The Lion’s Mouth

When life gets complicated, when things seem impossible, we can be tempted to think that God has abandoned us. But the Apostle Paul's final days in a Roman dungeon tell a completely different story.

And today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg reminds us that in every circumstance we can take comfort knowing that God's presence will accomplish his purpose. And we are looking together at the verses that begin 14 all the way through to verse 18. I think we understand now, given the fact that Paul is in jail, that he is living under the threat of his execution, that the Roman government was no friend to Paul. It would be also true to say that the Roman government was not Paul's enemy.

But it had zero tolerance for anyone who was going to proclaim another king, even as Paul had so clearly been proclaiming that Jesus Christ is a king and that he is establishing a heavenly kingdom, and that he, although born as a Jew, had encountered Jesus, been encountered by him, and as a result of that, Jesus was now Lord of his life. And it was on account of that and nothing else that he found himself where he was in this situation in a Roman dungeon. And there had been various attempts, to this point, on his life for the monster, as it were, for the lion, to devour him. Whatever that metaphor means, it's clear when you read the life of Paul, as you make your way through the Acts of the Apostles, every attempt, whether it was by the state or whoever it was to devour him, had been unsuccessful, because, as he tells us here, he had been rescued from the lion's mouth.

We'll come back to that as we end. He has told Timothy already that his suffering as a prisoner in chains should be understood in light of the fact that although he himself is chained, that God's Word is not chained. And when he makes his defense before the various authorities in prospect of his arrival at Rome, he declares, unashamedly and unequivocally, his allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, he who is, as he says in 1 Timothy 6.15, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

A very important and vital reminder on every day, but not least of all today. Now, in these closing comments, it is very obvious, too, that Paul is not a one-man band, that he is surrounded by, some have estimated, as many as a hundred men and women who would form part, if you like, of the extended team, making possible the effective ministry of Paul. And that's why, when you read his letters, there are all these names scattered throughout, because these were his companions in the gospel. No one lives to himself and dies to himself.

We're always better together than any of us are on our own. And in the vast majority of cases, these people are mentioned on account of the fact that they were a source of encouragement to him. But there were exceptions. One of the exceptions we noticed a couple of weeks ago, in Demas, in verse 10, who, in love with the present world, had deserted Paul and gone to Thessalonica. And now, in verse 14, we're introduced to another character, namely Alexander the coppersmith. Now, as I read and reread these verses and moved them around on my sheet, I determined that the only way that I could come to terms with this was by employing four verbs to help me view Paul in this context.

And here they are. First of all, we see him opposed. Then we see him deserted. Then we see him strengthened.

And then we see him rescued. First of all, then, Paul, as he describes himself, opposed. Now, he's being opposed by Alexander the coppersmith.

That's not a great deal of help to us, is it? Do you know who Alexander the coppersmith is? Have you ever met him?

No, you clearly haven't. But this was presumably, by designation, a way for Paul to let the initial readers know that he was referring to this particular Alexander rather than that particular Alexander—in the same way that somebody might say, John, and you say, Well, which John do you mean? And then we would apply some designation to help us. What we do know, and what Paul wants us to know, is that this Alexander, whoever he was, did him great harm. Not a wee bit of harm, but great harm. He really harmed him. Now, what did he do to him?

We don't know. What we do know is that he harmed him greatly and how Paul responded to the harm that he knew. And the answer to that is in the balance of verse 14, the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

Now, you will notice that that is a statement. It's not a prayer. There's nothing vindictive in Paul's response. He says, I was greatly harmed by Alexander the coppersmith, or the metal worker, and the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

This is not an unfamiliar notion. Jesus makes this clear in his ministry, and you find it scattered throughout the Bible. For example, Paul, in Romans chapter 2, and in verse 5, because of your hard and impenitent heart, you're storing up wrath for yourself.

On the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed, God will actually execute a righteous judgment. And here's verse 6. He will render to each one according to his works.

He will render to each one according to his works. You find the same thing in 2 Corinthians 11. You find it scattered throughout the Psalms.

You find it in the teaching of Jesus. In other words, the Judge of all the earth will do right. There is a higher throne, there is a higher court, than the highest courts of the empires of the world. And on that day, when the accounts are settled, then you may be confident that the Judge of all the earth will do right. He is the one who judges justly. And what may be less than we hope for today nevertheless will be resolved in the purposes of God. So he says, I have been harmed by him, I have been opposed by him, the Lord will repay him according to his deeds, but I want you, verse 15, Timothy, to beware of him yourself. You see, Paul's great concern is not personal injury. Paul's great concern throughout this whole letter is the gospel, the message of the gospel. That's what he's been on about from the beginning. I want you to keep us a pattern of sound doctrine. Guard the good deposit. Make sure that you don't deviate from course.

Make sure that you teach this so that other people will understand it, and so on. So it makes perfect sense that when opposition comes to the message of the gospel, to the gospel itself, he's concerned lest Timothy should succumb to anything that reaches him by way of this kind of opposition. It's an important point, though, isn't it? Because we already saw a week or two back that there was a disagreement between Paul and Barnabas. But it wasn't a disagreement about the gospel. It was a disagreement about whether John Mark was a good fellow to take on the next missionary journey.

That could come and go, that could be resolved in different ways. But the concern here is opposition to the message. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message.

That's why it's so important, loved ones, that we understand together what this message is, what the gospel really is, and what it encompasses in its entirety—that it is opposition ultimately to the truth of the gospel in Jesus that is the great opposition. Opposed. Secondly, deserted. Deserted. Verse 16. At my first offense, presumably this preliminary hearing—which you legal folks know about before finally they go to trial—at the preliminary hearing, I take it, that no one came to stand by me but all deserted me.

What a lonely experience! It's quite hard to imagine why Paul was left alone, isn't it? Why he was abandoned in that moment. After all, the legal system allowed for an advocate to speak on his behalf. It allowed for witnesses to be called for the defense, again, to stand with him as the government brought their charges against him, and yet there was nobody there. It says, Plummer, amazingly, among all the Christians in Rome, there was not one who would stand at his side in court either to speak on his behalf or to advise him in the conduct of his case or to support him by a demonstration of sympathy. But notice once again, as with Alexander, he doesn't respond by saying, I'll get him back. The Lord will take care of that. Now he says, At my first defense no one came to stand by me, they all deserted me. Now notice his response.

May it not be charged against them. Now, that is only grace that allows you to respond in that way. He had been deserted, but he wasn't disgruntled. Some of us have been deserted, and it just made us disgruntled. Some of us found ourselves alone, and it became an occasion of bitterness.

Some of us actually this morning may have been limping our way through the last little period of our lives because of resentment in relationship to the fact that someone was not where they needed to be when I thought they needed to be there, especially in support of me in my circumstances, whatever they might be. Now, you see, you stand, and you look at this, or you sit, and you gaze at that, and you say, What an amazing thing! How amazing is the grace of God! What leads a man chained in a dungeon prior deserted by his friends to say, Father, don't charge them! I wonder if in his mind's eye he went to the scene at the end of Acts chapter 7, where around his feet are the cloaks and garments of those who are stoning Stephen, when in his ear he can only hear the sound of stones hitting the soft body of Stephen, and how, as he views this scene, as Stephen lifts his eyes to heaven, presumably Saul of Tarsus could not believe his ears as the man cried out, Lord, do not hold this charge against them! For Stephen was walking the way of Jesus. They all deserted him and fled on the night of Gethsemane.

That's what Mark tells us. And on the cross, nailed there, deserted by his friends and opposed by the authorities, he prayed, Father, forgive them, because they don't know what they're doing. I just say a word parenthetically—a word to myself, a word to you, two verses, perhaps, to anchor in our thinking as we view this example and as we gauge our own lives against it. Hebrews 12 15, See to it that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble. See to it, in Paul's words in Ephesians 4, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Such a high standard. How could we ever do this apart from the grace of God? Only in the awareness of the fact that I have so much for which I need to be forgiven, that God in the immensity of his love has taken and credited me the righteousness of Jesus Christ, a credit that is entirely undeserved. Why would I then do anything other than grant to people something of that same measure of forgiveness? You know, Paul says that God has entrusted us with a message of reconciliation, that God was in Christ not counting their sins against them, because he was counting their sins against his Son Jesus. It's really hard to think about going out to proclaim a message of reconciliation to a war-torn world if we can't even be reconciled to one another within a family, within a church, within a community. You see, it just doesn't work.

That's why this is so compelling. I was opposed. The Lord will take care of it.

I was deserted. May it not be held against them. Thirdly, strengthened. The absence of human support made the presence of Jesus all the more precious. The Lord stood by me and strengthened me.

It's a wonderful picture, isn't it? You can read it in the Acts of the Apostles as well. He's now saying, I experienced what I urge you to experience, Timothy. He began chapter 2, You then my son, I think it was, you then my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And Timothy must have said, Okay, I definitely need the grace, and the strength is in Christ Jesus. And now, as he is urged to come and join him in this dungeon, he's not coming to meet some dispirited, disgruntled old soldier, but he's coming to meet somebody who, under the shadow of execution, is praying forgiveness on those who have deserted him, is entrusting those who have opposed him to the justice of God, and who is longing for the companionship of this fellow. And in the meantime, he is experiencing the enabling, strengthening power of God. The Lord stood by and gave me strength.

You can read of this in the Acts of the Apostles as well, Acts chapter 23, when he is taken out of a situation of chaos and put in the barracks, and he's there by himself. And once again, in his extremity, the word of the Lord came to him and spoke to him and strengthened him and helped him. The Lord stood by him and spoke courage to him. And you will notice that the reason for his presence with him is in order to fulfill his purpose through him. The Lord didn't stand by him and strengthen him just so that he would feel okay. He did it in order that through him—through me, he says—the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.

In other words, the reason for Paul's existence was so that the Gentile world and kings and the children of Israel would hear the gospel. That is why God had created him, that is why God had saved him, and that was why God had brought him all the way through all of these circumstances and brought him from the experience of a dungeon in Jerusalem now to a dungeon in Rome, so that he would be able to affirm the testimony of the psalmist, My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. His flesh and his heart was failing. He is under the shadow of execution.

He's walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Says Calvin, it was no small confirmation of his ministry that when the whole world foamed in madness against him and all human assistance failed him, still he remained unshaken. So from the outside, all hell is let loose against him.

He turns around looking for companionship, and all he meets is silence. But the Lord stood by. See, this is the gospel. This is what it means to be embraced by the gospel. This is what it means when all the other stuff begins to be pared away from us, as it will one day be pared away from us, as we face death, all of the things we've been able to do and accomplish and the things that we have on our walls that say how significant we are—all of those things.

They're not irrelevant, but they will all be gone. And what will we then be able to say? I have one defense. The Lord, he stands by me. Now let me, as I move to the final word and briefly, just make this point again, that the presence of the Lord with him is directly related to the purpose of the Lord for him, so that it's a hinna clause in Greek. It is the Lord stood by me and strengthened me in order that through me the message might be fully proclaimed.

Why would we be surprised? Remember what Jesus said? Now he says, Fellas, I want you to go out into all the world. I want you to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations. And behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age. So the promise of the Lord's presence was directly related to the fulfillment of the Lord's purpose. Remember, when Paul was converted, Ananias was told, Listen, Ananias, I know you're diffident about this project, but you need to know that this guy, Saul of Tarsus, is a chosen instrument for me and by me to bear my name before the Gentiles. And you see, what's being described here is a magnificent scene.

It's possible for us almost to miss it. At my first offense, nobody was around, but the Lord was around. He helped me so that I could preach. So, he doesn't say, And the Lord came and gave me strength, and so I made a big appeal for clemency. The Lord came by and gave me strength, and I said, Get me out of this prison, would you? Or he said, Can you have a few people come and help me?

No, he says, The reason the Lord stood by me was in order that I might do what I was put on the earth to do, in order that the gospel message might be fully proclaimed. An amazing opportunity. Rome, the center of it all, a representative city and a representative empire full of all these people. The Gentiles of the world, the kings and the authorities, the Nero's, and the people who have power of execution, and so on. And here they bring up this little converted Jew, and what does he do? In his final opportunity, he says, Well, I thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak. Let me tell you what I want to tell you today. I want to tell you that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus is Lord and King. I want to tell you that forgiveness is found in him. I want you to know that he is raised from the dead and that God has appointed a day of judgment that we will all face, and his proof is in the resurrection of his Son. I met him.

I can tell you it's true. And this Jesus is ascended, and he is glorified, and one day he will return. Can you imagine as the people sat there and said, Have you ever heard anything like this in your life?

In the shadow of death, this is what he does? The LORD stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be proclaimed, and all the Gentiles might hear it. You see, the word would go out from there.

The people went home at the end of that hearing. They said, We had a hearing with that Paul fellow. What did he say?

Oh, you're not going to believe it. And someone met someone, and they said, You know what he said, and you know what he said. And before you know, the message is spreading again and again and again, because one man was prepared to do what God had called him to do, strengthened by the presence of the God who had called him. Opposed, deserted, strengthened, and we come full circle with rescued. Because now we're back at the lion's mouth. I was rescued from the lion's mouth. Whatever that metaphor means, as I say, we know that whatever it was in specific terms, Paul, like Daniel in the den, had been rescued. I wonder, did he have that in mind?

I don't know. What a scene that was. Incidentally, you go back to Daniel and the king coming down, shouting in the morning, and God shut the lion's mouth. God is able to shut the mouths of lions. God can do what he does. And so he says, I'm confident that I will be rescued from every evil deed.

What does that mean? That nothing bad will ever happen to me again? That I'm not going to die?

No, that nothing that God doesn't want for me will happen to me. What can harm you when everything passes through the hand of a loving Father? And look at where he ends. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. You can imagine him saying to himself, To God be the glory. Great things he has done. So loved he the world that he gave us his Son, who yielded his life and atonement for sin and opened the life gate that I could go in. It's a great summary, isn't it? Paul, I think by his example, encourages us to remember always the presence of God, to find our rest always in the will of God, and to direct all of our endeavors to the glory of God.

We can find great comfort in knowing that God is always with us. You're listening to Truth for Life Weekend and a message from Alistair Begg in our series titled Guard the Truth. If you're looking for a study to do with your small group, we want to recommend to you one of Truth for Life's most popular series. It's titled Pathway to Freedom. It's a study of the Ten Commandments.

It comes on a USB. It includes 12 messages from Alistair that will challenge you to obey and follow God's law. There's also a corresponding study guide that contains key scriptures, commentary, and questions for each of Alistair's messages. The Pathway to Freedom USB and study guide can be used for personal reflection, but let me suggest that it's ideal for group discussion, particularly for students and young adults who need to understand the relevance of God's law. Find both the study guide and the USB when you visit us online at truthforlife.org. While you're there, be sure to check out Alistair's book on the Ten Commandments by the same name, Pathway to Freedom. It'll challenge you to think long and hard about the significance of God's law, but this is the last weekend I'll mention this book on our program, so be sure to visit our website truthforlife.org to learn more. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. I hope you'll join us next weekend for the final message in our series called Guard the Truth, as we consider three simple but enduring lessons from the Apostle Paul's postscript in 2 Timothy. The Bible teaching of Alistair Beggs, Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.