Acts 22:22-23:11
You may be seated. Turn in your copy of God’s word
to Acts chapter 22, verse 22, and our reading will take us
into chapter 23, verse 11. If you’re using the pew Bible,
it’s found on page 932. While you’re making your way
there, we saw last week that Paul is now a prisoner of Rome
and he made his first appearance or his first defense apology
of the Christian faith before the mob in the Jewish quarters
of Jerusalem. Today he’ll make his second defense,
this before the council of elders, 70 plus the high priest. And then he’ll go on in his appeal
to Rome at Caesarea and then on to Rome to make his further
appeals. Some will suggest that Paul went
on to Rome and around, I don’t know, 62 or so, he was released
from prison and went on to the East or I’m sorry, the West and
on to Spain. Others will say that his imprisonment
that we find him in at the end of Rome was his final one and
he lost his life under Nero. Before we read God’s word together,
let’s look to him in prayer. Lord, we know that your word
is sure. We know that it is eternal. It
does not fail. So let its errand that it has
been designed to do in this very room, in these very lives, in
our very hearts, let it do that work. Lord, soften our hearts. Let us think only on these heavenly
things for a few moments. We pray that by your word and
by your sacrament today, we would feed on Christ. That our faith
would be strengthened, our assurance that we are in Christ would be
strengthened. And we pray mighty things. We
ask all this in the name of the Lord Jesus, our great God and
Savior. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.
Acts chapter 22, beginning at 22. Up to this word, they listened
to him. And they raised their voices
and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should
not be allowed to live. And as they were shouting and
throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the
tribune ordered him to be brought into the barrack saying that
he should be examined by flogging to find out why they were shouting
against him like this. But when they had stretched him
Out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing
by, is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen
and uncondemned? When the centurion heard this,
he went to the tribune and said to him, what are you about to
do for this man as a Roman citizen? So the tribune came and said
to him, tell me, are you a Roman citizen? And he said, yes. The
tribune answered, I bought this citizenship for a large sum of
money. But Paul said, I am a citizen
by birth. So those who were about to examine
him withdrew from him immediately. And the tribune was also afraid
for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had
bound him. But on the next day, desiring
to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews,
he unbound him and commanded the chief priest and the council
to meet. And he brought Paul down and
set him before them. And looking intently at the council,
Paul said, brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good
conscience up to this day. And the high priest, Ananias,
commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth.
Then Paul said to him, God is going to strike you, you whitewashed
wall. Are you sitting to judge me according
to the law? And yet, contrary to the law,
you order me to be struck. Those who stood by said, would
you revile God’s high priest? And Paul said, I did not know
brothers that he was the high priest for it is written, you
shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. Now, when Paul
perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees,
he cried out in the council, brother, I am a Pharisee, a son
of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope
and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial. And when
he said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the
Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say
there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees
acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose, and
some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended
sharply, we find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit
or an angel spoke to him? And when the dissension became
violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces
by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away
from among them by force and bring him into the barracks.
The following night, the Lord stood by him and said, take courage,
for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem,
you must testify also in Rome. Amen. The word of the living
God. Somewhere back in about 1990, on cable television providers,
we began to watch all kinds of events in the world live. I remember
as a teenage boy when the Gulf War broke out, CNN was there
to beam it back to the United States live and in real time. Fast forward to today and there
are so many news channels and you can watch either a cycle
of the same news over and over and over again, every 30 minutes,
the same old business. Or if there’s breaking news,
someone’s being chased, someone’s being shot at, someone’s being
deposed or a verdict is being read. They’ll break into that
cycle of the same old news, the same old stuff happening. And
they’ll present it to us live and in person. And if that does
not captivate your attention enough, there’s always C-SPAN.
C-SPAN shows us the tedious proceedings of government. of hearings and
of all kinds of boring things that seem to interest some people.
And if back in Paul’s day, back in the events that we are reading
of now in the book of Acts, we had C-SPAN, they would have had
a split screen. One screen would have shown the
proceedings of Rome. It would have shown Lysias, the
tribune. It would have shown an interior
view of the barracks where Paul was held. It would have shown
the mighty mass of a thousand foot soldiers from the Roman
guard. It would have shown little, short,
stubby, unimpressive Paul. It would have shown their discussion
of citizenship. It would have shown Paul being
stretched out for the flogging, which would have rested out of
him for sure, the reason the Jews were angry with him. And it would shown us this Roman
tribune getting to the bottom of Paul’s behavior and the accusations
of the Jews. But on the other split screen,
we would have seen the 70, the Sanhedrin. We would have seen
the council, the high priest. We would have seen their rump
session, their kangaroo court, as we might call it, where Paul
was hauled in by force because the tribune called this group
together. We would have seen the high priest.
We would have seen his top officials, his confidants. We would have
seen the division of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We would see
their semicircle, their great, impressive seating arrangement. And we would have witnessed what
our passage shows to be the ungodly, righteous people judging Paul,
the great servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we would have
seen them salivating, them dripping with desire to put this man to
the death as quickly as they could. Over the next many weeks,
we’ll see lots of proceedings, lots of courts, lots of protocol. And this is going to take up
the next couple of years of Paul’s life. But in this second opportunity,
Paul has to speak of Jesus. before the Jewish authorities.
And the second opportunity he has to make a defense, an apology
of the Christian faith. We see a couple of snapshots
of Paul’s life at the end of the second day, the end of the
second day of two really long days. The first snapshot we receive
is in the night. And our passage tells us that
at the end of these two days of Roman and Jewish antagonism,
Paul is in a cell and he’s probably not resting. He’s probably not
sleeping. He’s having one of those nights
that we experience from time to time where our thoughts in
our heads, go over and over cycling, maybe much like those endless
news channels of what has taken place or possibly what might
take place. And you can imagine Paul thinking
about all the events of his life as he’s come to Jerusalem, all
the warnings he received, both from the spirit and from the
saints, not to go to Jerusalem for indeed he would be bound.
That is for sure where he is now. But the thoughts of all
these events go over and over in his head. And he’s wondering,
is it am I going to die from a beating? Am I going to die,
on the other hand, from a Roman flogging? Am I going to die from
an execution given to me? Because Rome does not want Nero
upset. Rome does not want an uprising
in this special province. They govern Jerusalem. and Judea. He wonders about every thought
and every possible end. You have some of those nights,
don’t you? Where you wrestle. What’s to
come? What will be? I should have,
I would have, I could have. All those sorts of things go
through our heads. Well, he has on his mind this
angry mob, this angry mob that has surrounded him, that has
grabbed him, that has taken him outside the gates of the the
temple and wish to stone him to death, this angry mob that
has been flinging dust and tearing their clothes and saying with
loud voice, away with this man from the face of the earth. You can imagine on Paul’s mind
the near miss of the Roman flogging in our passage, he was being
stretched out for the Roman flagellation, they called it. A man on either
side of you beating you with leather straps that were embedded
with bone and rock, meant to tear up the back of the human
body. Most people did not survive such
an ordeal, which was meant to extract a confession, extract
information. You know, no simple Columbo. interrogation method here. This
was a wicked and evil practice. Jesus himself endured it before
his crucifixion. Paul had not yet endured a flogging. He had endured many beatings
from the Jewish folks around the world, but he had a near
miss of a flogging. And at Paul’s age, if it had
not had killed him, At his age, it certainly would have crippled
him. It would have handicapped him for the rest of his life.
And he simply escaped by the providence of God and his being
a Roman citizen. It was not legal for a Roman
citizen to be flogged and it was not legal for an uncondemned
man to be flogged. And so you heard in our reading
of this text, the fear. that came through those centurions
and even the tribune, they themselves would have lost their lives had
they carried out this act of injustice. Isn’t it interesting?
The ungodly more concerned with justice than the godly from the
Sanhedrin. And that’s who we think must
be in Paul’s mind as well this night. As he rests in a cell
in a Roman prison, he thinks of the anger of the council. And he thinks of his own love
for his own people. You understand when he faces
this council, these are people that he went to school with.
These are those who sat at the feet of Gamaliel as well. These
are those who he served with, worked with, even some probably
lobbed stones at Stephen in his death some decades past. And when he addresses them as
brothers and not the traditional fathers, And in the more official
greeting, he addresses them as brothers. These are his fraternity. These are those that he has known
for so long and he loves them with a love that he’s willing
to suffer if it be that they might come to faith in Jesus
Christ. And so in his mind in the night
are all these terrible things that have taken place since his
arrival at Jerusalem. And you can imagine ringing in
his ears their cry. rid the earth of this man. Possibly he thinks Jerusalem
was a bad idea, coming to preach to my own people. But no, Paul
desires to be a witness, a faithful witness, even to death, a faithful
witness of the goodness of God and Jesus Christ. You know, I
don’t know what your thoughts are on your pillow at night.
I imagine some of them are rather trivial compared. Oh, I forgot
the coupon at the store. Oh, I wish I would have called
so and so today or texted this person. You know, it’s the seven
or eight things we think about in the night, but are rather
trivial. I imagine on Paul’s brain, though,
in his weighed down, heavy heart, he’s thinking, what will tomorrow
bring? What will the Romans think in
the morning? What will the council in their nighttime meetings with Satan overseeing
them, what will they come up with to do the next day? What
will become of the Apostle Paul? Well, a special event takes place
in his life, and our passage tells us that in the night when
he’s having all these thoughts and these hardships, our passage
tells us the Lord stood by his side. What a what a special privilege
it must have been for the Apostle Paul in some way, shape or form. Jesus made his presence known
to him. We understand by the language.
Maybe it’s a theophany. The Lord literally stood by his
side. We know this not to be uncommon. Joshua, the commander of the
Lord’s army. Standing out under the stars at night before the
Battle of Jericho, was met by The pre-incarnate Jesus, we call
that a Christophany. He was indeed the commander of
the Lord’s army, not Joshua. Joshua said, friend or foe? And
the Lord said, I am with you. What an encouragement that must
have been for Joshua. Or think about the patriarch
Abraham. How many times had God said, I will be your God and
you will be my people, but there were no people yet, no child
born. And God visits Abraham in these moments of doubt and
says, about this time next year, your wife will give birth to
a child, a son of laughter. And over and over and over in
the scripture, how many times does God say, I am with you? I am for you. I am beside you. And as we go through all the
hardships of life, all of our losses and our crosses, we are
encouraged. We are challenged to remember
Christ Jesus. in our hardships, we have the
encouragement that Paul would give to the Corinthians. In 2
Corinthians 1, we go through hardships, we go through sufferings,
and when God is kind to us in those sufferings, we can share
that same kindness to others when they endure hardships and
sufferings. And so Paul, you may say, is
all alone in his jail cell. You may be all alone on your
bed at night, but Jesus, is there to stand by you. This is vision
number five of six that Paul will have in his life, at least
the ones recorded in Acts. God was good and gracious to
Paul to come to him at just the right moment in time and to stand
by his side. We have these same promises.
You will not likely, I would think, have Jesus come into your
bedroom and stand by your side if you do and tell us, we might
think a little strange of you, because we believe that after
the apostolic times, God speaks by his word. God speaks by his
spirit. And yes, you may think of scriptures
in the night and perhaps Psalm 23 would be one. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I don’t
fear for you are with me. God is standing by your side.
Or you think of the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel. The king
put in three, but as he’s standing there watching, he says, but
I count four. Some again would say a pre-incarnate
Jesus. The Lord knows when you need
him standing by your side. And so don’t distance yourself
from him. Don’t distance yourself from
the scripture. I think of John, the apostle
in the late nineties, near the turn of the first century, the
last living apostle possibly. He’s the pastor of the church
at Ephesus. Paul had planted it, Timothy
had carried it on, and now John, as an old man, is pastoring,
but he’s been exiled. He’s on the Isle of Patmos, the
beginning of Revelation tells us, because he’s persecuted for
preaching the word, and Jesus comes to him and speaks to him,
and he shows him what heaven will be like. He shows him what
the end times will be like, and then that’s given to us, the
church, and so as we face an uncertain future, As we face
dark and troubling times, maybe our thoughts on our pillow at
night, our troubles as we read the headlines, we can say for
sure the Lord knows how to stand by his people. It’s good for
us to think and reflect, maybe on occasions where God has stood
by you. You were in an impossible situation,
maybe one like we sang of in Psalm 33 a few moments ago. The
horses, the pomp, the circumstance, the kingdoms of this world might
be against us. The battle is not won in equal
might or greater might. It’s won in trusting the Lord. And I encourage you to ask the
Lord, ask the Lord to stand by you and he will give you that
desire. Well, when in the night Paul
is thinking these thoughts and the Lord stands by his side,
Jesus gives him one word. In our English scriptures, it’s
the word take courage. The words take courage, two words.
But in the simpler Greek language, one verb, one action verb needs
no helping words. It’s courage. It’s heart. It’s when all around my soul
gives way. God alone, Jesus alone is my
hope and my stay. When the wheels are falling off
your life as they are falling off of Paul’s Jerusalem visit,
the mob is after him. He’s cursed at the high priest. That wasn’t a smooth move. Lysias,
the Roman tribune, is Still undecided on what he will do with Paul,
the city is in an uproar. He has stirred up a hornet’s
nest. And as we’re gonna see in the
coming chapters, it’s gonna take a battalion of men on horses
to get him safely out of the city. It’s gonna be an armored
car escape from the night. And God simply says, Jesus simply
says to Paul, take courage, hearten up, courage up. he seems to say. You know, a lot of times in ministry,
you’ll think things are going pretty well, and then you realize,
oh, you just preached a dud. You just laid an egg, as it were. Maybe you and your Christian
service think, oh, things are going well, and you realize,
no, not so good. And maybe you’re cast down, you’re
thinking too much on your pillow at night, and God recalls to
you by His Spirit a word. Take heart, child. Take courage,
son. Take courage, daughter. And isn’t
that all we need is the look and the word from the Savior?
You read through the Gospels and you read of the woman who
reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. Her simple
faith knew that if she just touched his garment, she would be healed
of all those years of hemorrhaging. And when he figures out, power
went out from him who touched me. feebly and shaking, she comes
to Jesus and he says, take heart, daughter, your faith has made
you well. And he says those things to the
blind and to the lame and to the weak. And he says these things
to us as he has said to Paul, take courage. You know, we may
need a bit more courage in the days to come. Our economy is
not what it was. Our nation is not what it was.
Our culture is not what it used to be. We are quickly spiraling
in a death spiral, I believe. But God is still on his throne.
Jesus is still Savior. He’s still your high priest.
And he knows what it’s like to live under Roman rule. He knows
what it’s like to live under hardship. He knows losses and
crosses. And so when Jesus says, take
courage, when Jesus says, take heart as he stands by your side,
he knows. what he’s speaking of. The last
thing that comes to Paul in the night, which must have been a
great encouragement to him, is a travel itinerary. Jesus says
to him, you will testify about me in Rome. And can’t you imagine
the logical thoughts that are going through Paul’s mind? That
means I’m not going to die. That means I’m not going to die
in Jerusalem. That means I’m not going to die at Caesarea. That
means I’m not going to die in the ocean. As we cross the Mediterranean
Sea, that means I’m not gonna die from a snake bite on the
little island where they land. That means I’m not gonna die
until God calls me home and the sword of the emperor is laid
to my neck at the command of the king of kings and not just
any king. You will testify me about Rome.
This travel itinerary must have been great news to Paul in the
night. I get to live again. I’ve got
a stay of execution. I’ll escape Jerusalem. More losses
and crosses to come. Yes. But the Great Commission
will continue in the life of Paul. The Damascus Road Commission,
you will be my witness to kings and rulers and the Gentiles and
even to the Jewish nation will continue. And so Paul does the
next thing. A couple more years of prison
and ministry. He’ll go to Rome and there will
be fruit. In fact, you read the end of
the book of Acts and you read about how Paul in Rome, by the
good hand of Almighty God, was able to preach the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn’t it wonderful to know that
Jesus stands by his servants? He stands by the great apostle.
He stands by the great Joshua. He stands with Moses and Elijah
and Elisha. He stands with his own son, the
Lord Jesus. And yes, he stands with you. The world may be against
you. Your losses and crosses may overwhelm
you. The nations may wet their sword
and be near laying it at your neck. and the sneers of evil
behind all of this. But we remember the promises
of God. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. And our God tells us that in
the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. And what a great God we have
to prepare his word and his table for us. Let’s look to him now
in prayer. Our Lord, we thank you so much
that when we’re at our wits end, you know when to come. You’re
the, you’re great at a word fitly spoken, a word aptly spoken,
whether it’s through a sermon or a Bible reading, maybe a podcast
we hear, a devotional we read, but by your word and spirit,
you know how to encourage your saints. And we pray that that’s
been so now through your word, but especially now make it so
through your sacrament. We pray in the name of Jesus,
our great high priest, amen.