Prison is how we typically protect the outside world.
From convicted criminals. But today on Truth for Life, we'll hear how God used imprisonment to protect an innocent man from death threats outside the prison walls. Alistair Begg teaches us to view the drama of world history and personal circumstances through the lens of God's perfect plan. Father, you know that in studying this week, once again I come to this narrative and how hard it is.
It seems so repetitive. And how I've asked for your help. And now I ask for it again.
Not now to study the material, but to deliver it. And together we ask for your help, that beyond the voice of mere humanity we might hear your voice, we might learn truth from your Word about who we are and about who you are, the living God, and about how you operate in our world and what you plan to do. And then, if it please you, will you bring our lives into line with the truth that you convey?
For we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. During the summer, I went back to one of my boyhood haunts at Stirling University in Scotland. Stirling Castle—actually, not the university. The university wasn't there when I was a boy.
But you look down on it from the castle and from Wallace's monument. And as I stood there in the company of loved ones, I was reminded of how when I was tiny and there was still a barracks in Stirling Castle, I would go there of a morning, and when the soldiers came out to march on the Esplanade, then I would march alongside them. I suppose deep down I thought I'd like to be one of them. I never got to be one of them. I've never been a soldier or a sailor or an airman.
I've never enjoyed that privilege. But I have respected and still respect those who have and those who do. And in being fascinated by all of that, and particularly by the Second World War, I have gravitated frequently towards war movies and war books. And so right up there amongst them is, of course, Bridge on the River Kwai, who can think of that movie without thinking of Guinness and some of those others and those great displays. And in the course of that, there are all these troop movements. Of course, we know that it's all fabricated, we know there's cameras and microphones and everything around, but they create this wonderful illusion of the troops moving inexorably towards their next destination. And with the movement of the troops, the response of the community, who's part of this group and where are they going and what they're doing, because after all, the occupation and the occupied territories were intrigued by what would happen and what the eventuality would be. And that has been true, I guess, throughout the history of warfare, and certainly when you think about the movements of troops even today, even when they're on patrol and are doing reconnaissance missions and have no armaments with them, there's still something very striking about coming on a convoy of the military and saying to yourself, I wonder what they're doing and I wonder where they're going. I mention all of that because when you take the little section that was read and the piece which follows it, we're introduced to a significant movement of troops. They're moving from Jerusalem eventually to Caesarea.
They have a stop along the way, as we will see. And in order to catch something of the humanity of it and the flavor of it, we need to recognize that men and women whose homes were along the route of travel would, in the evening hours—and remember, they're moving under the cover of darkness, as we're told—they would, in the evening hours, hear these troops going along. They would hear the cavalry.
They would hear the horses. They would perhaps pull back the blinds and look out and say to themselves, this seems to be a tremendous amount of personnel. I wonder what they're doing. I wonder where they're going. And of course, they would eventually be able to answer the question because the word would spill out, as it inevitably does. Somebody would find out in the morning when they meet one another at the market, did you hear all those troops going through last night?
Yes. Where were they going? I heard some of them coming back in the opposite direction later. Oh yes, they did. Well, why was that? Well, they split up at Antipatras, and the main foot soldiers came back, and the cavalry and a few others went on.
What were they doing? Oh, I don't know, something about a guy, a Roman citizen, a Jewish rabble-rouser, somebody causing trouble. I believe his name is Paul.
He was known as Saul of Tarsus. And that's the way the information would have gone around the community. And here Luke tells us that when we consider what was going on, from one perspective it was simply that, just the movement of troops, they were conveying a prisoner to his destination. It happens every day, all day.
It happens around us in the community here. You see not troops, but you see personnel being moved in carriers, and they're going as prisoners to their destination. But Luke also is careful to point out that from one perspective it is simply the movement of a man, but from another perspective it is God fulfilling his purposes for his servant. He had made a promise to Paul that he would go to Rome, and here it is that this first part of his journey is unfolding now.
And the significance of Paul going to Rome, we're going to discover, is even beyond that insight. So what is happening? A prisoner is being moved. What is happening? God is fulfilling his purpose.
What is happening? God is actually accomplishing the purpose that has been established in eternity to put together a company that no one can number from every nation and people and language and tribe and tongue. That the unfolding drama that is involved in the movement of this particular prisoner is actually far more than it initially seems. Now, I mention that this morning because our view of history says a tremendous amount about us. The way in which we read history and the way in which we give explanation of history says a lot about the way in which we think concerning far more than history. And there is a distinctly Christian way to view the unfolding drama of world history. And unless we think Christianly about the drama of world history, we may be caught up in the sadness and disappointment of immediate events, we may be tyrannized and horribly fearful of future events, we may completely misinterpret what has taken place in past events.
But when we learn to view the unfolding story of history from the perspective of the Bible, then it saves us from undue distraction, it saves us from being overwhelmed, it saves us from being so preoccupied by our own little personal histories that we just can't see much beyond ourselves. Some people have no view of history at all, because their world is bounded by themselves, like Edith. Remember Edith? Who said of Edith, Edith's little world was bounded on the north and south and east and west by Edith. It was all about Edith, how it related to Edith.
And she never really viewed anything much beyond the parameters of her own influences and concerns. Well, the Christian can't operate like that. But nor should the Christian be overwhelmed by the things that are part and parcel of the story of our world. Now, this morning, there is much before us, if you take just our own country.
I was in Washington for three days this week, and in the context of Washington, a great deal of the buzz was directly related to the ratings of the president, to the question of the Supreme Court nominations, and everywhere one went, people had a view and a concept of it and so on. And some were gravely concerned, and some were elated, and everything else, and it's possible to be caught up in all of that drama. But eventually, what I did was, I just stood way back from it all.
Way back from it all. Actually, I saw a cup on my desk that had the biotapestry on it, which took me back to the eleventh century, to 1066 and the Battle of Hastings and so on, and I said, Well, imagine that all that time ago. And then I said, And think about all that yet awaits us. And then I said, And think about the fact that the pivotal event of human history is the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. And then I said, Now I can put everything within the framework of that great unfolding drama.
And, my friends, let me say to you that unless, as Christians, we learn both to be engaged in the events of history and at the same time to be distanced from them so as to understand where a piece may fit or may not fit, then we fail to live and act Christianly. Now, what I want to show you is that from verse 11 to verse 12, the comfort that was provided in the night hours for Paul was entirely appropriate and right on cue. Remember, we ended last time by noticing that the Lord stood near Paul and gave him a word of encouragement, take courage, and also instructed him concerning his future. And he had his word to go on. The Lord had promised him that he was going to testify in Rome. But that word of comfort that he received in the evening did not issue in a morning of tranquility.
It did not issue in a day where everything started to go swimmingly well. I was thinking about this again this week in the singing of the song How Great Thou Art. And I thought, I don't know that I'm really keen on the verse, When through the woods and forest glades I wander, And hear the bird sing sweetly in the trees.
Now, don't misunderstand me. It's a good verse. But I was thinking we probably need another verse that counterbalances that. So it's something like, When through the skies in stormy flights I wander, And hear the thunder peal around my head, And see the lightning flash, And think about the fact that I may crash, Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee, How great thou art. In other words, the refrain is easy, When through the woods and forest glades. But how much of your time do you spend in the woods and the forest glades?
What, are you a fairy, an elf, or something? You don't spend much of your time there. It's not that it's a bad hymn.
I'm not suggesting that someone will write to me. But it just struck me this week. That's an easy refrain from that verse to there. It's a harder thing to convince ourselves of the nature of the wonder of God's sovereign purpose when it's not the experience of sunshine and woodland, but it is the experience of heartache and difficulty. So the word of comfort is more than matched by the challenge that the new day brings. And we saw last time that Paul is God's man.
By some measure, he is a great man. But we also notice that he is not superman, that he is heading for heaven the way you and I are heading for heaven—through many dangers, toils, and snares. And before the day is over, he's going to be making a familiar journey. Back in 21, we learned of how he went from Caesarea to Jerusalem.
Here in 23, we're going to discover how he goes from Jerusalem to Caesarea. His life, like your life and mine, was a series of comings and goings. All of our lives are about comings and goings. Sometimes you say to somebody as you're walking in a crowd and trying to get in a doorway, What are you doing? Are you coming or going?
And often the answer is, I don't know. And sometimes that is emblematic of the larger issue of people's lives. The story of your life and mine is ultimately the story of coming and of going. We have come, and one day we will go.
And all of our comings and all of our goings are ultimately preparations for our last great going. In the Songs of Ascent, the psalms that were sung as the Hebrew people made their aliyah, made their pilgrimage up to Jerusalem, they sang going up to Jerusalem. And one of the psalms that they sang, Psalm 121, was, I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved, and so on. And then it wraps, and the Lord will watch over your coming and your going from this time forth and even forevermore. Now, Paul would have known that psalm.
Maybe he took that psalm to himself as a reminder when he realized that as this day opened up before him, he was now up and out and on his way again. Now, I wrote three words down. Hopefully they're helpful to you.
I won't spend too long on them. I just first of all wrote down the word opposition. It's not difficult to get opposition out of verses 12 to 15. You'll notice in the first five or six or seven words, we have the word conspiracy, and we recognize that Paul here, while he is, if you like, having his porridge, the Jews are hatching a plot.
Of course, I don't know that he had porridge, but I think if he could have had porridge he would have had porridge. And as he begins his day, then, unbeknown to him, a group of about forty men or so are hatching a plot. Now, of course, the plotting of the Jews we've become familiar with, haven't we? Back in Acts chapter 9, when he is first converted, very, very quickly he's on the receiving end of the hatred of the Jews. He who had once been the persecutor of the Christians has now become a Christian, and suddenly the tables are turned. We saw the same in Acts chapter 20, that he had been opposed by the Jews when he was in Ephesus. The Asian Jews were in opposition to him. In Acts chapter 21, we discovered that some of those Jews from Asia had shown up in Jerusalem, perhaps for the feast, and they were the ones who had begun the persecution against him. They were the ones who had begun to say, He's opposed to the people of God, he's opposed to the law of God, he's opposed to the temple of God, he's sacrilegious in all he does.
And that was what had given rise to this punctuated experience of being in and out of custody. Now, when we come to this section, we discover that Paul's opponents are frustrated by their inability to execute their plan, which was, of course, nothing other than to execute Paul. And so they recognize, when they get together, they conspire together, that if they're going to be able to kill him, they need to get him out of the barracks and onto the street. Perhaps on one of those narrow passageways coming up through Jerusalem, a crowd will be able to get around, one of them will be able to slip up in the middle of the crowd and take him out, and the whole crowd can scatter, leaving only a bloody mess lying in the street. Those of you who like Julius Caesar are familiar with these pictures, and as you read this, you may find yourself shouting out, Beware the Ides of March!
You know, just be careful as you look over Paul's shoulder. But that was their plan. Their numbers were such that they could take comfort in the company of others who were equally vindictive, equally bad. They recognized that their conspiracy would not work, absent the complicity of the chief priests and the elders there, in verse 14. And so they go and seek to involve them in their plot, having already taken an oath not to eat or drink until they called Paul. They use that information as leverage, and in verse 15 they give the directive to the Sanhedrin and to these elders of the people, Why don't you send a petition to the commander to bring him—that is, Paul—before you on account of the pretext of wanting more accurate information about his case? We want to get him out on the street where we can kill him. Why don't you say we want to have a follow-up to the previous trial or pseudo-trial, and when we get him out there, we will be able to finally bump him off? We are ready to kill him before he gets here.
It's interesting, isn't it? In fact, it's very striking, the animosity and the hatred that is directed against Paul. First of all, remember, this was a trumped-up charge. He was working his very hardest to let it be known that when it came to his Jewish roots, when it came to his heritage, he was proud of his heritage, he was thankful for his heritage, and he identified himself as fully as he possibly could with his own people. He was later to write of how his heart was breaking that his own people might come to understand the truth of the Messiah Jesus. So all of their animosity was on the basis of their duplicity, was on the basis of trumped-up nonsense. So why do they hate him so much? Why did they have to kill him? Now, it's the same question that you have in mind when you watch Jesus go to Jerusalem, isn't it? What has this man done? That's the question the pilot asks.
I can find no fault in it. What are you folks on about? What's the drama here?
Why are you so opposed to him? Now, again, our view of history is directly affected by the answer that we give to that question. It's not time for us to tease it out, but I'll just draw your attention to a phrase that you'll find in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 7, if you care to look it up for homework. And there Paul talks about the secret power of lawlessness being already at work. He says, the secret power of lawlessness is already at work. He's writing concerning the end of time. He's writing concerning the events that will precede the return of Jesus in power and in glory. And he says, although I'm writing about stuff that's in the future, I want to tell you that the secret power of lawlessness is already at work. The reason for the vehement disregard of Paul and the design to have him killed can only ultimately be understood in relationship to his union with the Lord Jesus Christ. They hated Paul because they hate Christ.
Well, they won't come out and say it necessarily, but that's the truth. Who does this man think he is? Who does he think he is to make these exclusive claims?
We hate that, and we hate him. What we like is the kind of religion that has no exclusive claims. What we like is the kind of spiritual idea that simply says, All is one, and we are one, and we are all, and we are all together, you know, kind of, followed by the refrain, Goo goo goo joob, goo goo goo joob—that kind of notion. And today, in Laos, in Vietnam, North Korea, China, Egypt, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, to name just the first few that come to mind, those like yourself and myself, who are prepared to stand in the footsteps of Christ, are suffering persecution. And it's not because they're bad people. It's because they're Jesus people. And the fact that we do not experience this in that kind of vehement fashion now ought not to be in the unfolding story of history some great measure of security for us, for who knows what another two hundred years of American history will bring in relationship to the church. But for the time being, we ought to at least encourage our young people to understand that if they're prepared to take and nail their colors to the mass for Christ, then they will, at some level, experience persecution. Oh, you're not telling me you believe in moral purity, do you?
Yes, I do. Why? Because Jesus said so. Oh, really? And you can trace that all the way down the line. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg.
We'll hear more tomorrow. Now, we just learned how God can use even something like imprisonment to accomplish His purposes. But if we don't understand the Bible, we won't rest in this comfort as we face life's trials. That's why our mission at Truth for Life is to teach the Bible so that it's clear and relevant. We believe God's Word is infallible and eternal, so the same God who cared for the Apostle Paul cares for you and me. We recently heard from Nathan, who is a listener to Truth for Life, in a Texas prison. He said, as a prisoner, the sweetness of the gospel proclamation from Alistair Begg, declaring freedom from Satan, sin, and wrath, has special significance for me. I thank God for the faithfulness of your ministry to the whole counsel of God, which sets forth the beauty of Christ. We love getting letters like this at Truth for Life. It's so exciting to hear how God is working through the preaching of His Word on both sides of prison walls. Alistair's teaching is available and free for Nathan and others because of listeners like you who pray for this ministry and give financially to cover the cost of program distribution. Every time you donate to Truth for Life, you're helping deliver God's Word to someone else. You can make a donation online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we will consider the ordinary people and unexpected means God uses to protect His servants. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
