Acts 23:11-35

Well, good afternoon, good afternoon. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we get into the Lord's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2022, we'll go from the Book of Acts to the Book of Philemon. Hope you can forgive my voice. I got something. I feel fine. You know, I went to the gym this morning. I have no problem drinking, no coughing, nothing like that. Just something's attacked my vocal cords.
So maybe could you please be praying for me with that? But I still want to get on here and I still want to get into the Lord's Word with you. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into the Lord's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. Lord, we thank you for the blessing it is to come to your word, to hear from you. Lord, we thank you how you are provident, sovereign, that you control even the governments, though they might rage against you, you are the one who brings about your glory. So Father, we praise we read your word now that your spirit would be teaching us in Jesus's name. Amen.
Here we go, Acts chapter 23. We're going to read verses 11 through the end of the chapter. Acts chapter 23 verses 11 through the end of the chapter. I'm going to move the mic a little bit closer to my mouth. I'm sorry for having to do that. I don't know what's going on here. Here we go.
But the following night the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul, for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome. And when it was day, some of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. Now there were more than 40 who had formed this conspiracy. They came to the chief priests and elders and said, we have bound ourselves under a great oath that we will eat nothing until we have killed Paul. Now you, therefore, together with the council, suggest to the commander that he be brought down to you, as though you were going to make further inquiries concerning him.
But we are ready to kill him before he comes near." So when Paul's sister's son, that's his nephew, so when Paul's nephew heard of their ambush, he went and entered the barracks and told Paul, Then Paul called one of the centurions to him and said take this young man to the commander for he has something to tell him So he took him and brought him to the commander and said Paul the prisoner Called me to him and asked me to bring this man to you. He has something to tell you. I Then the commander took him by the hand, went aside, and asked privately, What is it you have to tell me? He said, The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire more fully about him. But do not yield to them, for more than forty of them lie in wait for him, men who have bound themselves by an oath that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now they are ready, waiting for the promise from you."
So the commander let the young man depart and commanded him, "'Tell no one that you have revealed these things to me. and he called for two centurions, saying, Prepare two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea at the third hour of the night, and provide mounts to set Paul on, and bring him safely to Felix the governor.
He wrote a letter in the following manner. Claudius Lysias. To the most excellent governor Felix. Greetings. This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them. Coming with troops, I rescued him, having learned that he was Roman. And when I wanted to know the reason they accused him, I brought him before their council. I found out that he was accused concerning questions of their law. but had nothing charged against him deserving of death or chains. And when it was told me that the Jews lay in wait for this man, I sent him immediately to you, and also commanded his accusers to state before you the charges against him.
Farewell. Then the soldiers, as they were commanded, took Paul and brought him by night to Antipatrus. The next day they left the horsemen to go on with him and returned to the barracks. When they came to Caesarea, they had delivered the letters to the governor. They also presented Paul to him. And when the governor had read it, he asked what province it was from or what province he was from. And when he understood that he was from Cilicia, he said, I will hear when your accusers also have come. And he commanded him to be kept in Herod's praetorium.
Well, what's going on here? All right, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words? What is this about? Well, I love how this part starts. Paul receives a vision from Jesus Christ himself.
When Jesus says to him, be of good cheer, Paul, You have to remember Paul was just beat up The day before had been slapped in the face by the servant of the high priest the day before that the Jews had drug him out of the temple and Had beaten him so badly that the Romans had to come down from the barracks and rescue him from the Anatolia. I And he still got bruises. He still feels the pain. And now his Lord has come to him and said, be of good cheer, Paul. He knows his name. He cares for him.
He says, for you have testified for me in Jerusalem, he says. The word there is martyreo. This is where we would eventually get our word martyr from, somebody who testifies about Jesus, even to the point that they would die. And so he says, you've testified about me. You've done it in Jerusalem, but now you need to go all the way to Rome. You're gonna go to the heart of the society. You're gonna go to the capital of the empire, and there you're gonna testify about me.
And so, and then it gets into this whole next story about these 40 men who take this vow that they're neither gonna eat nor drink until they kill Paul. And they have this cockamamie plan, right? They go into cahoots with the high priest and with some of the elders, and they say, here's what we're gonna do, right?
Ask the commander to bring Paul and tell him that we just need to ask him more questions. But when he comes, we're gonna kill him. And Paul's nephew, I love how he says this, Paul's daughter's sister, right? When Paul's sister's son, sorry, when Paul's sister's son heard of their ambush, that's his nephew, right? When his nephew hears about this, he goes to the barracks and he tells Paul, Paul tells him to, calls the centurion over and says, hey, this guy needs to talk to the commander. The centurion takes him to the commander. The commander takes him to the side and says, what have you learned? He tells him what this plot is that he's uncovered. And the commander says, don't tell anyone. And so with the silence there, he doesn't wait on it.
But that night, it's about nine o'clock when it says the third hour of the night, three hours after sunset, so somewhere around nine o'clock in the evening, he has two centurions. Now a centurion is a commander of 100, so he has 200 horsemen as well as spearmen. and they take him, and they take Paul, and they put him on a horse, and he's gonna send him to Caesarea.
This is Caesarea Philippi, right on the edge, or Caesarea Maritima. This is right on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It's a large port city. Herod the Great himself had built this town. And you're able to see all sorts of archeological pictures and stuff. I'd love to go see this place sometime. It's really cool from all the pictures that I've seen.
But anyways, they go. And they load them up at night and they take them. Now, that's about a 65 mile trek from Jerusalem to Caesarea Maritima. And so they stop halfway. They stop in the town. I can't remember the name off the top of my head. Give me one second here. They brought him to Antipatris. And so they take him about halfway in there. They stop, lodge for the night. The horsemen go back, right? He's far enough away that the danger is gone. They take him to Felix, the governor.
And we actually have the letter. This is how we know who the Roman commander at the Anatolia in Jerusalem was. Because he names himself Claudius Lysias to the most excellent governor Felix in greetings. And this letter kind of covers his own tracks a little bit.
He says, oh, I went down to the temple when I found out that a Roman was about to be killed. That's not how it happened. He goes down there because someone's about to be killed, and then he finds out he's a Roman. And then he also kind of tries to cover his tracks, but had nothing charged him deserving death or chains. But remember, he had already been chained. The commander was about to have Paul whipped, scourged, But he's saying, thanks, we're done in order here. See, I'm sending them on to you.
And so Felix looks at and he finds out that he's from the region of Cilicia. Now that's outside of his district, it's outside of his jurisdiction, but there's this reality in Roman law that the accusers need to be at the trial. And so for him to send it up to the province of Syria, to send him up to even Cilicia, would make it unlikely that his accusers could come before him. And so he says, I'm gonna hear the case here. So that's where we're left off in this chapter. The best verse I think to underline this is verse 11 that summarizes this.
Be of good cheer, Paul, for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome. God is going to work out all the steps. Every single step along the way the Lord's going to work out. He's going to take Paul to testify to him in Rome. And as we read through the Pauline epistles, we're able to see that he testifies to a whole bunch of people along the way. And we're gonna read it through the rest of the book of Acts, as Paul ends up going to Rome, as he's headed his way there, and the different interactions that he has. But it's not by happenstance. This is the Holy Spirit moving.
This is the plan of Christ going out that the gospel is going to reach even to Nero himself, the emperor, that an apostle is going to get to go and will stand trial before the most powerful man in the world at that time. And it's going to tell him about Jesus Christ. He's going to go to the capital of the Roman empire and he's going to tell him about Jesus Christ. But it's not going to be the way that modern, evangelical, evangelistic plans might be. He's going to go in chains. He's going to go suffering. He's going to go under persecution and threat the whole way.
He's gonna do it with joy because that's his calling to suffer for christ Paul has this at one and in one side this amazing calling He's he's this He's this evangelist to the gentiles But on the other hand, it's also a frightening call Because it means that he's going to suffer the whole time.
He's doing it You know, we live in America and there's not a ton of actual suffering. I'm not saying we don't suffer when people die or something like that, but what I'm saying is very rarely are Christians persecuted in a physical way for their faith. Rarely are Christians plotted against where somebody wants to murder us. But I talk with these guys in India, And they talk about the radical Hindus who will break into the churches up in places like Varanasi. And they'll purposely beat Christians, they'll scatter the churches, they'll do anything they can to stop the gospel from going out. That's what the Lord's doing in other parts of the world. It might come to that here in America. I pray that we're not surprised. when we're reviled or persecuted.
But the question is, will we be witnesses? Will we testify to Jesus Christ? And if it came to it, would we even testify to our dying breaths? Would we be martyrs? Again, we don't follow a cult of martyrdom. But the point is, is that would we be willing to though, if push came to shove, Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you.
That even though Paul might be put in chains, your word can never be chained. We thank you that your Holy Spirit is working, even in our day and age, to share the gospel to the farthest lands of the world. Lord, we pray that you would finish the good work that you have started, that your kingdom would come here on earth. Lord, we pray that your will would be done. Father, please let the mustard tree grow. Please let us see the nations evangelized and be preparing even us to testify of your great love.
In Jesus's name, Amen. May the Lord bless you today. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. May you know that all things work together for the good of those who love God and have been called according to His purposes. And nothing, absolutely nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.