Passage: Acts 22:23-23-11
Intro: “When every choir member was late”
Pau Lee Tan book, #2024
1. many of us have stories, maybe not so spectacular, of God’s sovereign protection
2. and many we don’t even know about
3. our god is beyond time, sees all of time as a whole, and works with perfect wisdom and power to accomplish His will
4. we may be nervous, but God never is.
5. the passage before us is full of intrigue and excitement, but the applicable theology seems a little thin.
6. but wait! Let’s look here for what God is doing, how He is at work.
7. and know that He is at work in our lives as well.
8. his ways are sometimes difficult to understand, but that requires faith.
9. Paul’s experience here just oozes the sovereign power of God.
I. God Protects His Messenger
1. the Jews were in the middle of a group temper tantrum..v23
2. deprived of Paul’s body, they just started throwing dirt and clothes!
Il) clearly a mostly male group!
3. v24, commander probably had not understood Paul’s statement, so he was at a loss for the cause of riot.
4. v24, “flogged and questioned”
5. word same as John 19:1
PP John 19:1
6. this was use of flagellum, device of torture, often killed victim
Il) those of us who saw The Passion of the Christ” found that scene the hardest part
7. commanders purpose to beat the info out of Paul or kill him in the attempt.
8. Paul already bloodied and beaten by earlier riot.
9. v25 “stretched him out”=tied to pillar, maybe hung from rafters.
10. asks this simple question: “is it legal?”
11. answer is, “NO!”
12. several laws protected Roman citizens from this kind of treatment, but then Roman citizenship was quite rare in the first century AD.
13. Paul’s claim halted the proceedings, and notice v26…what are YOU…?
14. commander apparently got his thru bribery
15. Paul was “born” with it, which means his family was part of a very elite group.
16. most scholars believe one of his ancestors performed a valuable service and was rewarded with citizen, which was passed on.
17. so decades, even centuries earlier, God saw to it that an ancestor of his chosen messenger would become a citizen, so Paul’s life could be saved that day in Jerusalem
18. and as we’ll see, he is accorded very respectful treatment by the Romans
19. our lives are the same if we are God’s children, even if we die
Il) Corrie Ten Boom story, Tan, #2030
II. God Shuts His Messengers Mouth
1. the commander is still in the dark as to why this riot took place.
2. so he ordered the Sanhedrin to meet, along with high priest v30
3. things did not start well, as 23:1-2 show
4. Ananias the high priest was most likely unknown to Paul, but well-known to everyone else.
5. very corrupt, stole the portions that belonged to the lesser priests.
7. now here, commentators start getting tough on Paul. Loses temper, etc.
8. but I see Paul as prophet here, because in fact God did strike Ananias
Il) ultimately, in 66AD, his house was burned, and he and his brother Hezekiah were found in an aqueduct and killed by their own Jewish countrymen. (Josephus)
9. but he apologizes for this outburst, and then does something very strange in v6
10. here he is, at last getting a hearing in the Sanhedrin, eager to bear witness to Jesus.
11. and instead, he lobs this theological grenade into the group, setting off a predictable explosion.
Il) Pharisees and Sadducees like Shiites and Sunni, differing sects within same religion
12. why did he do this? I believe it was God directing this, not Paul
PP Luke 12:11-12
14. no one had received more revelation than the Jews in general and these guys in specific.
15. Jesus Himself had stood in their midst and claimed to be Son of God, and proven it by rising from the dead.
16. yet they continued to resist, so God is shutting the mouth of His servant
17. this has been slowly happening throughout Acts, but now the leaders of Judaism are shut out from God’s gracious revelation.
PP Mark 6:11
18. it’s a terrible thing to get to this point, because all that is left is lies.
PP 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11
19. God is sovereign over who hears truth, who hears lies.
III. God Uses the Gentiles to Deliver the Messenger with the Message
1. I imagine Paul feeling pretty low after this experience.
2. he had traveled for months, put his life at risk, to bear witness to Jesus in Jerusalem
3. and now, in some kind of protective custody, he was probably kicking himself for the ways things had happened.
Il) “Why did I say that? What was I thinking? If I could only do it again”
4. so the Lord appears to him that night while he is thrashing on his mat, and says,
5. “Take courage” an imperative
6. “you have testified”, and certainly this includes that last “testimony” he gave, which was virtually nothing, as God had willed
7. and now it was God’s purpose that he testify in Rome.
8. and God was going to use the Romans to safeguard his life from the Jews, transport him to Rome at their expense, and take him into the highest echelons of the Roman government to bear witness to Jesus Christ.
9. had it been the purpose of these Romans to accomplish this? Of course not!
10. if he had not been a Roman citizen by God’s earlier decree, he would by now most likely be dead.
11. but God’s purpose was to take the messenger and the message to Rome, and these guys were the selected servants, very eager to please. V10
12. God had also used the Romans years earlier to accomplish His will, as predicted by Jesus
PP Mark 10:33-34
13. here is the bottom line. People think they do what they want, and to some extent, they do.
14. and yet God is the unseen Master of all that is happening, and in everything His will is being accomplished.
Conc. We will follow Paul as he continues as God’s messenger, now to the Gentiles exclusively.
1. but for us, recognize that in spite of the mysteries of life, and questions, the whys, God is indeed in control.
2. brothers and sisters, take courage! Be brave! Don’t be afraid!
3. you life is in the hands of God, and the very safest place to be in the world is right in the middle of God’s plan.
4. sometimes we’d like to see the whole script, but God is building our faith in Him.
5. and that faith requires us to walk in mysterious darkness sometimes, our path illuminated only by the light of what we know of God through His word.
6. God is at work! Be at rest.
