the opportunity
to speak to someone about the gospel, It is a good place to
start to tell them what the Lord has done for us. Tell them about
what you know. Tell them about what you've seen.
Tell them about what you've heard. Tell them about the way in which
the gospel is meaningful to you. Tell them about sins forgiven.
Tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ who died and shed his
blood. So Paul uses his own experience
to tell what he knows and what he has learned. And I just want
to draw your attention to a couple of things about this passage
that we have read today, because I want you to know I've spent
quite a bit of time dwelling upon these verses, more time
perhaps thinking about them than I have at my disposal to speak
about them this morning. But here's the point that I want
to make. Paul's defence is superb. The way in which he addresses
the court, the way in which he draws the threads of his argument
and combines them together with the knowledge that Agrippa has
of the Old Testament, he is very carefully crafting and weaving
together his argument at this time in a way which is undeniable,
bringing his own personal experience and yet simply, directly and
truthfully setting before them the Lord Jesus Christ, his accomplishments
of death and resurrection and the salvation that comes from
him. And he also shows Agrippa, Festus, and the rest of the court
there, that his ministry, that for which he has been arrested
by the Jews, is actually a commission from Christ, that he believes
that he was called to this role and that he has been fulfilling
this role to the best of his ability and he has been faithful
in it, both in Jerusalem, Judea, and to the Gentiles as he was
called. So that he is not hiding anything,
but that he is clearly showing that this is a message which
is to go out to all the world. And he teaches that there is
nothing in his ministry that contradicts Moses and the prophets,
which of course was the central part of the accusations that
were brought against him by the Jews. and he speaks of the risen
Lord Jesus Christ who sent Paul with his gospel to the Gentiles. And he says in verse 18, to open
their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the
power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and inheritance amongst them which are sanctified by
faith that is in me, that is in Christ. I think it's lovely to see that
this was the great burden that Paul had but we can also tell
from the things that Paul is saying here that he did not believe
as the Vast body of the Jews believed that men and women were
sanctified by their obedience to God's law, that they were
justified, that they were made holy by obedience to Moses' commandments. Rather, the Apostle Paul says,
no, we are sanctified, we are set apart, we are converted by
faith that is in Christ. We desire to live holy lives
to glorify Him who has already sanctified us by faith. And that might be Christ's faith
or Our faith in Christ. both of which are gifts of grace
to sinners like you and like me, to Paul and Agrippa and Bernice
and Festus and all those to whom he spoke, whether it was the
Jews or the Gentiles to whom he had been sent. You see, this
was the message. This was the message of the Gospel.
And the Apostle Paul took the opportunity and occasion of his
defence here in the court in Caesarea once again to preach
forth the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how men and women are made
holy by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. To which message, to
which ministry, says Paul, I have been obedient. And I think that
that is a lovely, wonderful summary of gospel preaching. You see,
it wasn't that Paul had the power to effect those changes in men
and women, but it was the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit
that quickens sinners and uses the message of the Gospel, the
message of Christ's death and resurrection and his ascension
into glory, to open eyes, to convert hearts, to free captives,
to grant forgiveness, to ease consciences and to bestow faith,
which Paul had witnessed amongst the Jews and amongst the Gentiles
and wherever he had preached the gospel. and so powerful was
Paul's explanation and Paul's persuasive words that it seems
as if Agrippa was quite captivated and intrigued by the message
that the Apostle Paul spoke. And in verse 28, we are told
there, Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian. In such a short space of time,
Paul, I've only been listening to you for a few moments. I've
only been listening to you give this one presentation of your
gospel, and you're almost persuading me to be a Christian, to believe
in this Christ that you speak of. And I just love the Apostle
Paul's reply to Agrippa. He says, I would to God. I would to God. You see, the
Apostle Paul understood that it wasn't just the persuasiveness
of words. It wasn't just the passion of
delivery. It wasn't just the knowledge
that men and women have about a certain message. but it is
a divine spark. It is a holy movement of the
Spirit. It is the wind that blows where
it listeth. And we don't know how and when
God's converting power will be effectual. But, says the Apostle
Paul, I would to God that all these too, all these others that
Festus and Bernice and all the Jews that had come down from
Jerusalem and all the people that are here in the court, all
the high people of Caesarea, even my jailers that have kept
me in prison for these two years past, I would that they too would
believe because Paul knew that it was only by God that men and
women can believe. He believed in sovereign grace
and he believed in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul didn't
believe in man's free will and neither should we. It was Paul's
burden for sinners wherever he got the opportunity to present
the gospel to them, knowing that it was God's will then to take
that gospel and apply it savingly to the hearts and lives of men
and women. And our passion ought to be like
Paul's. People might be brought under
the sound of the gospel, but it is the Holy Spirit who
gathers them into the body of Christ. It's a lovely little
ending to this passage where Agrippa says, you've almost persuaded
me to be a Christian. And the Apostle Paul says, I
wish you were all together like I am, a Christian, except for
these bonds. Some people are just curious.
They're almost Christians. They listen to the gospel, they
hear the gospel, they may even think about the gospel and ask
questions about the gospel. They're curious. But what is important is that
we are converts. That we're not almost Christians,
but we're altogether Christians. A work of grace, a work of God. Agrippa knew that there was no
condemnable offence in Paul. His testimony was recorded here
at the end of this chapter in order that we might know and
all the successive generations might know that Paul was clear
of all the Jews' allegations. but the Apostle Paul had appealed
to Caesar, and therefore a lesser court could not take away that
right that he had applied for. And so he must appear at Rome.
And so Christ's promise would be fulfilled, that he would preach
at Rome. He would preach to Jews, he would
preach to kings, he would preach to governors. It was exactly
how the Lord Jesus Christ had ordained and designed the public
ministry of the Apostle Paul. Paul's message was God's gospel
of Jesus' death and resurrection. And the secular world of the
day, men like Festus, who was a Roman, they thought that it
was mad. And people might say that we
are mad because we believe the gospel and because we come and
we sit and we listen to messages like this. And the religious
world, they might try to, like the Jews did with Paul, to silence
this message and suppress it. Because they say, well, we don't
believe in sovereign grace, we believe in man's free will. But
from these dusty provincial villages, of Judea and Galilee to Rome's
mighty Metropolis, the Gospel would be heard to the saving
of souls and to the gathering in of the Church of Jesus Christ.
God's means of gathering His people and His Church will succeed
through the preaching of the Gospel. And we hope and we expect
and we await The Lord yet to open eyes and to turn souls from
darkness to light and to deliver men and women and boys and girls
from the power of Satan unto God, to forgive sins, to grant
everlasting life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
may it be our prayer to the glory of our risen glorified Lord,
that men and women, boys and girls, will yet be as we are,
trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation. Amen.