Acts chapter 25 and we're reading
from verse 1. Now when Festus was come into
the province, after three days he ascended from Caesarea to
Jerusalem. Then the high priest and the
chief of the Jews informed him against Paul, and besought him,
and desired favour against him, that he would send for him to
Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him. But Festus answered
that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, and that he himself would depart
shortly thither. Let them therefore, said he,
which among you are able, go down with me and accuse this
man, if there be any wickedness in him. And when he had tarried
among them more than ten days, he went down unto Caesarea, and
the next day, sitting on the judgment seat, commanded Paul
to be brought. And when he was come, the Jews,
which came down from Jerusalem, stood round about, and laid many
and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove.
While he answered for himself, neither against the law of the
Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar have I
offended anything at all. but festus willing to do the
Jews a pleasure, answered Paul and said, wilt thou go up to
Jerusalem and there be judged of these things before me? Then
said Paul, I stand at Caesar's judgment seat, where I ought
to be judged. To the Jews have I done no wrong,
as thou very well knowest. For if I be an offender or have
committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. But if there be none of these
things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.' Then Festus,
when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou
appealed unto Caesar? Unto Caesar shalt thou go. It is A.D. 60 and Paul has been in prison
for more than two years in Caesarea. And now a new governor has taken
over as procurator of Judea. This man is called Festus, and
he has taken over from the man that we read about the last time,
a man called Felix. So Felix is gone, Paul is still
in prison, and Festus has come probably from Rome, and probably
in this opening verse that we read together, we might deduce
that he has come from Rome, arrived at Caesarea but not stopped there
for very long, just a couple of days, maybe three days we're
told, and then he has gone straight from Caesarea to Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem was the main city
of this province that he was responsible for and so it seems
that immediately he has headed to Jerusalem in order to speak
to the leaders of Judea and Samaria who would be at Jerusalem. So right up to Jerusalem early,
the main city of his new domain. And he has come to meet the leaders
of the Jews. But what is interesting is that
here is this new procurator. Festus, newly arrived in his
province, straight up from Caesarea, and the very first thing that
these people talk to him about is that they want Paul judged. They want him silenced. At once they show their hatred
for the Apostle and for his Gospel and for his Lord because these
three things are bound together as one. When the world hates
Christ, It hates his gospel and it hates his church. It hates
the message of Christ and it hates the preachers of Christ. It hates the truth of the Lord
Jesus Christ and it hates the people of the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan's servants are soon about
the business of doing murder. And that of course is what Satan
is and was from the beginning. He was a liar and he was a murderer. And what small-minded and vile
people these were, these religious people in Jerusalem. And we must
never imagine that we can ever find common cause with the religion
of this world or the religious people of this world. for they
will always demand compromise from us. They will demand that
we don't speak about Christ. They will demand that we don't
preach his gospel. They will demand that we don't
uphold all his accomplishments and his sovereignty and his achievements
on the cross. And if we do, they will act against
us viciously, which is what these people were doing to Paul now. They did not speak to this new
ruler of their province about the needs of the people or about
the well-being of the nation, but their first and principal
purpose was to manipulate Festus and thereby to kill Paul. Now Festus wisely chose not to
do what they said. They were asking that Paul immediately
be called up to Jerusalem from Caesarea. So they were saying
to Festus, Festus, you stay here in Jerusalem, send to Caesarea,
have Paul brought up, and we will judge him here while you're
present in Jerusalem. Really their plan was to have
Paul killed on the road from Caesarea to Jerusalem. But Festus chose not to do that. And probably because he wanted
to get back to Caesarea and to find out about the events and
circumstances about his new charge there in Caesarea, he wanted
to go back. And he rather said to the Jews,
any of you who want to come with me, any of you who are able,
come down to Caesarea with me, I'll bring out Paul and we'll
judge him in Caesarea. And that's exactly what happened. And again, as we read last week,
perhaps the same people were involved. These false accusations
and allegations and claims were made. and we see that Paul was
lied against and misrepresented by these religious Pharisees. The Gospel and man-made religion
will never co-exist. One demands self-righteousness
from its adherents and its followers, and the other bestows righteousness
freely. upon the followers of Jesus Christ. And self-righteousness and righteousness
cannot live together. We are either righteous in ourselves
or we are righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ, and it cannot be
both. And again, just as Felix before
him, Festus finds no reason to condemn Paul, but He suggests
returning Paul to Jerusalem to stand trial before the religious
court there in the city. And it may well be that Festus
looked at the calendar and he said, this man's been here for
over two years. I need to get rid of this problem. I need to deal with this immediately. Having come to the province to
take over charge here, I'm going to have to solve this problem
at once. So he says to Paul, what about
you go back up to Jerusalem and stand trial there? Thinking no
doubt that that was a good way of washing his hands of the problem. But Paul had another idea. Do
you remember that the Lord Jesus Christ had come and spoken to
Paul and told him that he would preach for him in Rome? So Paul, being bold because of
this comforting word from the Lord Jesus Christ, and doubtless
inspired by the Lord's promise that he would go to Rome, the
faithful apostle appeals to Caesar. Rather than trying to get rid
of the problem, Paul says, no, I am going to appeal to Caesar,
which is my right, and I will go to Rome in order to have my
case heard at Caesar's courtroom, at his judgment seat. And now,
as a Roman citizen, that was Paul's right. And I think that
there's a sweet irony here, because it seems as if Paul, by this
simple request, had outwitted the Jews. He had outsmarted Festus
as well. The Jews were frustrated because
they had hoped to kill Paul. but rather Paul now was going
to the highest authority in the whole of the world at that time. And Festus thought that he would
get rid of the issue, sweep it under the carpet, never have
to think about it again, and rather Paul is going to Festus'
house. Boss, the Festus' manager and
Festus now is going to have to arrange to have Paul sent all
the way to the highest court in the land. And so it was that
Paul was soon to be on his way to Rome, just as the Lord Jesus
Christ had said. Just a prisoner, just a Roman
prisoner, a humble prisoner. but with Christ on his side,
no match for cruel religion or corrupt government. And there's
a lesson here for us, I think. And sometimes when we are young,
and sometimes when we are older as well, things seem to move
slowly, and move too slowly for the way that we think we would
like things to happen. We want things to hurry up and
we wonder why God doesn't act to get things done. But you see,
whether we're boys and girls or men and women, no matter what
age we are, we will have to learn in life, in our own lives and
in the lives of those around about us, that everything that
happens to us, to our friends, to our family, in this world,
happens according to the will, purpose, and timing of our God. And we will have to learn that
events happen as they do and when they do, because God knows
best. the Apostle Paul had spent the
last two years in prison. Now we might say, would it not
have been better if Paul had been preaching the Gospel? Would
it not have been better if he had been travelling round the
churches? And perhaps having done his first missionary journey
and his second missionary journey and his third missionary journey,
he could have done a fourth missionary journey and gone to many more
places. Didn't he want to go to Spain?
Didn't he want to go to Rome? Wasn't there much that this great
apostle could be doing, should be doing? not simply spending
all his time in a room and in a prison and a cell in the courtroom
there in Caesarea. He could have been saving souls.
He could have been building churches. He could have been encouraging
the Lord's people. And it's very interesting, I
think, that Luke says nothing about these two years except
that Felix is gone and Festus is now come. And Paul, though
the Lord had told him he would preach for him in Rome, had simply
to sit and patiently wait upon the Lord, trusting that the Lord
Jesus Christ knows best, that his timing is perfect and his
ways are good. As Paul learned that lesson throughout
his life, and no doubt on this occasion too, may the Lord be
gracious to us and teach us, young and old, that he knows
best and his ways are perfect. Thank you very much for listening
again this morning.