Acts | Chapter 23

 

Acts Ch 23:1

“Living in good conscience”

Intro.

Vs. 1 We left off in Chapter 22:30 where we see Paul is before the religious Supreme Court of the Jews, not on their home turf but rather on his! Ok pastor aren’t you stretching this a little bit? I don’t think so because look at the way in which Paul addresses the highest religious organization of the day, “Men and brethren”. That’s not the way you would address the highest religious court in the land! In fact we know that when a person came before this court the customary way of addressing them was the way in which Peter did in Acts 4:8 “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel”.

You don’t come in before them and say, “Hey, fellas!” To address them this way shows tremendous confidence, something that is further borne out by what Paul says next, “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” The word “lived” is where we get our words “polite and politics” from. When you combine the thoughts behind politeness and politics you come up with the true meaning of the word “lived” in the Greek (as well as an oxymoron in our country, “polite politics”?) The word means “good citizen”. Paul declares before the religious leaders of the nation that he had been a good Jewish citizen. His conscience was clear before God, he says.

Paul loved the word “conscience” using it some 23 times. In Greek the word means, “joint knowledge” and implies that the person has weighed their thoughts and actions to see if they are right or wrong. Now Paul is not saying as “Jimmine Cricket” declared to Pinocchio, “Let your conscience be your guide!” You see Paul was saying that his standard was not his conscience but rather what God thought. Your conscience does not make the standard, it only applies your standards. In Paul’s case his standard was God’s Word. Let me put it to you another way, “The brightness in a room is not solely dependent upon a clean window but rather upon direct sunlight through a clean window!” 

Vs. 2 The reaction of the High Priest is a bit puzzling apart from understanding how casual Paul was in addressing this prestigious council. Perhaps Ananias the High Priest understood Paul to say that Paul was claiming he was still a good citizen of the Jews while being a Christian? At any rate the reaction Paul got was quite different then he must have been expecting. The word “strike” here is no mere slap across the mouth as it is rendered else where to beat, simply put Ananias had someone punch Paul in the mouth.

         Ananias was quite the scoundrel and was perhaps the most corrupt High Priest in Israel’s history. According to Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote for the Romans, Ananias had gained the position of High Priest through purchasing presents for those in power. He obtained the funds to do this by running with a bad crowd who did his bidding and they started a racket by stealing the tithes of the threshing-floors that belonged to the priests of the temple. If the people would not give him the tithes he had them beaten. It got so bad that some of the priests that were old and dependent upon the tithes died of starvation. He was not much liked by the Jews because of his pro-Roman stand and in fact it was the Jews that killed him while he was hiding in Herod’s aqueduct during the revolt that broke out in A.D. 66.

Vs. 3 Look at Paul’s reaction to his being punched in the mouth, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall!” Remember that it was Pentecost and they are in Jerusalem, there are graves carved out of stone everywhere. When they got old you could not tell a tomb from a hill so they would whitewash them so that they would not touch them and become ceremonially unclean. So you see what Paul is calling him? He is calling him a “hypocritical bag of bones”.

Paul then goes on to say why he reacted with such anger, “For you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law?” Here Paul was before the religious Supreme Court of whom the High Priest was the administrator being judged by them as being contrary to the law and they had him punched in the mouth which according to Deut. 25:1-2 is contrary to the law. Only after a man was found guilty could he be beaten. What made Paul so mad? Well it was not being hit in the mouth rather it was the hypocrisy of being judged by the law by those who broke the law. Paul was more prophetic then he realized for God did indeed strike Ananias years later.

Vs. 4-5  Now these two verses answer the question as to whether it is ok to get angry and lash out on those who do wrong towards us. Paul does not apologize to the High Priest but he does apologize for speaking badly against the office he held. Paul says that he “did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest.” How is that possible?

 Well several factors probably played into that:

• Paul had been away many years and did not know who the high priest was.

• The high priest was brought to the Romans and most likely did not have time to dress in his formal robes.

• Paul had bad eyesight on top of the above reasons.

What I see in this is that even though the above facts are true Paul still apologized for the wrong done to the office. Hey Christians there is far too little of taking responsibility for one’s errors in the body of Christ. Someone has well said that the two most difficult phrases in the English language to pronounce are:

• I’M SORRY

• I WAS WRONG

Vs. 6-11 The best out of a bad situation

 Let’s recap for a moment:

Paul’s upset at not being successful at sharing the truth to his countrymen.

• He’s jazzed at the opportunity to speak before his cronies.

• He’s punched in the mouth and becomes angry at the injustice of their action.

• He repents for disrespecting the office of the high priest.

This opportunity which he has dreamed about for 17 years is not going well at all, is it. So he switches gears and decides to try the theological tactic with the hopes of getting a good discussion about the resurrection going. You see the Sadducees and Pharisees made up the two parties of the Sanhedrin. The Sadducees did not believe in anything supernatural, they were the religious liberals of the court. The Pharisees, (of whom Paul and his father once belonged to) were the fundamentalists of the day.

These two groups were bitter enemies of each other unless they both found someone they hated more than each other. Now though Paul was right in that what was behind their arrest of him was the resurrection this tactic obviously did not work. You see Paul gained an ally in the Pharisees but further alienated the Sadducees of whom the high priest belonged. I can’t help but think of Paul seeing this debate explode around him and the look of disappear realizing that his opportunity to share Jesus had been lost. Instead of looking at the truth concerning Jesus who both groups so disparately needed, Paul became the rope in a real life tug of war between two groups that hated each other.

Vs. 10 Oh the embarrassment of it all! Claudius Lysias (Lis-e-us) has to come down for yet a third time to save Paul from certain death. What a great witness of why we need to trust in the truth of Jesus! The soldiers come down by force to bring Paul again to the safety of the barracks.

Vs. 11 Notice that Luke says, “the following night the Lord stood by him”, man I bet that was one of the darkest nights of Paul’s Christian life. In fact in 2 Tim. 4:16 Paul shares perhaps this night’s experience with a young pastor named Timothy, “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them.” Can you hear the loneliness and despair in his words? Going through his mind was his failure, which is further brought out by the words of Jesus to him, “Be of good cheer, Paul.”

Jesus would not have said that to him if Paul was singing in prison as he had done in Philippi. I have been in places like this surrounded and alone in my failure wondering if I can do anything right. Searching my heart and seeing pride and a hard heart. The weight of that moment is far worse than being struck in the face or even realizing that you missed a great opportunity. With that as a backdrop permit me to bring some encouragement in the words of Jesus to Paul:

“The following night”: May I suggest to you that the light is always the brightest in darkness. It is in times when everything that you have ever hoped for and dreamed of is vanishing, your “ship is sinking”, that you realize you have placed value and worth on things that perish. In the song “Heart of worship” there is a line that goes, “When all is stripped away all I have is You!” You know what, we don’t realize that until, “All is stripped away!” As Paul was sitting in the barracks he saw the sinking of “his ship” and perhaps he realized that this was not the ship he should have been aboard.

“The Lord stood by him and said, “Be of good cheer, Paul”: The Lord knew right where to find him and what he needed. Even when Paul was faithless Jesus was faithful! Paul was not alone as he would later say to Timothy, “the Lord stood with me and strengthened me”. You see Paul was in the midst of two jails, the barracks and the bars of a despairing heart and Jesus did not deliver him out of them but rather broke in to meet him! Think of that a moment won’t you? You can find comfort when life is not fair and people are weird but what is there to comfort you when the reason for your situation is you?

What can possibly break you out of the bars of depression when it’s your own fault that you’re there? Here is the answer, JESUS! Now dear saints get this please, even when you are where you are because of your own self doing Jesus still stands with you and His cross still cleans you up! If that does not bring a smile to your face then you need a facelift! On my wall is this phrase that I look at daily, “God does not create joy by new surroundings; He creates new surroundings by JOY!” 

“For as you have testified for Me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome.” Did you see that? Jesus, rewards our obedience and not the outcome! The ship that sank was the ship of results which was Paul’s own making. Jesus would have us sail on the ship of obedience! Look at what Paul would later say of this in 2 Tim 4:17-18 that this all happened “that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!” Do you see what Paul is telling Timothy? He is saying that just because it didn’t work out the way you thought it should does not mean that it’s not going to work out the way in which He wants it to. The game is not over, dear saints. Paul had dreamed of going to Rome to preach the gospel and Jesus says, “That is where you’re going!”

Recently at a Stephen Curtis Chapman concert a man by the name of Steve Saint came on stage to introduce a special friend. Now perhaps you’re not familiar with the name but you are probably familiar with the name Jim Elliot. You see Steve’s dad was part of the missionary team that was killed by Indians. Steve was five years old when it happened and it left him confused and in despair. At ten years of age his Aunt asked him to come and live among the very Indians that had been responsible for taking his fathers life. As Steve Saint told this story he paused and said, “I’d like to introduce to you a very special man. In fact he is my adopted grandfather and one of the leaders of the Church among the Indians that is simply known as “The God followers”.

As the elderly Waodani Indian came on stage to challenge the crowd to reach out to the community God has placed you in with the transforming power of God’s love. He spoke through an interpreter and said, “You see my life was changed by this same love for I am the very man who killed Steve’s dad!” As Steve embraced him he concluded with these words, “Only the first chapter has been written of your life, God is still writing the rest of your story!”

         Brother and sisters, “Be of good cheer!” As Paul said in Philippians 1:6 “be confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”    

Acts Ch 23:12-35

“The royal road”

Vs. 12-15 Risky road blocks

Vs. 16-22 Relatively safe

Vs. 23-35 Moving day

Intro.

Having examined Jesus’ words to a discouraged Paul we begin to see the fulfillment of what Jesus said in verse 11, “You must also bear witness at Rome.” As I said last week Paul, (like us) needed to not “make the mistake of judging God’s overall plan for his life by the portion of it that happened today” Corrie Ten Boom was fond of saying, “If God sends us on stony paths, he provides strong shoes!”

I must tell you that I’m a history junky. I love looking into the lives of people to see how they lived. The most fascinating part of their lives to me is not the destination but rather the journey. I’m always amazed at how God works in our lives through the most unlikely of situations. Most of us would prefer God to work things out along the lines of our agendas. Surprise and change are not our favorite words. Luke is going to show us how God was moving Paul from Jerusalem to Rome and we shall see the value in this journey echoed in the words of Augustine, “Trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to the love of God, and the future to the care of God!” One of my phrases I’ve been telling myself lately is sort of the same; “It’s not where you’re going, it’s Who you’re going with!” May we see in this section of scripture reasons for rejoicing on our journey.

Vs. 12-15 Risky road blocks

Vs. 12-15   Here then is the scene before us, Paul was being met by the Lord and     encouraged by His words at night. Luke tells us the next morning that some of the Jews “banded together” and took an oath to destroy Paul. The words are the same words used by the city clerk in Acts 19:40 where he described the crowd that had shouted for two hours “great is Diana of the Ephesians” as a “disorderly gathering”. The words literally mean to “bind together like the twisting of cords.” In Acts 19:40 what was bound together was “disorderly and gathering” here what is bound together is “secrecy with conspiracy”.

Furthermore we are told here that more than forty of these guys formed this conspiracy taking an oath to not eat or drink till they killed Paul. These 40 guys had great zeal but it was not according to knowledge as Paul says to the Romans. Folks, zeal and devotion prove nothing about what a person believes other than that they are committed and in this case they need to be committed! Finally we are told that they had a well-executed plan and that those in high places were in on it! They thought nothing in their zeal of killing Paul, lying to the Roman commander and involving others in their plot to do evil.

Think of this for a moment:

• Forty guys committed to your destruction

• A well thought out plan

• People in high places in on it

So what did Paul have to defend against this? THE WORD OF THE LORD THAT HE WAS STANDING BY HIM! Have you ever felt like that? That the whole world is against you? I mean it seems that everybody and everything has committed itself to your destruction and failure. Not to mention as we saw last week Paul was in a very vulnerable spot seeing that what he had dreamed of for 17 years just crashed and burned around him.       

         Man I love this story as it is no sooner that Paul hears the encouraging words of the Lord that his trust in Jesus to fulfill His promise to Paul is put to the test. Paul is helpless, nothing he can do to save himself from certain death, and in fact Paul doesn’t even know that all this is happening.

 Folks stop and think of this a moment, 40 people have committed themselves secretly to your destruction. They are so committed that they have sworn an oath to God not to eat or drink until they kill you. This was a suicide mission on their part and they don’t care! They have a well thought out plan. They have people in high places that will help them accomplish their goal. I bet the odds were 2 to 1 that Paul was a dead man. Paul has already watched his ship sink, what’s the difference here? IT’S NOT PAULS’ SHIP IT’S THE LORD’S.  

Vs. 16-22 Relatively safe

Vs. 16 Here is where the story changes as the Lord is directing the affairs of Paul’s life. “Paul’s sister’s son?” Now I can’t be sure about you but this piece of information is just way too vague for my liking. Prior to this all we knew about Paul’s family was that his dad was a Pharisee from Tarsus (verses 6). Suddenly Luke tells us that Paul’s nephew foils the plot against him by overhearing their conversation. Don’t you just love coincidences? God had placed this young man right where he wanted him and he used him to tell Paul of the plan to kill him. At this moment you could say that Paul was “relatively safe”!

Now one needs to ask, “Where was God when Paul was first beaten, falsely accused, arrested, imprisoned and plotted against?” Why does it always seem as if God waits to the very end? It appears to me, from personal experience, that He would have us give up on trying to figure things out and be left with nothing but Himself! In other words, as long as there are still some things that I think I can control, he will not move on my behalf. It is during that time of prayer when we say, “Lord, I just don’t care to have control of my life any longer all I want is You!” that the Lord is free to move us the way He would have us.

All this reminds me of my jewelry days when I learned how to work with platinum. You see when you work with platinum the only way that you can form it is to heat it up right up to the point of melting then take it over to an anvil and beat it over and over. You do this several times until the metal becomes soft and pliable. God allows situations and circumstances to heat us up and beat us up until we tell our hearts to become soft and pliable in the Master’s hand so that He can form us into what He wants! When all this took place, where was Paul? Well he had spent the night with the Lord in a prison cell. Paul had quit and the Lord told him that he was not through with him yet and to prove this, in walked Paul’s nephew with what he had just overheard. Would that not have been an encouraging sign to you? 

Vs. 17-22 Folks there is a balance between trusting in the Lord and acting on that trust. It seems to me that I often make errors because I try to do things on my own apart from God. When I do that I never seem to get too far, but to trust in the Lord and do nothing is not good either. What I mean is what would have happened if Paul had heard what his nephew had said and then would have responded, “Hey great kid, thanks for the info but God is going to deliver me, now go and run home, tell sis I said hello!” 

Well Paul would have been dead! My point is that God provided an open door by placing Paul’s nephew at the right place at the right time but Paul had to “act on that”. Recently a good friend of mine told me this, “God already has an open door, you just need to find it and go through it!” Now I’ve been down a lot of hallways with lots of doors and the doors are even ajar a bit but I can’t seem to fit all the way through so its back to trusting in Him to guide me to the door He wants!

         Look at all the details of Paul’s deliverance just in getting the information to the right person that has to take place. Paul’s nephew has to be willing to go, the guard has to be willing to take the nephew, Claudius has to be willing to listen then believe what Paul’s nephew is sharing with him enough to act. As committed and cunning as the 40 conspirators were, they were no match for God who was on the side of Paul. Isa. 54:17 says, “No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue which rises against you in judgment You shall condemn.”

Paul had only to remember his own testimony that he had shared a few days earlier to see how the Lord can change hearts. Jesus told Peter the same thing in Matt. 16:18 right after Peter’s statement about Jesus where he said; “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus responded with, “on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” What Jesus has planned for us, His Church, can not be thwarted either by others or us!

Vs. 23-35 Moving day

Vs. 23-24 Wow don’t you just love it when God is your travel agent? Claudius Lysias would have been a commander of 1000 men and he sent 470 of them with Paul. He provides Paul a horse to ride on so they can leave quickly at 9pm. God has got Paul; on the red-eye out of town escorted by 470 armed men to protect him at all costs. Furthermore God books him not in a prison cell at Caesarea but rather at the “Palace suites” (verse 35).

Vs. 25-30 Let’s take a look at this letter written by Claudius to Felix the governor but before we do that, a brief background on Felix might be helpful. Felix had ruled the province of Judea for about seven years and had succeeded Pontius Pilate; he had gotten his appointment as governor through his brother’s relationship with the Emperor Claudius and his mother Antonia, who was a boyhood friend of his. Felix and his brother Pallas had both been slaves and were given their freedom upon Claudius becoming emperor. As a freed slave he apparently wanted to move up the social ladder as he married three times each one a princess.

First he married the Granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra and finally he married his third wife Drusilla who was Jewish and the daughter of Herod Agrippa I and sister of Herod Agrippa II. Felix was attracted to her beauty and she was unhappy in her marriage to a King, so she sought out a psychic who told her to leave her husband for Felix. The Roman historian Tacitus calls Felix “vulgar and a ruffian who exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave.”

Now the letter written to Felix has some interesting points:

• First notice how many times the first person pronouns (I and me) are used, six times in this brief note Claudius uses them. So what does this tell you? Well it suggests that Claudius was mainly interested in looking good.

• Second notice what Claudius leaves out, anything to do with how he had mistreated Paul. Remember he thought that Paul was an Egyptian, then he arrested Paul without charging him. Furthermore, he was going to beat him to find out what Paul had done. So what does that tell you?

So what’s my point? Claudius’ main motivation in doing what he did in sending Paul on the express way out was twofold:

• To make sure he looked good

• To make sure he did not look bad       

The only redeeming part of this letter as far as Paul was concerned is that according to verse 29 Claudius found him innocent of all Roman charges.

Here is my point: God is using a self-centered non-Christian who is only concerned about himself to further the Lord’s plans for Paul. Still don’t see it?

• God thwarted the work of man, well planned and fully committed as it was.

• God furthered His plan through totally fallen man’s motivation.

Folks if “God be for us”, as Paul said in Romans 8:31 “then who can be against us?” As the Lord spoke to the prophet Isaiah in 55:8 ,“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,”  Is that not a great comfort to you? This was no doubt Paul’s realization as he mounted the horse and headed to Caesarea.

Vs. 31-33 The first thing that comes to my mind is what happened to those forty committed fellows who were not going to eat or drink until they killed Paul? Did they end up dying? 

The Rabbis allowed four reasons for vows to be broken:

• Vows of incitement

• Vows of exaggeration

• Vows made in error

• Vows that could not be fulfilled by reason of constraint

So it would seem that those forty guys were eating and drinking soon after Paul was in Caesarea.

The 470 men plus Paul traveled as far as Antipatris 35 miles away which was a Roman military post used as a rest stop for travelers between Jerusalem and Caesarea, and also marked the border of Judea and the gentile area of Samaria. On the next day all but the 70 horsemen returned to Jerusalem as they realized that they were far enough away from the 40 committed assassins. They then traveled the 30 miles to Caesarea and Paul and the letter were presented to him.

Vs. 34-35 Felix made sure that he was the right person to hear Paul’s case and assigned him a room in Herod’s place. Now we can’t be sure but it was only a few weeks since Agabus had made his prediction that Paul would be bound and turned over to the gentiles and I can’t help but wonder if Philip and the Church there came and visited Paul while he was in Caesarea. What is interesting is when you visit this site it is perhaps one of the most scenic on the Mediterranean. In fact Herod’s palace was right on the beach, so for two years God had Paul in protective custody for a little R and R. Clearly we can see the Lord moving in Paul’s life through ordinary means of what the world calls LUCK and the bible calls LOVE.

You see there may be times when you feel forsaken in your situations and circumstances. You may even feel forsaken by your friends or even the Church, but you can rest assured as God’s Word says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” As well as Jesus word’s in John 16:33 “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” As Paul would say no doubt from personal experience to the Romans “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  No wonder Paul could write to the Corinthians, “We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”