Acts 23 - Part C

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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching with Pastor Skip Heitzig. As you have testified of me in Jerusalem, you must also bear witness of me in Rome. And I'm sure when the Lord told him that, when he mentioned Rome, Paul was slumped on the floor, he stood right up.

And he got all excited. Because what's the one place he said he wanted to go? Rome.

And what was the one place he kept saying, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going? Rome. And what's the one place he wrote to that church and said, I'm coming, Lord willing.

And then Spain? Rome. Now the Lord says, you're going to Rome. And that's the theme of the book of Acts.

And that's why Luke concludes the story. The Lord promised Paul, you're going to Rome. So whatever misgivings we might have, maybe Paul shouldn't have gone to Jerusalem because he got arrested. The Lord says, this is providence, Paul. I have woven these events together so that you could give a full and complete testimony of me in Jerusalem. And now you're going to give one in Rome. It is my will and my plan to get you there. And now the providence of God kicks in as Paul makes it from Jerusalem all the way to Rome.

The Lord promises him that. Five times in Paul's life, it is recorded that Jesus appeared to him. Every time he did, it was a time of crisis.

First time, Acts chapter 9, the Damascus Road. Knocked him off his horse. The Lord spoke. It was a crisis. He was fuming. He was wanting to kill those Christians in Damascus.

The Lord appeared to him. Later on, Acts chapter 16, he doesn't know which way to go. All the doors are closing.

All the doors are shut. He doesn't know what the way forward is. He's at Troas. That night, he gets a vision of a man from Macedonia. And he concludes, the Lord has spoken to me. The Lord has allowed this vision. This is what the Lord wants us to do. And it encouraged Paul, and he went to Macedonia. The third time is Paul is in Corinth in Acts chapter 18.

Also very discouraged. Things aren't going well in Corinth. But the Lord Jesus appears to him and says, Cheer up, Paul, and speak up. Don't keep silent. I want you to go back out and speak, for I have many people in this city. There's still many people who need to hear the message.

You're going to bring it. The fourth time is this time, and the fifth time is when he is on a boat in Acts chapter 27. The boat goes through a few different storms. The Lord appears to him in the storm, and he says, Nobody's going to die on the ship. Be of good cheer.

You're all going to survive. And that's why Paul said, Do what I say, because the Lord appeared to me, and nobody here will die. All of them were times of crisis. All of them times where Paul was somehow discouraged or slowed down. Each time the Lord picked him back up, and he said, You're going to Rome.

Now pause again for a moment. Where is Paul? He's in Jerusalem. He is locked up in a prison cell. He happens to be in the very prison cell that Peter was locked up in in that same city.

The Antonia fortress. What happened to Peter in that prison cell? He got released. An angel opened the door. The chains fell off of his wrist. The angel said, Get up and go.

He thought he was dreaming. Until he's outside, the gate closed behind him. He's outside, and he's at the door.

He knocks at the door. You know the story, right? The chains fell off of him from that very prison. Okay, I'm having you pause on that because that isn't going to happen to Paul. Sometimes the Lord delivers, and that's awesome. Sometimes the Lord gives you the power to endure as a prisoner, and that's awesome. You say, Oh no, God's will would be that Paul is free like Peter.

No, it's not. God's will for Paul is that he stays a prisoner the rest of his life until he's dead. What's interesting about that, and you're going to see that title in a minute, Paul the Prisoner.

Paul never saw himself as a prisoner of any government. He said, Though I'm in chains, I'm free. He said, I am a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And he said concerning his incarceration in chains, I want you to know, brethren, that the things that have happened to me, these chains, have happened for the furtherance of the gospel, not the hindrance of the gospel. So the door miraculously swung open for Peter and providentially stayed shut for Paul. And God is moving in both cases. What a great lesson, isn't it? He said, God, give me a miracle.

What if he says no? Then wait for it. Watch for God's providence.

Be of good cheer. You've testified for me in Jerusalem. You must also bear witness in Rome. And when it was day, some of the Jews banded together under an oath saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul.

And there were more than 40 who had formed this conspiracy. What this amounted to was a personal vow of basically saying something like this. May God do so to me and more if I don't kill Paul by this time, if Paul isn't dead. We're not going to eat until we've killed Paul, and if we're not dead, may God kill us. It's one of those stupid oaths that Jesus said never make. He said, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Don't swear by heaven or by earth. Just be an honest person.

And what's stupid about this is they're not going to be able to do it, so are they going to starve? And that didn't happen, it seems. So it goes on, now you, therefore, together with the council, suggest to the commander that he be brought down to you tomorrow. 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 heard of their ambush, he went and entered the barracks and told Paul. First of all, who's Paul's sister? Second, who's his nephew? And third, what's he doing in the courtroom?

Talk about God's providence. He just happened to be there. Now this leaves us with many unanswered questions because this is really the only reference we have to Paul's family other than the reference you just read a few verses ago when Paul said, I'm a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. So all we know is his dad was a Pharisee. All we know about him. We know nothing about his family. Now we get insight. He has a sister.

But we're left, we're peppered with questions at this point. Was his sister living in Jerusalem because the family estate was in? Where's Paul from? Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus. Paul of Tarsus in Cilicia.

That's where he's from. So why isn't she in Tarsus? Is she now living in Jerusalem? If she's living in Jerusalem, is she a Christian? Is she a believer? Is his nephew a believer? Is his nephew in Jerusalem to be a Pharisee like Uncle Paul following in his footsteps?

If he has relatives in Jerusalem, why didn't Paul stay with them when he went to Jerusalem? Just all sorts of questions would flood our minds. And the answer to all of them is you'll never know.

Until you get to heaven, you'll never know. We're not told. We are told he had a sister. We are told he has a nephew.

And I'm guessing this is just Skip talking. I'm believing that he is studying Judaism up close and that his sister had moved to Jerusalem, was in residence there, had a house somewhere there, the nephew lived there and was studying in close proximity of the Sanhedrin like Paul had done years before. That's the only thing that would account for him being present when these courtroom proceedings were convened. Then Paul called one of the centurions after nephew tells Uncle Paul, Hey, Uncle Paul, guess what? There's a bunch of dudes, 40 of them that want you out. Paul called one of the centurions to him and said, Take this young man to the commander for he has something to tell him. Now does that strike you as odd? What is a prisoner locked up in jail doing summoning a centurion who commands 100 soldiers? Hey, come here.

I want you to do something for me. Is that possible? It sure is if you're a Roman citizen. If you're a Roman citizen, there's certain privileges you have when you're arrested. Number one, you can't be accused of a capital crime unless you've got heavy witnesses. Number two, you can't be scourged as we have seen, flogged, it was illegal.

Whoever did that could be killed for it. You could appeal your case to Caesar directly in Rome, which he will later on. Also, you could summons certain Roman officials to do certain tasks. And so in a prison, because he is a Roman citizen, he has the privilege to make this command or really a request of the centurion. Then the commander, verse 19, and I like this, this is now Claudius Licius.

This is the tribune, the Kelly arc, the commander of the Antonia fortress, the guy in charge. The commander took him, the nephew, by the hand. It's a tender scene. Went aside and asked him privately, what is it that you have to tell me?

I'm guessing that the kid was just all amped up, all excited, nervous. You know, he's standing before a Roman official and come here, takes him by the hand, calms him down. And listen, Claudius wants any information about Paul he can get. He hasn't got any. He's tried three different attempts.

He has zippo, not a zero. So now here's his nephew. I got something about Paul.

Tell me, what is it? And he said, the Jews have agreed to ask that you bring Paul down to the council, Sanhedrin, tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire more fully about him. Picture the scene. They want you guys to walk him downstairs from the Antonia fortress, out into that large courtyard, walk across that, and on the other side is the hall where the Sanhedrin meets. But do not yield to them. And they're saying that to inquire more fully about him. Verse 21, but do not yield to them, for more than 40 of them lie in wait for him. Men who have bound themselves by an oath that they will neither eat nor drink until 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. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, we want to tell you about this month's resource titled The Holy Spirit Then and Now, which comes with two books by Chuck Smith. The Book of Acts commentary will help you understand how the Holy Spirit worked in the early church. And Power, a biblical balance on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, will help you see how he works in you. You'll be inspired as you discover that the same Spirit who worked in Paul, Peter, and the early church is active and involved in your life today. We'll send you the Holy Spirit Then and Now as our thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. And he called for two centurions saying, prepare 200 soldiers. Remember, a centurion is in charge of 100 soldiers. You get two of them if you want 200 soldiers.

So he gets two commanders, get your men, all 200 of them. Seventy horsemen, so that's part of the cavalry. By the way, we are called Calvary. And I've had a lot of people over the years and tens, oh, you're at that church, Calvary.

I said, no, we don't groom horses here for war. We are named after the hill on which Jesus died on, Calvary, like the calvarium, the skull that you and I have, but we're not cavalry chapel or a cavalry church. Two hundred spearmen, verse 23, javelin throwers, literally, and go to Caesarea, the third hour of the night, and provide mounts to set Paul on and bring him safely to Felix the governor. Caesarea is 65 miles away from Jerusalem.

It is the first place we stop at on our tour to Israel. We gather in that theater, that Roman theater, and we reenact some of these chapters. Caesarea was the seat of the Roman government in Judea, not Jerusalem. And if you visit Caesarea, you'll see why. What governor, what prefect, what procurator wouldn't want to be in Caesarea overlooking that beautiful harbor, having the surf there every day, moderate temperatures on the Mediterranean?

Goodness, it's paradise. But anyway, that's where they were stationed, and it was a city built by Herod the Great. It was where the procurator lived until the festivals in Jerusalem, then he went to the Antonia fortress to keep things quiet so a riot wouldn't break out among the Jews. Pontius Pilate was the procurator. At this point, Antonius Felix is the procurator or the governor, and after him, Porcius Festus. Those are the three Judean governors or procurators that are mentioned in your New Testament. All, or the last two are mentioned in the book of Acts. Pontius Pilate, of course, is in the Gospels. Take him to Caesarea. Now, that's 470 men guarding one dude, one apostle, whom the only physical record we have is that he was short like a midget, crooked nose, bald head, squinty eyes, and a unibrow. I mean, come on, this guy's a threat.

One guy could take care of two guys at the most. 470. What you need to understand is just how volatile Judea was 2,000 years ago. In a few years from this, after this, in a few years, it's all going to explode. There's going to be a Jewish revolt. The temple's going to be desecrated, burned, destroyed.

The city will be destroyed again. The Romans knew the Jews were very difficult to govern because they were independent. They so believed in their Yahweh God that they just would not bend with the rules. And so the tensions were high. Riots were frequent. And because two riots already happened and Claudius Licius is in charge, he doesn't want his neck on the line.

So 470. Let's guard this man. Let's get him out of Jerusalem, where the Jews hang out, and it's their capital. Let's get him to Gentile land, which is Caesarea. Paul is put on a horse.

That's nice because it's hard to walk 65 miles. But notice he's led out of Jerusalem at what time? Third hour. You know what time that is?

Nine o'clock at night. Now, by now, Paul's used to leaving places under the cover of darkness. He had been in Damascus. Things were getting hot in Damascus. The Christian brothers put him in a basket at night and lowered him over the wall. When he was in Thessalonica, riot broke out.

Paul's in town. They snuck he and Silas out at night and said, get over to Berea, man. Escape Thessalonica.

Now again, get him out at night. And he wrote a letter, verse 25, in the following manner. Claudius Lysias. That's the guy writing it. That's the commander in Jerusalem. That's the tribune.

That's the Kelly Ark. Claudius Lysias. Two names. Claudius is Roman name. I'm guessing named after the emperor named Claudius, in honor of Claudius. And I'm guessing since the previous chapter, this guy says that he purchased his Roman citizenship with a lot of money, that he purchased it under the benevolence of Claudius. So to honor him in allowing him to purchase Roman citizenship, his first name he takes is Claudius. His Greek name, which indicates his Greek nationality, is Lysias. Claudius Lysias. Roman name, Greek name.

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 a Roman.

Now he's conveniently leaving out. I almost beat him up with scourging, but that aside, I found out he was a Roman. And when I wanted to know the reason they accused him, I brought him before their council.

That's the Sanhedrin. I found out that he was accused concerning questions about their law, but had nothing charged against him deserving death or chains. And when it was told me that the Jews lay in wait for the man, I sent him immediately to you and also commended his accusers to state before you the charges against him.

Farewell. The soldiers, as they were commanded, took Paul and brought him by night to Antipatras. That's the midway point.

This is funny. Antipatras was a military outpost. It was also a place of rest. There was an inn there for travelers. It was the natural stopping point built up on a little ridge between Caesarea and Jerusalem.

It was so convenient that later on when the Crusaders take over the country, that also becomes a Crusader castle or Crusader fortress. What's interesting is I've never visited Antipatras in all my tours to Israel. It's sort of hard to get to, sort of in this little weird place, and our tours are packed. But one day, even though I've been to Israel 40 times and missed this, I'm going to go see Antipatras. I've only seen it in photographs.

So, bucket list. Antipatras, here I come. The next day, they left the horsemen to go on with him and return to the barracks. When they came to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they returned to him. And when the governor had read it, he asked what province he was from. And they understood he was from Cilicia, Tarsus in Cilicia.

And he said, I will hear you when your accusers have also come. And he commanded him to be kept in Herod's Praetorium. Herod's Praetorium is the palace. He's in chains. He's in prison, but he has it pretty good. He's in the palace there at Caesarea. Now we're going to be dealing in the next couple chapters with Paul's standing trial in Caesarea.

Three trials. It'll last two years. Paul is a prisoner. Paul is in chains. And he will stay a prisoner in chains until the day he dies. He will go to Rome.

He will be there two years. We think he may have been released only to be re-arrested in Troas, taken again before Nero, and then decapitated, killed out on the road outside of Rome. What's interesting about Felix is he had been a slave, this governor of Judea. He had one time been a slave, but Claudius gave him release, and Felix's brother was in good standing with the emperor, so got him this job in the place nobody wanted to be stationed, Judea.

So we have a slave who is now the governor of Judea, succeeding Pontius Pilate. One of the Roman historians said of him that he had the power of a king but the spirit of a slave. He was brutal. He was horrible.

He was mean. He was filled with lust and avarice. Well, what's interesting is he also, because he succeeded Pontius Pilate, he also knew about the crucifixion. He knew the stories about the resurrection. He knew the gospel was spreading around the territory. And he wondered, who are these Christians?

What can be done about them? Now he has Paul the apostle, and Felix is going to call for him to get some information about the gospel. And do you think Paul is going to be a good witness before this man? He will be. But that'll be in the next couple of chapters, and we have finished this chapter tonight.

He is stationed in Herod's Praetorium. As we close, let me offer you a word of encouragement. Jesus stood with Paul and said, Cheer up, Paul. And I think the Lord would say to some of you tonight, Cheer up. Take heart. Whatever happened to you this week, this month, lately in your life, whatever episode you're just finding yourself coming out of, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, Jeremiah 29, 11, thoughts of peace to give you a future and a hope. He wants you to cast your care upon Him because He cares for you. He's your rock.

He's your defense. And whatever you're struggling with, I'm praying you'll hear the Lord tonight saying, I'm here. I'm with you. I'm going to providentially guide and direct you. Cheer up. Wait for it. And see what the Lord will do.

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