I am often asked by preachers
and others why I look upon things without any apparent discouragement,
and I use the word apparent deliberately, why it is that things don't seem
to disturb me Why it is that in the midst of some obviously
difficult circumstances at times, I seem to be at peace. There
are three answers to the question. There are three things that keep
my heart in peace, three things that keep me from being discouraged,
distressed, and distraught in this world by the events and
circumstances of my life. should be obvious to you. I believe
in gospel substitution. I rest my soul entirely upon
Christ. I trust his blood and his righteousness. And trusting him, I have acceptance
with the eternal God. I have eternal life, eternal
salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord. I do not in any measure,
unless I am deceived and a perishing man, I do not in any measure
trust anything that I have ever thought, said, experienced, or
done for any measure of favor with God. But I trust Christ. I offer God no obedience, no
works of obedience, but the works of Christ obedience. I offer
God no atonement for my sin. In no way do I endeavor to make
up for my sin before God, but by offering to him the atonement
of Christ, his shed blood, his death as my substitute. I often
hear people, and if you listen to them, they give away what
they believe. Folks try to hide it. but they give away what they
believe. I hear people say, well, I feel
like I need to do something to make up for the past. I don't
do anything to make up for the past. I offer God, Christ, shed
blood, nothing else. They say, well, you ought to
surely have something by which you can feel comfortable going
before God by your works, by your devotion or something. No,
no. I feel comfortable before God
only in Christ's righteousness. That's all. Turn over to Ephesians
1. You can hold your hand in Acts
23. I want to come there in a few
minutes, but I want to make these introductory statements. I believe
they're beneficial. In Ephesians chapter 1, the Apostle
Paul tells us that we are chosen in Christ, blessed of God in
Christ, predestined in Christ, adopted in Christ, and in verse
6 he says, God's done all these things for us to the praise of
the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved. That word accepted means highly
favored, highly favored. God favors us in Christ Jesus
through whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness
of all our sins. Now, if I am accepted of God,
if Christ is my substitute, what have I to cause me discouragement? What is there to distress my
mind? What can possibly cause me to
be distressed? God cannot reject His Son. and trusting His Son, God cannot
reject me. He cannot reject me. He says
so in His Word. God Almighty accepts me in a
substitute. Now that means in the teeth of
my sin, in the teeth of my own realization of what I am and
what I do, I trust Jesus Christ for acceptance with God. He's
all I have. All I have. While I was preparing
this message today, reading the Word, searching the Scriptures,
I again come before God and Recognize that my heart's so cold, so full
of sin, so full of unbelief, so lifeless so much of the time,
I come before God not offering anything but Christ, and that
gives me peace. Secondly, I know something, both
from the word and by experience, of the faithfulness of God. Will
you hear this? Children of God, hear it well.
God is faithful. God is faithful. If you look
to your own faithfulness for some kind of comfort, You look
to your own faithfulness for some basis for believing God's
goodness to you. You look to your own faithfulness
and say, well, I've done this and I've been this and therefore
I can believe that God will be faithful to me. It will lead
to one of two things. It will either drive you into
despair or it will cause your heart to swell with pride and
self-righteousness. If you're honest with yourself,
and you look at your own faithfulness for any kind of hope or any kind
of comfort, it's going to drive you into despair because you
don't have any faithfulness. You don't have anything by which
you can commend yourself to God, nor do I. You're not faithful
and I'm not faithful, but God is faithful. Though we believe
not, yet the apostle said, he abideth faithful. He cannot deny
himself. God is faithful to His purpose.
He's faithful to His covenant. He's faithful to His Son. He's
faithful to His Word. He's faithful to His people.
To you and me, God's faithful. God's faithful to Himself. He
can't deny Himself. Now this is the thing that gave
Jeremiah comfort. This is the thing that he found
some assurance in while he looked around him and looked at his
circumstances. He said, I remember the bitterness,
the wormwood, and the gall. He said, God treats me like an
enemy. But then he said, this I recall
to my mind. Therefore have I hope. It is
of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His
compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great
is thy faithfulness. Faith in a faithful God keeps
my heart in peace. And thirdly, I believe and trust
and rest in God's sovereign, wise, adorable, and good providence. Of all things, that cheer my
heart in the midst of blackness and darkness and distressing
circumstances. It is this. I know beyond the
least shadow of a doubt that all things without exception,
all things prosperous and adverse, all things bad and good, all
things painful and pleasant, All things work together for
good, eternal spiritual good, to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose. Children of God,
if we could somehow, in God's grace, by God's grace, Realize
in our hearts. I know we all believe it here.
We all say we believe it here. We all understand the doctrine.
We understand the theology. If we could in our hearts come
to realize God's on his throne. Merle, God's on his throne. You've
got nothing to fret about. God's on his throne. You've got
nothing to worry you. God's on his throne. Nothing
to distress you. But pastor, you don't know my
circumstances. God's on his throne. But pastor,
you don't understand what I'm going through. God's on his throne. He's the one who's ruling this
world. He's the one who's controlling all things. Why then do we fret
and worry? I can conclude but one thing.
It is only because we don't really believe what we say. I can't
conclude anything else. Although I cannot always see
immediate good in what God does, I know that he is doing me good
in all things, and therefore my heart is easy, peaceful, and
content. Now it is faith in God's sovereign
providence that enables the believer to live in this world with a
peaceful heart. To the extent, to the degree,
in the measure, that you and I believe in God's good, wise,
sovereign providence to that extent we're at peace in this
world. Now, one marked feature of the
Book of Acts is its evident display of God's sovereign providence,
constantly bringing good out of evil for the accomplishment
of his purpose and for the good of his people. We see it again
most clearly displayed in Acts 23 as we look at Paul and his
enemies. There are four things in this
chapter that I read to you that I want to call your attention
to. Four things that I believe are strikingly set forth for
us to learn from these 35 verses. First of all, we must learn that
the gospel of Christ is offensive to men. In verses 1 through 10,
the apostle is here describing for us what took place when Paul
preached the gospel to these Jews at Jerusalem. They were
enraged. Now, we must always be careful
not to give offense to men by our attitude, by our actions,
or by our words. We must be very careful that
we do not act in an offensive manner. I don't want to be abrasive
with men. I don't want to, by my actions
or by my attitude toward anyone, cause them to be offended with
me. But at the same time, we must never expect natural men
and women to receive, embrace, or even be tolerant of the gospel
of God's free grace. Now, men will tolerate anything
except truth. Men will tolerate every opinion
of man. They will tolerate every invention
of man's wisdom, every religion man has ever made. They'll tolerate
it. They may not like it, but they'll
be tolerant of it, any of it, except the truth of God. The
gospel of Christ, the truth of God, and the religion of the
Bible is offensive. It always has been. It always
will be. There is no way to make it inoffensive. People frequently try to trim
the message a little, tone it down a little, you know, take
off the rough edges. People all the time telling me,
Don, take off the rough edges. Take those sharp corners and
bend them a little bit so they don't cut so deep. That's the
power of the gospel. We can't tone it down. The message
itself is the only thing that will do men good, only if they
bow to it. But any man naturally confronted
with the truth of God bucks up like a rebel against it. He will
not receive it. I'll show you from the Word.
Turn over to 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. The Apostle Paul is here speaking
of himself and his preaching. He says in verse 18, The preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto
us which are saved it is the power of God. Now he's talking
about the simple declaration of what God did for sinners through
Jesus Christ the Lord, the preaching of the cross. He says in verse
19, it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Now that's what
happens when men are brought face to face with the gospel.
Their wisdom is destroyed. Their understanding is brought
to nothing. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For
after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching. That is what men esteem to be
nothing but ranting, babbling foolishness. It pleased God by
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For
the Jews require a sign. They want to see something. The
Greeks seek after wisdom. They want to have their brains
addled. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews, a stumbling
block, something they're going to trip over on their way to
hell, and to the Greeks, foolishness. But unto them which are the called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom
of God. What is it in the cross that
is offensive to men? What is it in the preaching of
the cross of Christ that causes such offense? What is there in
men or in the message itself which causes men and women to
be enraged by it? Well, the first thing is that
all men by nature hate God. You who are here this evening
who believe not, you who have not yet been conquered by the
grace of God, you who have not yet been subdued by the power
of God's Spirit, by the revelation of Christ in your heart, you
do not love God. but rather hate God. The natural
mind, the carnal mind, is enmity against God. Enmity. That is, man by nature hates
God. He does not hate what he imagines
God to be. He does not hate what he perceives
to be reasonable assumptions about God. He does not hate what
most people tell him about God. But the natural man despises
the fact that God is sovereign and rules all things. The natural
man despises the fact that God is strictly just and strictly
righteous. Man by nature hates the Holy
God. More than that, the gospel exposes
man's sin. Men are offended by the gospel
because it exposes men as nothing else but sin. The gospel is the
great equalizer, the great leveler. I go to my family doctor. I have often invited him to come
and hear the gospel. Perhaps one day he will. When
I'm in his office, he is doctor so and so. If he ever came and
sat down where you're sitting, he's so-and-so. That's all. Nothing else. Nothing superior. Nothing of any degree. Nothing
of any high measure. If Ronald Reagan were a member
of this congregation, he would not be President Reagan in that
capacity, but he would be Brother Reagan. Nothing more. Nothing
more. Men and women in high society
don't like to be put down on that level. Men and women in
their high opinion of themselves, even if they're in low degradation
and the depths of the muck and mire of this world, they do not
like the confrontation of the gospel with their sin. But the
Word of God declares most plainly that man at his heart, at his
heart, is sin. Nothing else, just sin. That's
all of us. We're all alike. We're all exactly
the same in this matter. And the gospel, the preaching
of the cross of Christ, nullifies man's goodness. It reveals the
evil of man's righteousness and denounces the worth of man's
religion. Let me read a text to you out
of the book of Amos. You don't need to look for it.
You can jot it down and read it yourself later. In Amos chapter
5, In verse 21, listen to what God says. Now He's talking to
religious people here. He's saying, I hate, I despise
your feast days and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. I won't receive the incense of
your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me bird offerings
and your meat offerings, I will not accept them. Neither will
I regard the peace offerings of your fat beast. Take thou
away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the
melody of thy vowels. But let judgment run down as
waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Have ye offered
unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years,
O house of Israel? But ye have borne the tabernacle
of your Molech, and Chion, and your images, the star of your
God, which ye made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to
go into captivity. He says, I won't receive what
you do for me. I won't receive your religious
righteousness, your religious ceremony, your religious sacrifices. Your works are null and void
before me. And the gospel of Christ proclaims
salvation by grace alone. It declares that men find acceptance
with God, as I've already said, only through a substitute. That
men and women find acceptance with God only by an act of God's
free favor and God's grace condescending to show us mercy. Now this terrible
uproar at Jerusalem here in Acts 23 was caused by one thing. Paul had preached God's electing
grace in Christ and the Jews hated it. Look back in verse
22 of chapter 22. And they gave Paul audience unto
this word. Had Paul preached morality, they
would have applauded him. Paul could have done, as many
in our day do, established himself as a preacher in defense of the
unborn infant. And that's all right. We're not
in favor of killing babies and aborting babies. We're not in
favor of that. Paul could have preached and set himself up as
a crusader against homosexuality. And we're not in favor of homosexuality. He could have set himself up
as a crusader against adultery. And we're not in favor of that.
But the Apostle Paul would have been applauded by these Pharisees
had he simply been a crusader for these things. They would
have voted him the most influential preacher of the day. The Apostle
Paul simply stood and preached grace, electing, distinguishing,
saving grace, and these men and women despised him for doing
so. You see, he didn't give them
anything to do. He didn't ask them to send him
anything. He didn't ask them to do anything for him. He didn't
even ask them for mercy. He didn't even call on them to
consider his circumstances and maybe be kind to him. He simply
declared to them, God's rejected you, and he sent me to preach
the gospel to the Gentiles. And when they heard that, they
said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not
fit that he should live. Now with that as a background,
look at chapter 23 and Paul's speech before his enemies. The
Jewish Sanhedrin hated Paul because they hated Christ and they hated
the gospel of God which he preached. Now I admire in this passage
what I see of Paul's boldness before his enemies. The Roman
commander brought Paul down from the castle, from the tower in
the castle. He brought him down and set him
among the Jews in the Sanhedrin. Seventy of those fellows sitting
out there. He used to be one of them. He knew how they operated. Paul was sitting there in the
courtyard and they were examining him. Well, as Paul was sitting
before this bloodthirsty mob, As you read through this passage,
you'll notice that he is not in the least measure intimidated. He was not abrasive, he wasn't
brash, but he was bold. Somehow or another, in this day
and age, we've gotten the notion that a man who's a believer,
a follower of Christ, is to be a groveling servile mouse rather
than a man. But it's not so. Paul was a man. And even in bonds, he did not
know what it was to fear the face of a man, but rather he
was bold in Christ. He told these men that his life
had been one of integrity and uprightness, which they all knew. They knew him. They had known
him from his youth. Look in verse 1. He said, I have
lived in all good conscience before God until this day. Throughout his life, Paul had
been a man of principle. Literally speaking, this man
says, I've had a good conscience all of my mature life. That is,
ever since I have had any discernment about right and wrong, all that
I have done, I have tried to do according to the dictates
of my conscience. I have endeavored to walk before
men and before God conscientiously, doing what I did for the glory
of God and the name of God. I've always done what I thought
was right and for the glory of God. He did what he did with
zeal for God. His zeal before conversion was
ignorant zeal, but it was zeal for God. It was honest zeal.
Now, strictly speaking, we recognize that there is no good conscience
except one that is awakened by the Spirit of God, purged from
sin by the blood of Christ, and has been made to be subservient
to and ruled by the grace of God. But Paul is here speaking
of himself as a man, not only now as a believer, but even when
he was persecuting the church. He told us he did it ignorantly.
He did it with zeal for God, just like these men now were
acting with zeal toward God without knowledge. And as soon as Paul
said that, Ananias the high priest commanded those who stood by
him in verse 2 to strike him in the mouth. It seems that they
must have taken a rod or a whip and just smashed him in the face
just as soon as he said this. You know, I've lived with all
good conscience before God all my life. Ananias was enraged
by it. Well, Paul was enraged by that.
He looked at Ananias and he said, God shall smite thee, thou whited
wall. What he was saying is, God's
going to strike you, you hypocrite. That's rather strong language,
but Paul, I would imagine, was in a blaze of anger and indignation.
He called this man a hypocrite because he pretended to judge
him after the law, but he struck him contrary to the law. That's
very much the way it is with self-righteous men. Those who
pretend to live by the law and would judge us by the law are
hypocrites, for none of them live by the law. They don't obey
it in principle, in spirit, or in letter. They are just whited
walls, as Paul describes Ananias. This word from Paul was apparently
an inspired prophecy. This same Ananias the historians
tell us, five years later, was stabbed together during a battle
in Jerusalem while he was hiding in one of the conduits under
the street. And the day will come when God
will set in judgment to avenge all his elect by smiting their
enemies with the rod of his wrath. He says, vengeance is mine. I
will repay, saith the Lord. And when Paul was challenged
for daring to speak against God's high priest, look in verse 3,
or verse 4 rather. And they that stood by said,
revilest thou God's high priest? But when he was challenged, Paul
said to those men, well, I wish not, brethren, that he was the
high priest, for it is written, thou shalt not speak evil of
the ruler of thy people. Now that passage, reading just
as it does in our English translation, would seem to imply that Paul
apologized. I don't think that's so at all.
I'm quite certain that Paul knew who the high priest was. I'm
quite certain that he knew who he was standing before. But Paul
did not regard this Ananias as the high priest because the priesthood
had been changed. And there is no high priest before
God except the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinner's substitute. It would
be much like me refusing to pay any regard to a priest in the
Roman Catholic Church or in the Anglican Church. Somebody says,
well, this is Father so-and-so. I say, well, doodly-squat. You
know, who was he? What kind of father is he? There's
no father but God. There's no priest but Christ.
The Apostle Paul didn't have any regard for this man. And
there seems to be a tone of sarcasm in his voice. It is as though
he was saying this. Him? God's high priest? Hardly. Hardly. He said if he
had been God's high priest, I wouldn't have spoken against him, for
the law says that we're not to speak evil against the rulers
that God has placed over us. And then Paul outwitted his enemies.
He knew the Pharisees and Sadducees were enemies. They never did
get along. They despised each other. The
Pharisees were the religious fundamentalists of the Jews.
They believed in the inspiration of the Word of God. They believed
in the oracles and the traditions of the fathers recorded in the
Talmud. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead.
They believed in heaven. They believed in hell. They believed
in angels and the spirits of men, the immortality of the soul. The Sadducees, on the other hand,
were the liberals of the Jewish sect. They didn't believe any
of those things. They were opportunists. They
used the religion of men to further their own causes, their own persons,
or their own wealth. Well, when Paul realized that
he was sitting before men who hated one another, these Pharisees
and Sadducees never got together except to crucify Christ or else
to persecute one of his messengers. Well, Paul kind of pitted them
against each other. He said, I'm a Pharisee. I'm
a Pharisee. And when he did, they began to
defend him, the Pharisees did, and the Sadducees wanted to continue
with their accusations. Now notice that Paul does not
say, I was a Pharisee, but I am a Pharisee. Was this a compromise? Not at all. You see, in all of
those points where the Pharisees differed from the Sadducees,
wherein there was an agreement with Christianity, Paul was still
a Pharisee. He held to the truths that the
Pharisees held to as opposed to the error of the Sadducees. This man hoped for and believed
in the resurrection of the dead. He believed in the inspiration
of Scripture. This man believed in those things
that were considered to be cardinal to the faith as the Pharisees
would. Let me illustrate it for you
again. I might say to you I'm a fundamentalist. That would
be a lie. I'm not a fundamentalist. I do
not fit into the category of men like Jerry Falwell and Jimmy
Swaggard and that kind of religious group. I don't fit in with them.
But now, if I were to say I am a fundamentalist in that I believe
the fundamentals of the faith. If I were to say I'm a fundamentalist
in that I believe the doctrines that are fundamental, which the
fundamentalists themselves believe, there's no lie involved in that.
And this is what Paul was saying. He's saying, I am a fundamentalist. I believe what the fundamentalists
contend for. And indeed he did. He contended
for those things that were vital to the faith, though he didn't
agree with their principles. Though he did not agree with
their hypocrisy, though he did not agree with their self-righteousness,
he agreed with the truth which the Pharisees held to. The Bible,
as we read through it, records several Pharisees who were converted
by the grace of God. Paul was a converted Pharisee.
Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, was a Pharisee. Gamaliel,
who befriended the apostles, was a Pharisee. They were sincere
and devoted, but they were ignorant men. Never once in the Bible,
however, or in history, do you ever read of any Sadducee being
converted. And in our day, I have seen a
good many fundamentalists converted to Christ, but I've never yet
seen a religious liberal converted to Christ. I'm not saying that
it can't happen. I'm saying I haven't seen it
happen. Once the Pharisees and Sadducees started fighting among
themselves, then they were pulling at Paul and the chief captain
sent his soldiers down to get Paul out of the mess lest they
should pull him in pieces. The gospel of Christ, you see,
like it was here, always is offensive to natural men, offensive to
religious men, offensive to the religion of man as well as the
sin of man. And those who preach the gospel
faithfully must be prepared to face the consequences of doing
so. But let us ever remember this
fact also. This is the second thing. The
Lord Jesus Christ is always faithful to his own. Look at verse 11.
And the night following, the Lord stood by him. How precious,
how encouraging, how delightful. How merciful! And the night following,
two days of turmoil, harassment and strife, but 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. Now here is an assuring revelation.
The Lord stood by him. Our Savior promised, Lo, I am
with you always. And he always is. He always is. He's with Oscar Bailey out there
baling hay or stripping tobacco as much as he is sitting right
here. He's always with his own. But we don't always perceive
that he's with us. He was with Jeremiah when Jeremiah
remembered the wormwood and the gall, but Jeremiah didn't realize
that he was with him. Well, our Lord Jesus Christ,
while he never forsakes his own, often hides his face, lest we
should presume. And he hides his face so that
we might seek him. Well, the Apostle Paul recognized
and he taught us to rejoice in the fact that the Lord is at
hand, that we're never alone. But the Apostle Paul, like you
and I, did not always perceive his presence. So in the darkest
hour, the Son of God comes to his own in special revelation. and makes himself known. I don't
know whether I'm being clear to you or helpful to you, but in your trials and in your
difficulties and those things that crush your heart and cause
you anguish of mind and soul, in the midst of those things,
call on him. Christ is at hand, and he'll
make himself known. He'll make himself known to you.
He'll make himself known to you through the trial, in the trial,
because of the trial, and he'll cause the trial itself to be
a blessing to you by making him more real to you. The Lord stood
by him. You have an illustration in Daniel
3. You remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? They were cast
into the burning fiery furnace and Nebuchadnezzar said, didn't
we cast three men bound into the furnace? Yeah, we did. He
said, I see four men unharmed and untied and they're walking
around in that fiery furnace and one of them, the fourth one
I see, he is a man like unto the Son of God. That's Jesus
Christ himself in the midst of the fiery furnace with his own.
And here's a comforting word. Be of good cheer, Paul. Paul
had begun, like you and I would in his circumstances, to despond,
I'm sure. His conscience was hurting because
he knew of Israel's unbelief, and he had failed to conciliate
the Jews when he tried his best to do so. He must have now begun
to question whether he would ever reach Rome Perhaps he began
to question whether or not it was wise of him to have gone
to Jerusalem so persistently insisting that he must go to
Jerusalem when so many had warned him not to go. But the Savior's
word, be of good cheer, said to Paul, Paul, you're mine. I'm with you. Though these men
despise you, I am with you, I approve of you, my eye is upon you, my
arms are around you. And as you preach the gospel
in Jerusalem, I'll see to it that you preach the gospel in
Rome." And so I can almost hear this man responding as David,
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted
within me? Hope thou in God, for I will
yet praise him. who is the help of my countenance
and my God. There's an old hymn in the Broadmond,
hymnal, that expresses my desire before Him, my God and Savior. In the midst of tribulations,
stand by me. That's all. That's all. When
the host of hell assail and my strength begins to fail, Thou
who never lost a battle, stand by me. I can take it, I can endure
it, I can bear it, if he will just stand by me. In the midst
of persecution, stand by me. When my foes in battle-ray undertake
to stop my way, blessed, strong, and faithful Savior, stand by
me. Now though the gospel we preach
is offensive to men, and will surely raise the opposition of
men against us. Christ is faithful to his own.
He will stand by us. He will cheer us. He will protect
us. And thirdly, I want to again
remind you of this fact plainly set before us in the passage.
Our God wisely rules all the events of providence for good. And we're not going to try to
go through the chapter verse by verse, this latter half of
it, but I want to just remind you what it says. I'm saying
that this passage pictures the fact that God rules all things
with absolute sovereignty for the eternal good of his elect
and for the glory of his own great name to accomplish his
own eternal purpose. Our great God overrules He overrules
the wrath of men for our good. He brings good out of evil. He brings good out of that which
men intended for evil, just as He did with Joseph. Joseph said
to his brethren, you meant it for good. I meant it for evil.
You sold me into slavery. You wanted to see me dead. But
God meant it for good. That's the reason I'm here in
this place. That's the way it is with everything. With everything. Oh, God, teach me this. Surely
the wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder of wrath
God will not allow. In this last half of the chapter,
it was the wrath of wicked men which carried Paul to Caesarea
and ultimately carried him to Rome. God took the evil, the
unholy conspiracy of these 40 men that they had made a conspiracy
and sworn they wouldn't eat, they wouldn't drink anything
until they had killed Paul, and they imprecated themselves under
a great curse if they did so. Well, God took these 40 men's
conspiracy, their evil intent, and He brought good out of it.
He glorified Himself in it. He did good for His church and
people. Paul's nephew, his sister's son, overheard the conspiracy
while they were making their plots and their schemes and their
plans. And he ran over to the castle,
asked to see his Uncle Paul, and he went in and told him,
said, listen, I heard these fellows discussing, and what they're
planning to do is tomorrow morning, they're going to have you brought
down again for another inquisition. But while you're coming, these
40 men have sworn to kill you before you get there. Paul said,
go tell the chief captain. So he went to the chief captain.
And the chief captain heard him, and when he did, he told the
young boy, he said, don't you tell anybody what you told me.
So immediately after that, the chief captain gathered some Roman
soldiers and arranged for Paul's departure. Look in verse 23,
verse 23. He called unto him two centurions
saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Caesarea, and
horsemen three score and ten, and spearmen two hundred at the
third hour of the night. And provide them with beasts
that they may set Paul on it, and bring him safe unto Felix
the governor. And he wrote a letter after this
manner, Claudius Lysias unto most excellent governor Felix
sendeth greetings. And then in the letter he described
how that Paul had been examined and re-examined and there was
no fault found in him. And Paul was taken to Caesarea.
He was brought before Felix, but he was brought before him
under a garrison of soldiers. And Felix, when he saw Paul and
received this letter, he said to Paul in verse 35, I will hear
thee when thine accusers are also come, And he commanded him
to be kept in Herod's judgment hall. Now remember, the Lord
had told Paul that he was going to preach the gospel at Rome.
How? He's a prisoner at Jerusalem.
He's got this angry mob outside waiting to kill him. He's got
these bloodthirsty fellows who've sworn that they're going to destroy
this man. How is he going to preach the
gospel at Rome? Well, because these 40 men had
plotted a conspiracy to kill him. God moved upon a pagan general
to send Paul on his way to Rome under the guard of 200 foot soldiers,
70 calvarymen, and 200 archers. Boy, what a wonderful stroke
of luck. What a marvelous thing that should
happen here. Just by accident he would do
such a thing. No. No. From old eternity. God planned it. And God set this
particular Claudius Lysias in Jerusalem. And this trembling
fellow, lest Paul should be slain, a Roman soldier killed by Jews
under his watch, gets him out of town under the protection
of a Roman garrison? What are you saying? I'm saying
that all men, all creatures, all events are but servants,
vassals of the sovereign God doing his bidding on this earth
for the good of his people. All of them. Can you believe
that? Can you believe that? What's going on now with you? Your trials, your difficulties.
And I don't mean to belittle them. I don't mean to belittle
them. Pain is painful. Trials are trying. Afflictions are afflicting. But
they're messengers of God. That's all. Servants of God. Servants of God sent on purpose
by your Father to do you good for the glory of his name and
the interest of his kingdom." I believe that. It gives me peace.
God raised up a pagan king, a fellow named Osiris. He said, I want
to take him and he's going to be a redeemer for my people.
He's going to be a savior for my nation. But he doesn't know
God. No, he doesn't. He's God's servant,
God's messenger. He is directed and sent of God. A man, a stranger from a far
country come to deliver God's captive people. How can that
possibly be? God's on his throne. He rose.
He rose. He rose with absolute ease. There's
one more thing in this chapter that I want you to see briefly.
The people of God in this world are a harmless and blameless
people. In verse 29, though the Jews
sought in every way possible to find some accusation against
Paul, they found none. They hated him. They despised
him. They wanted him dead. But he
was a man of blameless reputation and blameless character. His
life adorned the doctrine that he preached. This man, Claudius,
said, whom I perceive to be accused of questions of their law, but
to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or even of these
bonds. Oh, may God be pleased graciously
to make us such men and women, men and women blameless in our
generation, living in a manner that brings honor and glory to
our God, that's honoring to the gospel we profess. The Apostle
said, do all things without murmurings and disputings. Oh, nothing more
dishonoring to God, more dishonoring to the gospel than for men and
women who say they believe it to murmur against Him, disputing
all the time. The apostle says, do these things
without murmuring and disputing that you may be blameless and
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked
and perverse nation among whom ye shine as lights in the world. Sometimes we question whether
or not the ark of God is safe. We often murmur against God's
providence and doubt his goodness. We so often judge God by the
circumstances of our lives rather than by the word of his promise.
Oh, may God forgive us. Do you remember Gehazi, Elisha's
servant, over in 2 Kings chapter 6? Gehazi woke up one morning and
he saw the Syrians encamped all over the land. They had come
to take Elisha and Gehazi And he woke his master up. He said,
Elijah, get up. Elijah, get up. He said, the
Assyrians, they're all around us. Oh, my master, what shall
we do? What shall we do? And Elijah
kind of, he said, Gehazi, don't fret, Teneh. Don't worry. They that are with us are more
than they that are with them. And Gehazi was still scared to
death, so Elijah prayed. He said, Lord, open his eyes
that he may see. And the Lord opened his eyes. Gehazi looked on the mountain,
and there were angelic horsemen and chariots of fire covering
the mountain, filling the sky round about he and Elisha. And
the Lord God gave him a sight with which to see. What I'm saying
is this, Lord God, open our eyes that we may see the hand of your
providence, the power of your arm, and that we may rest in
our God and in our Savior. God knows how to protect and
deliver His own. When the last sentence is written,
when the last deed is done, God's church shall be triumphant, God's
kingdom shall conquer, God's people shall be glorified, and
God's name shall be praised for all things, in all things, and
by all things. If we would serve Christ, we
must, in God's appointed measure, be prepared to suffer persecution
because of the offense of the cross. Now, you're either going
to have to be prepared to do so, or you're going to trim the
message. You're going to tone it down.
The gospel is offensive. We have to face that in reality.
Let us ever live now with the awareness of Christ's faithfulness
and his blessed presence. And oh, may God give us grace
to trust his wise providence. Oh, God give us a heart to seek in this world to live
blamelessly for the glory of God, the honor of the gospel. I'm often accused of preaching
a message that causes men to be careless about how they live.
If there's any carelessness, Lindsay, it's not in the message.
No. It's because we don't believe
the message. This God's worthy of our highest praise. And I
suspect the highest praise we can render to Him is to live
in this world as men and women who believe God, who believe
God, and by that to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. Well, I rejoice in the fact,
I hope in my heart I rejoice. I hope in your heart you rejoice
in the fact that of him and through him and to him are all things
to whom be glory forever. Amen. Our Father, Take these stumbling words of
a man and anoint them with the power of your spirit for the
good of your people and the glory of your Son. Grant that we may
in all things trust our Savior, your faithfulness, your goodness,
your providence, and your grace for the honor and glory of Christ
Jesus our Lord. Amen. God bless you. You're dismissed.