So Acts chapter 26, and we'll
read from verse one. Then Agrippa said unto Paul,
thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched
forth the hand and answered for himself. I think myself happy,
King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before
thee, touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews,
especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and
questions which are among the Jews. Wherefore I beseech thee
to hear me patiently. My manner of life from my youth,
which was at the first among my own nation at Jerusalem, know
all the Jews, which knew me from the beginning, if they would
testify, that after the most straightest sect of our religion,
I lived a Pharisee. And now I stand and am judged
for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers. Unto
which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and
night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, King Agrippa,
I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing
incredible with you that God should raise the dead? I verily
thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to
the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem,
and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received
authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death
I gave my voice against them. and I punished them oft in every
synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme. And being exceedingly
mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. I wonder if you notice here that
Paul is making a confession to Agrippa. And indeed, what he
is confessing is his madness in the way that he acted towards
the church. After two years in prison, Paul
finally was getting an opportunity to speak his case before someone
who had an idea what he was talking about. Agrippa was a Jewish leader. Now, he is called a king, but
we reminded ourselves last week that while he was called King
Agrippa, he still had to be subject and to serve the Roman overlord. lords. It was Rome and Caesar
who were in charge of Israel and the Jewish nation, Judea
and Galilee, the place where Agrippa held his rule. But because Agrippa was a Jew
and because he had responsibilities over the Jewish people, he was
familiar with the Jewish religion. In fact, it's quite likely that
Agrippa was himself a member of the group or the religious
group called Sadducees. Not a Pharisee, but a Sadducee. And it may well be that Agrippa,
as king, gave some allegiance at least to that Sadducee way
of life. He was certainly an expert in
the matters of religion of the Jews of which Paul spoke, which
neither Felix the Roman nor Festus the Roman governor were aware
of. And that was their problem. They
said, we can't find anything wrong with this man. It's arguments
about the Jewish faith. And so they kept putting off
and putting off any decision about Paul until here was a man,
Agrippa, that might be able to give them some direction. And
it's interesting to see that Paul spends no time on foolish
and frivolous accusations that are made against him by the Jews. He's not interested in all the
nonsense that the Jews accused him of. He goes straight to the
heart of the matter. because he knows that Agrippa
will understand what it is he is saying. And it's almost as
if to say to Agrippa, Agrippa I'm not here to tell you how
good I am. I'm not here to try and say to
you that all these accusations are false and I'm really a very
good person. No, he said, I'm going to be
absolutely honest with you. He said, I'm not a good man. Not in that sense. He said, I
treated poor, innocent people terribly. I have set myself as
a Pharisee for the sake of my religion, for the sake of my
beliefs. I set myself against the church
of Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth he calls him. I set myself against
the doctrine of Jesus Christ and I set myself against the
work of Jesus Christ. I did everything that I could,
everything that was in my power to suppress and destroy Jesus
of Nazareth and his people, his church, in the name of my religion. And that's what he is talking
about when he speaks to Agrippa in verses 10 and 11. He says there, let me just read
again what he says. He says, which thing I did in
Jerusalem, and many of the saints did I shut up in prison. Now
let's just think about what Paul, or he was Saul of Tarsus then,
let's just think about what he was doing. He shut up. These gentlest of peoples, these
followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, these people whom the Lord Jesus
Christ himself called the meek in the earth, he shut them up
in prison. And those wouldn't be very nice
prisons in those days. He put them to death. When they were charged, In the
courts he gave his voice against them and he punished them very
often. in every synagogue, and he forced
them to blaspheme. He tortured them, he threatened
them, he threatened their wives and their children, and he did
everything that was possible in his power. He says, Agrippa,
I was exceeding mad against them. I even persecuted them when they
ran away and when they fled to strange or to other cities. And here is Paul being very honest
about what it was that he did. It's interesting because this
little verse, verse 11 here, it tells us, or verse 10, it
tells us that he put them to death. You know, the only Christian
that we actually know about being put to death is Stephen, as far
as Paul was concerned. Saul of Tarsus but here it speaks
about they plural and so we know that there was more than Stephen
put to death by Saul of Tarsus. Let me just draw your attention
to a couple of things because we might ask ourselves, why was
it that Saul or Paul was so exceeding mad against these meekest of
people? Well, it was simply for this
reason, that he was not prepared to accept that the Lord Jesus
Christ was raised from the dead. not as a Pharisee. And here's the irony. As a Pharisee,
Paul believed in the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees, which
Agrippa may have been, they did not believe that. And you remember
when Paul was taken prisoner in Jerusalem that he was able
to get out by saying that the reason why I'm here today is
because I believe in the resurrection of the dead. And there was a
fight amongst the Sadducees and the Pharisees, they started arguing
together. The point was simply this, that
although Saul or Paul believed in the resurrection of the dead,
He also believed that the God of his faith would never raise
Christ from the dead. And it was that fact that struck
at the heart of Saul of Tarsus' religion and the works righteousness
that he followed. He realised that while he believed
that God raised people from the dead, if God raised Christ from
the dead and Christ's religion was so opposite to his religion,
then it was either him or me. It can't be him, said Saul. So I'm going to have to destroy
him. I'm going to have to kill his
people. I'm going to have to suppress
his religion. And that's exactly how religion
continues to act today. And that is precisely why the
true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is opposed. And the preaching
of the gospel, which we preach, is twisted and bent and distorted
out of shape. There are plenty of churches
preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, but they do not preach
the true gospel. Because they realise that if
salvation is by God's choice, if salvation is based on the
elective purpose of God, without works, then it undermines all
that they stand for. And they have to say, it's him
or it's me. And Paul speaks about exceeding
madness. And that madness is what is playing
out time after time after time in the religious practices of
men and women today. It's either works, self-righteousness,
and that we are pleasing to God because of the things that we
do, or It is free grace and Christ's doctrine and Christ that we follow
and these are the two things that are set before men and women
today. Those two things are so implacably
opposed that it is impossible to reconcile them. If a man is not going to be a
follower of the Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the Bible,
then he will be mad against Christ. And it is only conversion, it
is only a spiritual change that will make the difference in a
man or a woman or a boy or a girl. That is why we have to say that
it is God's work to bring salvation as a gift to those that he is
pleased to call through the preaching of the gospel. We cannot change
a natural man's heart to follow after the Lord Jesus Christ.
We cannot change our own heart. It takes a power greater than
man to do that. But our blessed Saviour tells
us that what is impossible with men is possible with God. With men it is impossible, but
not with God, for with God all things are possible. Now Paul
has very powerfully and frankly set the scene. He has pointed
his own self-condemnation. He has testified that the Lord
Jesus Christ made that change in his own life. And now he is
going to explain to Agrippa just what Jesus did to him and for
him on the road to Damascus. But that is for another day.
The scene is set. If Jesus of Nazareth was raised
from the dead by God, this is what Paul is saying to Agrippa. If Jesus of Nazareth was raised
from the dead by God, then everything has changed. The Jewish religion
is wrong. The Roman religion is wrong. Heathen religions are wrong. Men's own religion of the natural
heart, their idolatrous pictures of God are wrong. If Jesus of
Nazareth was raised from the dead, then even all the religions
of the world are wrong. And Jesus Christ is true. It's
as simple as that. Now, says Paul, let me tell you
what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me. And next week, God willing,
we will hear what the Lord Jesus Christ did for Paul. Amen.