Losing Your Cool

This is where God's sovereign power now invades the story in a special way. There are several things. Verse 16, Paul's nephew is at the right place at the right time.

Who is this kid? There's a centurion. And verse 17 is willing to be commanded by Paul. What's Paul a prisoner telling this commander, hey, would you do this? And he did it. And then finally, verse 23, the might of the Roman army now surrounds Paul like a king. And he's about to ride out of Jerusalem surrounded by 70 horsemen and 200 spearmen.

And there are 40 very hungry men who don't have a chance. This might be embarrassing to think about, but have you ever lost your temper? Maybe someone said something to you and you responded in angry frustration. Maybe you had to apologize later as things cooled down a little bit. If that's happened to you, you're going to be encouraged from Stephen's message today.

You see, even the apostle Paul reacted angrily and blew his testimony in front of a crowd. It can happen to any of us. But the good news is that even when we are unfaithful, God remains faithful. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today's message is called Losing Your Cool. Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem several decades ago with some famous lines in it. A poem entitled If, hear the words, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about, refuse to deal in lies or being hated, don't give way to hating. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, then you'll be a man, my son.

Perhaps the best known line of this poem is the first line which says in effect, you have arrived, you are truly mature if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. The people that have displayed character like that would be part of an elite group of people that I'm sure we would hear ourselves saying of them something like, man, they have it together. When everybody else is losing their heads, they are keeping theirs. They are keeping their cool.

They are keeping control of their emotions. If there is anybody in the New Testament that you and I would agree that had it together, it would have been the Apostle Paul, right? If there is anyone who could keep his head, it would be him. But even Paul lost his cool. And I invite your attention to that moment in the book of Acts. Let's return there in our study through this book. And in fairness to Paul, let's refresh our memories with what brought him to this moment.

I think we would all agree that we probably would have as well. In Acts chapter 21, if you were with us, you remember that Paul was misunderstood and maligned, misquoted. He is treated unfairly as it were by the believing Jews of the church that accused him of leading people astray. And then a riot breaks out in the temple as he goes at the suggestion or recommendation of the church leadership to the temple to prove that he wasn't against the law to have those days of purification. And that's where the riot breaks out and they begin to beat Paul.

And now he's bleeding and broken. And the mob is incited against him. And you remember, he asks to speak to the crowd and he delivers that wonderful testimony of the grace of God. But when he reaches the point where he told them that God's grace is extended not just to the Jew, but to the Gentile, they begin to scream again away with him. And the Roman took him away and there were the soldiers.

You remember perhaps that he was about to be beaten. And so this has undoubtedly been one of his worst weeks in ministry, I'm sure. Then you get to chapter 23 and he finally stands before the Jewish Supreme Court, the high court of the land, the Sanhedrin, these 70 men. And Paul, verse one, looking intently at the council said, brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day. And the high priest, Ananias, commanded those standing beside him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall. Frankly, Paul had had it. This slap in the face was the straw that broke the apostles' cool.

And he lets loose here a string of inappropriate and disrespectful words that as soon as they're out of his mouth, I believe, from what happens next, he wished he could have them back. Paul isn't finished, by the way. Look at the next phrase. And do you sit to try me according to the law and in violation of the law order me to be struck? Now Paul's right here, you know. The high priest who is seated there to administer the law breaks the law.

You don't administer punishment before the verdict is rendered. And so the one that was supposed to protect the law, seated before the man who was there accused of being a law breaker, now breaks the law himself. It was because of, however, that whitewashed wall bit that the bystanders responded to Paul in verse four. Do you revile God's high priest?

They're going back to that first part. And Paul said, oh, I was not aware, brethren, that he was high priest, for it is written you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. This is, by the way, one of those texts that has drawn some men and students of the word to believe that Paul's thorn in the flesh was his eyesight, his poor, his difficulty with his eyesight. This was his physical infirmity. For whatever reason, Paul admits his error, though, immediately and apologizes for his angry words against the highest office in the land.

If there's anybody you're going to insult, it's not this one. Paul goes on, I think probably realizing the trial is, for the most part, over. And he certainly won't get a fair hearing now. In verse six, perceiving that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he knew that, Paul began crying out on the council, brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees, and I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead. Verse seven, and as he said this, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit, there's no immaterial being, but the Pharisees acknowledged them all. And there arose a great uproar, and some of the scribes of the Pharisaic party stood up and began to argue heatedly, saying, we find nothing wrong with this man.

Suppose a spirit or an angel has spoken to him. And as a great dissension was developing, the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them, and ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force, and bring him into the barracks. This poor commander has rescued Paul from three riots now, and here's another one.

Now let's stop for a moment and kind of pull some things together. Paul had dreamed for months, perhaps even longer of this moment, of being able to return to Jerusalem and to speak to men that he knew. In fact, when he addressed the Sanhedrin, he didn't use the typical protocol address, at least the initiation of it, which referred to these men as, oh rulers of Israel, oh elders of the people. He said, brothers. He had been a member of the Sanhedrin. In fact, in a later chapter, he references the fact that he voted with them, and only a Sanhedrinist could vote in that matter.

He knew these men, and he had longed for the day when he could return to men he knew by name, and tell them of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, the trial had gotten out of hand almost immediately, and he knew the problem had been his uncontrolled tongue, his own anger. Actually, the failure of Paul fell on three different fronts. Let me give you three of them.

Number one, he reacted in angry frustration. We talked about that, but let me make another side note. The white head wall was a reference to a wall that was decaying that someone had covered with a fresh coat of paint to cover the corrosion, to cover up the decay. It's kind of like the house that Marcia and I bought. It's about 25 years old, and it had been freshly painted. We discovered why later.

That's the reference here. The only other time this phrase is used is a moment when Jesus Christ told the Pharisees and scribes that they represented whitehead sepulchres. That is, whitehead gravestones, headstones. The point was a month before Passover, they would put a fresh coat of white paint on all the headstones to warn people that they were getting near one, because if they touched one, they would be ceremonially unclean, unable to celebrate in the Passover. And so they would whitewash the headstones. He was in effect saying to the religion of his day the same thing that we can say to the religion of our day. It looks good, but it represents death, not life. He was telling the high priest that he looked good. He represented something that was supposedly good, but this man was really representing death, corrosion, decay.

Very powerful metaphor. Number two, he apologized with a minimal recantation. He said the least amount possible.

We've been there, haven't we? Notice in verse five, his apology was directed not at the high priest, but toward the office of the high priest. He realized he had been wrong, but he just couldn't bring himself to apologize to this skunk of a man who the historian Josephus tells us from the first century was a cruel and violent and corrupt man who was always stealing from the people.

And so when Paul realized what had happened, he apologized to the high office, but Ann and I isn't going to get a word out of me. Third, he contradicted the example of Christ's own passion. In John 18, the Lord Jesus was standing before the high priest, and he also was struck in the face. The high priest allowed it, and Jesus Christ responded with the last part of what Paul said. He said, in effect, you who uphold the law are now violating the law by striking me, but Jesus Christ did not say the first part. You see, when he was reviled, he reviled not in return. And here's Paul, and you can kind of climb into his sandals and feel with him a man who desperately, deeply wanted to know Christ and experientially understand the power of his resurrection and to experience the fellowship of his sufferings. And now at this moment, he is in effect in the exact spot of the Lord, and he loses control. And he immediately regrets it. He did not respond like Christ.

And I have to say, who among us today would have? We have all known the truth of the words penned by that anonymous author who wrote, speak when you are angry, and you will deliver the best speech you'll ever regret. Now, just imagine for a moment what Paul must have felt like as he sat under heavy guard in the Roman barrack. He is recognizing the full impact of his failure.

Here was his one opportunity before the High Court, and he couldn't keep his tongue. One commentator colorfully took me by way of imagination, and I want to take you to that room where he is heavily guarded. He writes it this way. Imagine he is leaning with his back against the wall.

He sits with his legs drawn up and his head resting on his forearms. He is exhausted but cannot sleep because of the guilt that whips him as hard as any scourging. He says to himself, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to preach the gospel to the highest Jewish officials in the world, and I blew it. How stupid I was to lose my temper. I, the great apostle?

Hardly. The great failure is more like it. How encouraging this passage in Acts must have been to the church in the first century, right? How encouraging to the saints throughout the ages, even to the very auditorium filled with people today who want to do the right thing and who want to stay under control and who want their tongues to speak only that which is pleasing. How encouraging this must have been. Here's a man who had ruined an opportunity because of his temper.

We like him are people who have seen opportunities go their way because someone has pushed the button too hard or pushed the wrong one, and we want to be a testimony to this world, but they just took us too far. Or maybe even with those who know the Lord, we have in frustration and failure failed to keep our heads when everyone around us was losing theirs. It's at this moment, ladies and gentlemen, in the life of Paul when the Lord came, this is where it's so encouraging.

He stood by Paul, notice verse 11, but on the night immediately following the Lord stood at his side and said, take courage. You could translate that in fact right into the margin of your Bibles and amplified phrases. It could be translated, don't lose hope. It could be translated, don't give up.

It could be rendered take heart. In fact, there are five times in the New Testament that Jesus Christ used this particular expression and it was always to people who were in desperate need of encouragement. He used the phrase to the paralyzed man who had given up on ever being healed. Jesus Christ came along to validate his authenticity as the Messiah. He looked at this man and he said, take heart, son. Your sins are forgiven. Matthew nine and he was healed to the woman who had suffered for 12 years.

She'd spent all the money she had on the medical community and she was no better. She finally in desperation went to where Jesus was walking and she reached out and grabbed the hem of his garment just for a moment and he stopped and he turned and he said, daughter, take heart. Your faith has made you whole. The disciples are out in a storm on the boat and they're terrified thinking they'll lose their lives and then they see Jesus walking toward them on top of the water, which made it even worse. They thought it was a ghost and his first words to them were men, don't give up.

Same words. And then on the night when Jesus Christ was facing his darkest hour before his betrayal, he said to his men in the upper room, these words, men don't lose heart. And now Paul, he hears these words again, Paul, don't give up. The grace of God sort of blew into that room and a man who probably thought that God would never send him to Rome, why would he send him to Rome, which he desperately wanted to do to testify when he blew it in Jerusalem or at least before the Sanhedrin. But Jesus at that moment puts a covering around his glory and he walks into the barracks and he walks over to the side of Paul and he says, Paul, don't give up. Notice for as you have solemnly witnessed to my cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also. You see the wonderful thing about this narrative, ladies and gentlemen, is not Paul's faithfulness, but it's all about the faithfulness of who? God. And he demonstrated his faithfulness three different ways.

Let me give them to you. Number one, he encouraged Paul's spirit. We've already talked about that with the words he used. Second of all, he affirmed Paul's testimony, which you say, wait a second, I thought Paul blew it.

Well, he did. In fact, if you look carefully at the affirmation of the Lord, you notice that the Lord sort of skipped that part before the Sanhedrin and he talks about Paul's testimony where? In Jerusalem. You see, this would include his wonderful speech to the mob. This would include his declaration of truth before the Jerusalem church. And so the Lord, who was so gracious, reflected on what Paul had done well and commended him for it. You don't see the Lord coming in here saying, listen, Paul, about that explosion in front of the Sanhedrin.

What in the world got into you? Could have? You know why he didn't?

I think, and I'm guessing here, but here's my guess. Because the Lord knew that Paul knew that he had ruined an opportunity. In fact, in light of what the Lord is doing and reinstating him and his vision implies to me that Paul has already dealt with that before the Lord.

Maybe like you have dealt with it and your time when you knew that you ruined it, you lost the opportunity, you lost your cool. The third revelation of God's faithfulness was that he announced Paul's future. Verse 11, Paul, you're going to Rome. That must have been so encouraging. That's like striking out in the ninth inning, the bases are loaded, two out, you're up and you let three go by. And the coach the next day says, you're starting. Paul, you did ruin this opportunity here, but you're still in the game. Now, the conspiracy is in motion while our clock is ticking.

We better hurry. Verse 12, when it was day, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under an oath saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul. That's a nice group of men. And there were more than 40 who formed this plot. By the way, these 40 men were zealots. We studied the assassins a few weeks ago. Their official name was assassin. These were professional killers who rubbed out pro-Roman Jews, who assassinated Roman leaders. They were known by their name, Sicari, which was the dagger.

They kept it in their cloak and they would sidle up to someone that was their target in a marketplace where it was crowded and they would stab their target and slip away before anyone could identify them. And one of the things that interested me enough to bring to you here is, again, the relationship between Paul and the Lord. Just as the Sanhedrin and the assassins are now attempting, collaborating to kill Paul, so another assassin collaborated with the high council to kill Jesus Christ. That man was named Judas Iscariot, derivative of Sicari. He was an assassin.

He was a man of the dagger. And he had associated himself with Jesus Christ, thinking that Jesus Christ would overthrow Rome and so I'll throw in my political lot with him. But when he realized that Jesus Christ was going to hang on a cross and die, he betrayed him. Well, here there are 40 Judases, 40 devoted men to the plan to kill Paul. And you notice they vowed not to eat or drink until he is dead.

Well, they're going to lose a lot of weight. Skip to verse 16. But the son of Paul's sister. We hear here that Paul has a sister. The son of Paul's sister, Paul's nephew, heard of their ambush and he came and entered the barracks and told Paul. And Paul called one of the Santerians to him and said, lead this young man to the commander for he has something to report to him. So he took him and led him to the commander and said, Paul, the prisoner called me to him and asked me to lead this young man to you since he has something to tell you. And the commander took him by the hand and stepping aside, began to inquire of him privately. What is it that you have to report to me? And he said, the Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down tomorrow to the council as though they're going to inquire somewhat more thoroughly about him.

In other words, here's the plot. You bring him back to court and we'll ambush him on the way and we'll we'll rub him out. Verse 21. So do not listen to them for more than 40 of them are lying and wait for him who have bound themselves under a curse not to eat or drink until they slay him. And now they are ready and waiting for the promise from you. Therefore, the commander let the young man go instructing him, tell no one that you have notified me of these things.

Now stop a moment. A lot of things that a sovereign God is now putting into place by virtue of this power. He promised Paul, Paul, you're going to Rome. Well, how's Paul ever going to get away from this conspiracy? 40 men committed to the point they won't eat until he's dead.

Not a chance. This is where God's sovereign power now invades the story in a special way. There are several things. Verse 16. Paul's nephew is at the right place at the right time.

Who was this kid? Was he just kind of like a little alley rat? He's just slipping in and around the Sanhedrin and maybe they knew him because they knew Paul and they'd forgotten that he's listening and but he was at the right place at the right time. Verse 16, the latter part, he's able to reach Paul in this heavily guarded barrack. There's a centurion in verse 17 is willing to be commanded by Paul. What's Paul a prisoner telling this commander, hey, would you do this? Or he didn't say, would you? He said, do this.

And he did it. Verse 22, the nephew is able to slip away without anybody knowing. And then finally, well, another thought, verse 23, the might of the Roman army now surrounds Paul. Look at verse 23. And he called to him two of the centurions and said, get 200 soldiers ready by the third hour of the night to proceed to Caesarea with 70 horsemen and 200 spearmen.

Can you imagine this? Here's Paul protected like a king. And he's about to ride out of Jerusalem surrounded by 70 horsemen and 200 spearmen.

And there are 40 very hungry men who don't have a chance. Another thing, the commander here just before Paul leaves was moved to write a letter on behalf of Paul. Verse 26, Claudius Lysias to the most excellent governor Felix greetings. When this man was arrested by the Jews and was about to be slain by them, I came upon them with troops and rescued him having learned that he was a Roman and wanting to ascertain the charge for which they were accusing him, I brought him down to their council and I found him to be accused of a question about their law but under no accusation deserving death or imprisonment.

Wow. What would motivate a pagan Roman commander to put his reputation on the line for an unknown Jew that has caused him nothing but trouble for the last few days. A sovereign God who holds the heart of the king in his hand. And he can turn it any way he wants.

Three things. The death of God's servants can occur only when God who is in control of all things is ready. Stephen preached one sermon. You remember in the book of Acts, that was his last sermon. He was stoned to death. Here Paul, he's in one riot after another and he's still breathing.

Why? Because God is sovereign and his servants do not die premature death. Second, the failure of God's servants most often occur when they forget that God is sovereign. You lose control when you forget that God is in control.

You have taken upon yourself far too much responsibility when it comes to testifying if you lose your temper in the midst of it. We forget, which leads me to the final thought, the faithfulness of God's sovereignty is not handicapped by whether or not we remember. He allows for us to forget.

God's providence is not dismantled by our panic. God still had plans for him and he still has plans for you and for me. I'm so glad you joined us today for this time in God's Word. Stephen Davey is our Bible teacher here on Wisdom for the Heart and we'll continue through this series from our Vintage Wisdom Archives next time. Between now and then we'd really enjoy hearing from you and learning how God is using this ministry to build you up in the faith. Peter from here in North Carolina wrote to say, I can't put into words what your teaching has done for my devotional time. I listen to the message each morning, then do my Bible reading.

My relationship with my Savior has deepened and God has shown me areas of my life that have been displeasing. Thank you for your faithful stewardship of God's Word. And thank you, Peter, for writing. Our desire is to help you grow in your love for God as you meet him in his Word. Friend, please take a few moments and drop us a note. Our mailing address is Wisdom for the Heart, PO Box 37297, Raleigh North Carolina 27627. You can also interact with us online.

Wisdom International is active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We also have a YouTube channel where a new Bible message is posted each day. Once again, I hope this time in God's Word was a blessing to you. Thanks for joining us. We're honored that you did. I'm Scott Wiley and for Steven and all of us here, I invite you back next time for more Wisdom for the Heart.