And we'll read together from
Acts chapter 23 and verse 12. 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 there were more than 40 which
had made this conspiracy. And they came to the chief priests
and elders and said, We have 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 ye would
inquire something more perfectly concerning him. And we, or ever
he come near, are ready to kill him. 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 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-morrow 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 forty 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, see thou tell
no man that thou hast showed these things unto me. Amen, may God bless to us this
reading from his word. We learned last time that the
Lord Jesus Christ promised Paul that he would be a witness for
the gospel in Rome. Now you'll remember that Paul
is presently in Jerusalem. He has been taken into protective
custody by the chief captain, a Roman soldier. He is in a castle
and the Jews are endeavouring to have him taken and killed. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
came to Paul and told him that he would be a witness for the
gospel in Jerusalem. Now for that to happen, Paul
must get safely out of Jerusalem. If he is going to preach the
gospel in Rome, he has to get safely out of Jerusalem. Do you
see my reasoning? I want you to note from this
little point that the Lord never reveals every step of our journey
to us, but he does give us promises. and he calls us to trust him
and have faith in him even when we do not see the individual
steps between where we are right now and where the Lord has promised
that we one day will be. Now it may not be that the Lord
tells us that we are going to particularly be a witness for
him in Rome. He did that with Paul for particular
reasons, as we thought about them last week. But we do know
that the Lord has promised that he will take us to heaven. We
do not know all the steps between now and then, but we can be confident
that the Lord will be faithful to his promise. When Paul heard
from his young nephew about the plan to kill him, I'm sure he
was nervous. And very often a fear of the
unknown, as well as our confidence in what is known, exists side
by side. We trust in the Lord. and yet
we feel anxiety at the same time. We believe the promises that
he has made and yet we become doubtful when we see clouds on
the horizon that seem to hide those promises or disguise them
or cause them to be less clearly seen and comprehended. And it's interesting to note
also that Paul was pleased to use the means that was given
to him in order to provide some security and help for himself. If the Lord had said to Paul,
Paul, you're going to be a preacher for me in Rome, Paul might have
thought to himself, huh, this young man, my nephew, has come
and told me that there's 40 people lying in wait for me. But God
has said that I will be a preacher for him in Rome. So I won't bother
about any of that news that I've just been given. I won't be concerned
about the fact that there are 40 people who have taken an oath
to kill me. I'll just leave it all to the
Lord and he can fix it and sort it out. But that's not what Paul
did. Paul took as a gift from God
the information that he had been given and he acted upon it. And so we too are to act with
common sense. We are to take the circumstances
around them and to interpret them in the best way that we
can and to go along with the things that the Lord provides
for us in his providence in the circumstances of our lives, holding
the promises of God in our minds as being the ends to which the
Lord will bring us. As I was thinking about this
story this morning, I thought to myself, you know, some people
might think that these accounts are too violent and full of drama
to be suitable for what is supposed to be a children's address. And it is certainly true that
Paul had an exciting and a dangerous life. Can you imagine what it
must have been like to know that a group of 40 men had sworn to
kill you and not to eat or to drink until they had successfully
murdered you? But let us remember that Paul
was comforted when the Lord stood by him. And whatever we are called
to face in our lives, we are safe if the Lord stands by us. and he has promised never to
leave us nor forsake him. As we trust in him we are trusting
in his promises that he has made to us and we can be confident
and we can be at peace in that knowledge. And it's delightful
for us to see how the Lord used a young person to unfold his
plan for Paul's swift deliverance out of danger. Who could have
guessed that it would be almost a child, just a youth, who would
be commissioned to bring this message to Paul and then ultimately
to the Chief of the Guard. There's a lot of unknowns in
this story. Like, how did the young man find
out? And there's a couple of ideas
that could be suggested here. Maybe he was a student of one
of the Sadducees. Who knows? Who knows? What was
it that made him tell? just as affection for his uncle
and yet he probably did not see his uncle very often and he certainly
knew that the Jews were antagonistic towards him. How did he manage
to get in to see Paul in the circumstances in which Paul was? And yet there's something lovely
about the way in which this episode culminates. Paul came to Jerusalem
under the warnings of harm, but we're going to discover that
he will be escorted from the city on horse by hundreds of
Roman soldiers protecting him. And that is an encouragement
for us to live in the moment, trusting the Lord. not to worry
about what the future holds, not to worry about what is going
to happen, not to worry about the days that lie ahead in an
untoward way, in a way that causes us to be stressful or anxious,
but to trust in the moment in the Lord. As Peter says, casting
all our care upon him, for he careth for us. I just want to
return for a moment, a brief moment to that young man. He
is Paul's nephew. And if it were not for this episode,
we wouldn't even know that Paul had a nephew. But maybe when
we are young, we feel as if we don't have very much to offer,
and we don't have very much to say, and we really don't have
very much that we can do. But you know, that's not so,
because the Lord was pleased to use this young person in order
to accomplish the deliverance of the mighty apostle Paul. And that's a lovely picture that
we have set before us here. We may not get to save an apostle,
but we can honour the Lord where we are. in our family, in our
school, amongst our friends, in the things that we say and
do, in our actions, in our attitudes. Do you know that there was a
king of Israel, a youth called Josiah, who was only eight years
old when he came to the throne of Israel? But we're told in
the Bible, he did that which was right in the sight of the
Lord. Imagine being a king at eight
years of age, but he did that which was right in the sight
of the Lord. Isn't that a delightful testimony?
Wouldn't we aspire to have that written against our life's work? that we did that which was right
in the sight of the Lord? Josiah had a burden to obey the
will of the Lord. and obedience to the will of
the Lord is to trust in his way of salvation. And that is what
the Lord Jesus Christ is, the way of salvation who is set before
us in the gospel. It is to trust the Lord Jesus
Christ, to put our confidence in him and to seek to follow
him in our life's walk. This youth, we don't know his
name, he was just young. like Josiah, just young. But
there is a lovely verse or two in 2 Timothy 3 that I want to
leave with you. It's verse 14 and 15. And just
a couple of things which that teaches us. Paul, as an old man,
was writing to another young man. His name was Timothy. And
here's what he says to Timothy. Continue thou, in the things
which thou hast learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom
thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known
the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus. That's a lovely little
verse and it reminds us that even although we're young, even
although we feel as if we don't have much to do or say or contribute,
that as we are taught the scriptures, So the Lord is teaching us that
we might, in the days that lie ahead in our life, be useful
servants of our Saviour, and that these truths that we are
learning in our young years are able to make us wise unto salvation,
as the Lord Jesus Christ gives us faith to trust in Him. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage us in them. Amen.