Sometimes God uses spectacular miracles to save His people, like when He parted the Red Sea so Moses and the Israelites could escape from Egypt. Today on Truth for Life we'll learn how God more often uses common everyday means and regular people to accomplish His purposes. Alistair Begg is teaching from Acts chapter 23. We're looking today at verses 12–22.
It's interesting, isn't it? It's very striking, the animosity and the hatred that is directed against Paul. First of all, remember, this was a trumped-up charge. Paul was not doing any of the things they said. He had not taken Gentiles into the court of the Jews. He was explaining that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament law. 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, 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. I thought about that in the last few days when I was in the company of a number of clergymen. And as I drove with my wife in the car, I said, Why would a clergyman ever be a clergyman if he doesn't believe what it is that's written in the Bible? I said, Why does anybody do that? I mean, why be a golf instructor if you don't love golf and you don't want to teach the elementary principles of golf?
If you think it's the silliest game you ever encountered, have the courage of your convictions and announce it from the rooftops. But don't take people's money from them and don't waste their time fiddling around. Why would a clergyman who does not believe in the authority of Scripture, does not believe in the exclusive claims of Jesus of Nazareth, does not believe in the personal bodily return of Jesus in power and great glory—why would he ever be a clergyman?
Answer. 2 Thessalonians 2.7. The secret power of lawlessness is already at work. When you cross-reference that with Matthew chapter 24 and what Jesus says about the end times, remember he says that there will be people who will be so masterful at their deceit that they would be able to deceive even the elect of God if they could.
That's how good they are. Now all of that to point this out, that 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, that kind of notion, which I was listening to at about 5.40 this morning on our radio station.
I didn't even know I could tune in, called 88.1, I think it was. I don't know where I got it from. But as I drove in my car, I said to myself, isn't this unbelievable hogwash that I'm listening to right now?
But I said, you know, the average person in Greater Cleveland will eat this by the spoonful. They will not take what the Bible says. 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. The challenge of some of you who are scientists, facing the inevitable persecution that comes because of your willingness to interact with the biblical material concerning the origins of the universe. And people say, you know, I thought you were much brighter than that. I didn't realize what an idiot you were, believing that nonsense. Well, you say to the person, but you've got to understand that if Jesus is the person he claimed to be, and I am a follower of Jesus, then Jesus' view of the Bible has to be my view of the Bible. I don't have an option about having a different view of the Bible. If Jesus is Lord, then I have no legitimate right to believe anything other than what he told me to believe. If Jesus is Lord, then I have no right to behave in any other way than he told me to behave.
If Jesus is Lord, then I have no prerogative to decide where I'm going to belong except where Jesus said I'm to belong. Now, Paul, of all people, understood this, because when he went down the Damascus Road with letters from the authorities, with the same complicity from the same people, in order to stamp out this fledgling sect, the followers of Jesus, the few that remained, and he encountered the risen Jesus, remember, the great mystery to him was to hear the voice of Jesus saying, Why are you persecuting me? And Paul's answer would have been, I'm not persecuting you. I'm persecuting these people. He didn't understand that these people were being persecuted because they were in Christ.
And the secret power of lawlessness is unleashed against Jesus. I mean, I was with people this week, and in the course of conversation, we talked about the argument for intelligent design and the desire to have intelligent design being taught in the schools. And of course, the most striking thing of all is that although the Christian is rejected as being this horrible, rabid fundamentalist, actually the fundamentalists are the Darwinians who refuse to allow any other view to be taught. That's fundamentalism.
I say, Go ahead and teach whatever you want to teach. Just acknowledge the fact that what you're teaching is a theory, and why don't you—and since you believe this to be a collection of religious mumbo-jumbo, I don't know why you're afraid of it in the first place—but why don't you allow somebody just to explain the Bible's view of origins? Why such hatred? Why such opposition? Why such vehemence?
The secret power of lawlessness is already at work. That's the source of opposition. That's why when Jesus said, Blessed are you when men shall persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely, it doesn't finish there. He says, falsely for my sake.
Some of us are just obnoxious in and of ourselves. But it is to be as we're tied to Christ. Well, intervention is the second word and the last word, actually.
Opposition and then intervention. Look at where the intervention comes from in verse 16. This verse should arouse everybody's curiosity, the introduction to a member of Paul's family. Some of us never even thought of Paul having a family.
Certainly there's no record of his immediate family. This is the only time that Luke mentions anybody in Paul's immediate family, and we're introduced to the fact of his sister and his nephew. And the significance of this little lad's appearance is found in the fact that he is a necessary link in the chain of God's providence. It goes from the nephew to Paul, to the centurion, to the commander, and from the commander eventually to the governor. Now, I know that your curiosity will allow you to sit and think about this for a while.
Most of it we should just move on from fairly quickly. But you have to say to yourself, How did he learn about this plot? How did the wee boy find out about this? Maybe Paul's sister was soft towards him. Maybe he had a couple of brothers who hated him. Maybe some of his immediate family were involved in the forty-plus who were setting out to destroy him.
We don't know. Maybe it leaked down that way to the boy. Maybe he was just like the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist, and he was always around, and he was always listening. And there was a little conspiracy there in the corner of the marketplace. He would sidle over and see what was going on.
It might be worth a few shekels to get some information to be able to pass it down the line. Who knows? But when he finds out what's happening, you know, we should observe the wonder of his initiative and of his candor and realize that when he goes to his uncle, he goes under the direction of God's providence whether he recognizes it or not. And how Paul must have been glad of the arrival of his nephew.
What are you doing here? He must have said initially. Perhaps he hadn't seen him for a while. It may be that he'd never seen him.
We don't know. But I like the fact that Paul immediately took the word from the boy, called the centurion, and put the wheels in motion, recognizing that God had supplied a remedy for his predicament. That God was protecting his life yet again, but he wasn't doing so by reaching out from heaven in some sort of melodramatic fashion. And some people are real big on that, aren't they?
Some of you are here today, and you love that. You love stories that are all about how God, you know, did something in a way that nobody could understand and nobody could explain. You think somehow that's what really makes God look good. And God can do that if he chooses, but the by and large, God doesn't do that, does he? He works through very ordinary means, very simple means. And Paul, if he'd been interested only in some kind of miraculous intervention from heaven, he would have sent his nephew scarpering. But he doesn't, because Paul recognizes too that God works in the little things of life—works, if you like, in the little people of life—and he intervenes here by means of an unknown boy. His intervention is also by means of a peculiarly courteous commander.
If you look at verse 19, it's quite striking too, isn't it? The centurion has taken the boy to the commander, and the commander took the young man by the hand and drew him aside and said, What is it you want to tell me? Now, the commentators are all over the place trying to work out what age the nephew is, which is, again, it's a worthless exercise, because we don't know. But by inference, I don't think he was a teenager. Certainly not in his high teens. I've watched enough movies, again, to think that, you know, a big tough commander in the Roman army is not going, Well, come along, let's just go over here and see what… No, I don't think so. He might do it with a little lad. I mean, I might be prepared to go out here and take the pudgy little paw of a guy who's seven, eight, or nine years old, but I'm not gonna go out here and start holding hands with a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old teenage boy coming down the corridor. He's going, Wait a minute.
No, no, no, no, no. But the pudgy paw of a wee one, you might. So I get the impression that he takes his pudgy paw, and he says, Well, what is it? The guy says, Well, the Jews are doing a thing, and they're trying, and so on. He says, Thank you for sharing that, and I want you to go home, and don't tell anybody you told me.
See, that appeals to a little boy. I got a secret. It's running back through the marketplace. Not telling. Not telling. I'm not telling anyone.
Not telling anyone. The intervention comes through an unknown boy, through a courteous commander, and through troops doing what they were told. Troops doing what they were told. This fellow puts together a letter—superletter, quite honest, but not entirely so. It has a self-centered element in it. If you read it carefully, you will notice that he rearranges history just a little. Casts himself in a better light vis-à-vis the Roman citizenship of Paul. When you read the letter, he gives the impression that he discovered that he was a Roman citizen and therefore he intervened in that way. What he doesn't say is that he discovered he was a Roman citizen when he had him all stripped out on the bench for a jolly good flogging. He manages not to mention that. But we understand that.
You don't have to put everything in. Certainly not if you're writing, to his Excellency, the governor, Felix, whom we will meet next time. So the soldiers carried out their orders. They became the means of Paul's safe conveyance. He takes the governor that is into his custody.
He'll hear the case as soon as the accusers arrive. Now, I mentioned this to you before, but let me just point it out again, and I'll say two things, and we're through. Consider again how the commitment of the Romans to law and order preserved Paul's life. Consider how the Romans' commitment to jurisprudence, to doing the right thing, saved his life. On four separate occasions between chapter 21 and verse 32 and where we are now, it is the very fact of the Roman system of government and their commitment to excellence and their commitment to integrity that prevented Paul from being on the receiving end of the animosity and hatred of the Jewish people.
God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, yes, but he also moves along the lines that he has set in motion. That's why the institutions of government and family and all the other elements that make up life are not insignificant to the Christian. And to have a Christian mind in relationship to history is to have a Christian mind in relationship to the institutions that God has put within the fabric and framework of society. We could say more about that, but our time is gone. And notice this finally, that in the middle of the hostility of his own people that is marked by this conspiracy, which is coming at him from the one side, and the relative safety and security that is provided as a result of the Romans' intervention, in between these two polar forces you find Paul.
Well, you say, yeah, yes, what's your point? Well, you find Paul—a great man, God's man, but not superman. He's not free to go where he wants to go. He's unarmed. He's trapped. And he's completely vulnerable. You look down at his feet as he's standing there and say, you know, I'm going to have to cut my toenails here before long.
They're sticking way out of my sandals. In other words, he's just a guy. He's the apostle.
He's God's man, but he's a man. Are you listening, man? Did you ever get scared? Did you ever get fearful? Have I ever been trapped on the receiving end of a plot to kill me? Vulnerable before protection on one hand and animosity on the other?
Not as far as I know. And in the midst of all of that, we discover that God's plans and purposes will not be thwarted, that God uses unexpected means to save his servant, to save his servants. And it's difficult as it is to work our way through this narrative, because there is so much that is repetitive in it, and there's nothing that is peculiarly didactic. I mean, it's not like working through an epistle where he's saying, and do this, and do that, and do the next thing, and do the next thing. We're just reading this unfolding story.
And then he went there, and then they said that, and then they said the next thing. If it's hard to listen to it, it's not easy to preach. I mean, in one sense, I can't wait to get to chapter 28, and you're probably even keener than I am. But here's the deal. Don't miss the obvious.
In looking for the peculiar, don't miss the low-hanging fruit. Who would have thought that a little boy would uncover the plot? Who would have thought that a Roman soldier would be so courteous and so kind? Who would have thought that a lamb would rescue the souls of men? Who would have thought that God would set his love upon me, his love upon you, to reach his world with the good news?
Who would have thought? But he does, and he has, and he will. Father, thank you for the Bible. Thank you for your grace and goodness to Paul. Thank you for the example of his fortitude and his courage. Thank you for the reminder that you work in the framework of our culture, using the structures that you've established, even as surely as you use them to protect Paul from the hatred and animosity of his enemies. Thank you that you pick up unnamed and faceless people, even little ones, and use them to fulfill your plan.
We think of the story of the feeding of the five thousand and the boy who was there. We don't know his name, we don't know where he came from, we don't know anything apart from the fact that you showed how magnificent you are by taking what he had to offer and using it to display your power on that day. Thank you for displaying your power in these circumstances that we've considered today. And when we find ourselves under the challenge of the scrutiny of those who are opposed to the gospel, we ask that we might have the necessary grace and encouragement to stand firm, that we might arise in the way that we sang just a moment or two ago, that the church of God might be like a mighty army—not a bunch of wimps, not a bunch of folks running for cover or seeking only to be identified by what we don't know and what we don't believe and what we don't like, but rather, Lord, fill us up with the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, send us out in your power, that we may have conviction and clarity in what we say, and that you will give us a genuine sense of compassion for those who are not like us, for those who do not believe, indeed for those who are opposed to us. May the grace and mercy and peace of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit rest upon each one, now and forevermore.
Amen. You're listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. You know, as you support this listener-funded daily program, one of the ways we say thank you is by inviting you to request books that we recommend. Today we're recommending a book titled An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul, His Life, Ministry, and Missionary Journeys. This is a book that paints a vivid picture of Paul's life and ministry, providing historical, cultural, and geographic background to the people, places, and events Paul encountered as he preached the Gospel and helped establish the early church. According to the author of the book, there are few other figures of early Christian history more influential and more compelling than the Apostle Paul. He wrote 13 letters that form a third of the New Testament. He was a pastor, a missionary, and a theologian who shaped Christianity by preaching, teaching, and explaining the message of Jesus. Today is the last day we're offering an illustrated guide to the Apostle Paul, so be sure to ask for your copy today when you donate to support the Bible teaching ministry of Truth for Life.
Go to truthforlife.org slash donate. And by the way, if you have not yet booked your 2025 vacation plans, what about joining Alistair and me on a deeper faith cruise? Alistair is opening God's word throughout the 10-day adventure.
It sets sail out of Lisbon, Portugal on November 10th. For more information, visit deeperfaithcruise.com. Thanks for listening. Normally in a court of law, the defendant waits for the judge's decision, but tomorrow we'll see that the Apostle Paul turned the tables on his accusers. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
