God's Ways, Our Ways
Acts 25-26
One of the great surprises to
intelligent Christians is the way God treats our prayers. We often ask for
something we know is in his will, and we get it - but not in the way we asked
for it. Perhaps Paul is seeing something like that here:
(Acts 25:1-12 NIV) Three days after arriving in the
province, Festus went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem, {2} where the chief
priests and Jewish leaders appeared before him and presented the charges
against Paul. {3} They urgently requested Festus, as a favor to them, to have
Paul transferred to Jerusalem, for they were preparing an ambush to kill him
along the way. {4} Festus answered, "Paul is being held at Caesarea, and I
myself am going there soon. {5} Let some of your leaders come with me and press
charges against the man there, if he has done anything wrong." {6} After
spending eight or ten days with them, he went down to Caesarea, and the next
day he convened the court and ordered that Paul be brought before him. {7} When
Paul appeared, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him,
bringing many serious charges against him, which they could not prove. {8} Then
Paul made his defense: "I have done nothing wrong against the law of the
Jews or against the temple or against Caesar." {9} Festus, wishing to do
the Jews a favor, said to Paul, "Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and
stand trial before me there on these charges?" {10} Paul answered: "I
am now standing before Caesar's court, where I ought to be tried. I have not
done any wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well. {11} If, however, I
am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if the
charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to
hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!" {12} After Festus had conferred
with his council, he declared: "You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you
will go!"
How God Works
Do you suppose that Paul had this
all figured out before it happened? I think not. God often works in
"mysterious ways." Here are some of them:
The Unexpected Way
Paul has determined to go to
Rome, to preach the Gospel at the center of the civilized world. His travel
agent, as it turns out, is the Roman government. Did Paul have this in mind, or
something a bit more comfortable? Whichever way it is, Paul is going to Rome,
as we shall see. But this is no accident:
·
It is conditioned on Paul's obedience. God works his wonders for
those who obey him - and He works them to those who do not. Paul's
obedience to God's will has given him God's protection in that work.
·
It is conditioned on Paul's patience. We have seen that this
trial has taken two years of imprisonment to come about. At any time Paul
could have offered Felix a bribe. Paul preferred to wait upon God's timing.
·
This is a way of showing us that the foolishness of God is
greater than the wisdom of man.
Paul's enemies think they are destroying him. Actually, they are spreading the
Gospel by their actions.
Moral Judo
The temptation to the Christian
in this situation is to fight fire with fire. Get the slickest lawyer you can
hire; grease palms all the way around; find some political allies.
That's not God's way:
·
As Paul shows us here, we must overcome evil with good.
Do not pick up the weapons of Satan, for if you do, you join his forces.
·
Our weapons, therefore, are not of this world.
Bribery, slick talk, political alliances are not for the Christian. Rather we
must choose the weapons God has provided for us - because the weapons of the
world cannot defeat them.
·
What are those weapons? Paul outlines them for us in the
"whole armor of God" passage, Ephesians 6:13-18.
The key is this: if you will use
God's weapons, and those alone, the weapons of this world are powerless against
God's cause.
God working "in all
things."
We often forget just who is in
charge of this universe. This leads us to believe that God does not hear us.
But remember:
·
Christ is the creator and sustainer of the entire
universe.
·
As such, the Bible explicitly declares to us that He works all
things together for the good of those who love him.
We often mistake this. Satan's
argument is this:
·
If God denies your request, this is proof that he does not answer
prayer.
·
If He grants your request, you can usually see how the request
was granted. Therefore, "it was going to happen anyway." So even
when you got what you wanted, God didn't answer.
This logic depends upon two
fallacies. First, that God is not wiser than we are. We equate getting what
we want with answered prayer. But we wouldn't do that with our children!
Second, that the universe is somehow independent of him. Both are indeed
fallacies. If God grants your request, you should see how it was done - for it
was done in his creation.
So there it is. His enemies
wanted him killed. Instead, they arranged an all expenses paid, security guard
provided, free trip to Rome with a speaking engagement in front of the Emperor
thrown in. Not bad! Just not quite the way Paul had envisioned it.
The World's Way
The world sees it a bit
differently. We can get an idea of this in the reaction of Festus and
Agrippa:
(Acts 25:13-27 NIV) A few days later King Agrippa and
Bernice arrived at Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus. {14} Since they
were spending many days there, Festus discussed Paul's case with the king. He
said: "There is a man here whom Felix left as a prisoner. {15} When I went
to Jerusalem, the chief priests and elders of the Jews brought charges against
him and asked that he be condemned. {16} "I told them that it is not the
Roman custom to hand over any man before he has faced his accusers and has had
an opportunity to defend himself against their charges. {17} When they came
here with me, I did not delay the case, but convened the court the next day and
ordered the man to be brought in. {18} When his accusers got up to speak, they
did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. {19} Instead, they
had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead
man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive. {20} I was at a loss how to
investigate such matters; so I asked if he would be willing to go to Jerusalem
and stand trial there on these charges. {21} When Paul made his appeal to be
held over for the Emperor's decision, I ordered him held until I could send him
to Caesar." {22} Then Agrippa said to Festus, "I would like to hear
this man myself." He replied, "Tomorrow you will hear him." {23}
The next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and entered the audience
room with the high ranking officers and the leading men of the city. At the
command of Festus, Paul was brought in. {24} Festus said: "King Agrippa,
and all who are present with us, you see this man! The whole Jewish community
has petitioned me about him in Jerusalem and here in Caesarea, shouting that he
ought not to live any longer. {25} I found he had done nothing deserving of
death, but because he made his appeal to the Emperor I decided to send him to
Rome. {26} But I have nothing definite to write to His Majesty about him.
Therefore I have brought him before all of you, and especially before you, King
Agrippa, so that as a result of this investigation I may have something to
write. {27} For I think it is unreasonable to send on a prisoner without specifying
the charges against him."
The use of law
Man somehow must attain to the
dignity of God. One most common device is to proclaim, "the law
says…" Almost all of us acknowledge the existence of right and wrong;
the law attempts in some ways to codify that. But if the world wishes to claim
what really belongs to God, using this method, it will soon find the flaws - as
Festus does here:
·
The law must be complete - it must deal with every
situation. Roman law, a code imposed from above, was supposed to do that. But
what code can deal with the One who came to fulfill the true Law? How does the
code deal with one who is risen from the grave?
·
The law must be errorless - its provisions must always
give justice. Just to state this provision is to see the problem: the law is
an imitation of the true righteousness. The only way for the world to make the
law errorless is to declare it to be so - the Fuhrer is always right.
And when the law is neither
complete nor errorless, its practitioners must do something. Here, they fall
back upon bureaucratic dodge: the local expert is coming in; we'll ask him.
Surely there is a legal loophole somewhere.
The pretence of the absolute
state
In our time we have seen the
re-emergence of the absolute state. This is the government which proclaims
itself to be righteousness in and of itself. We saw it in Hitler's Germany,
where every soldier took an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, personally. We
see it yet in communist countries. But it is a pretence.
·
"Power," said Mao Tse-Tung, "grows out of the
barrel of a cannon." Force is potent, but not sovereign. If force
accompanies sovereignty (the true right to rule) then it is good. If it sweeps
aside sovereignty, it is not. Time and again the dictator has proclaimed himself
supreme. Give it time; the dustbin of history has many such men.
·
The nature of power itself makes this claim absurd. For if power
is absolute, it cannot be resisted - and therefore does not need to be declared
absolute. Who can resist gravity? But does God thunder from heaven,
threatening us if we do not obey the law of gravity?
In our own land, in our own time,
we see the humanists proclaiming the supremacy of man's righteousness.
Abortion is good, they tell us, because we say so. Patience, Christian, and
endurance: the dustbin of history is not quite overflowing - yet.
Is the king above the law?
One of the great monuments in the
march of justice is Magna Carta. It contains no great proclamations of human
rights. Indeed, the document itself deals mostly with mediaeval obscurities.
But buried within is a basic principle: the king is not above the law. In a
society which held the king was appointed by God, even the king was not
superior to the law. It is a point which bears repeating in every age.
Bernice, the "wife" of
Agrippa, is also his sister. Like most of Herod's family, she schemes
relentlessly. She has been married, widowed, divorced - and indeed was quite a
charmer. Two Roman emperors slept with her (Titus and Vespasian) and one
wanted to make her empress (Vespasian). He was prevented from doing so only by
public outcry. She is highly positioned - but God is not deceived.
Paul gives her no flattery. He treats her and her husband as the sinners they
are - and offers them the forgiveness of God.
Our Response
Given all this, what should be
our response? How is the Christian to act when involved in this conflict
between God and the world? How is the Christian to deal with earthly things
when heavenly things are on his mind? Let's look:
(Acts 26 NIV) Then Agrippa said to Paul, "You have
permission to speak for yourself." So Paul motioned with his hand and
began his defense: {2} "King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand
before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews,
{3} and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish
customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently. {4}
"The Jews all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the
beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. {5} They have
known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according
to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee. {6} And now it is
because of my hope in what God has promised our fathers that I am on trial
today. {7} This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as
they earnestly serve God day and night. O king, it is because of this hope that
the Jews are accusing me. {8} Why should any of you consider it incredible that
God raises the dead? {9} "I too was convinced that I ought to do all that
was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. {10} And that is just
what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of
the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against
them. {11} Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them
punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them,
I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. {12} "On one of these
journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief
priests. {13} About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from
heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. {14} We all
fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul,
why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' {15}
"Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' "'I am Jesus, whom you are
persecuting,' the Lord replied. {16} 'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have
appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have
seen of me and what I will show you. {17} I will rescue you from your own
people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them {18} to open their eyes
and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so
that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are
sanctified by faith in me.' {19} "So then, King Agrippa, I was not
disobedient to the vision from heaven. {20} First to those in Damascus, then to
those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that
they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. {21}
That is why the Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me. {22}
But I have had God's help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to
small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses
said would happen-- {23} that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise
from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the
Gentiles." {24} At this point Festus interrupted Paul's defense. "You
are out of your mind, Paul!" he shouted. "Your great learning is
driving you insane." {25} "I am not insane, most excellent
Festus," Paul replied. "What I am saying is true and reasonable. {26}
The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am
convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in
a corner. {27} King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do."
{28} Then Agrippa said to Paul, "Do you think that in such a short time
you can persuade me to be a Christian?" {29} Paul replied, "Short
time or long--I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me
today may become what I am, except for these chains." {30} The king rose,
and with him the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them. {31} They
left the room, and while talking with one another, they said, "This man is
not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment." {32} Agrippa said
to Festus, "This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to
Caesar."
Boldness
You would think that after two
years in prison Paul would have learned his lesson, and greased some palms.
Not Paul. He speaks out with boldness and courage. This courage has roots:
·
A clear conscience. Have you ever been pulled over for a
traffic violation? It makes a lot of difference in your attitude if you recall
that you really were speeding. A sense of guilt destroys courage; a sense of
righteousness increases it.
·
Preparation. Did you think that Paul was idle those two
years - or was he preparing his defense, especially after he heard that a new governor
was coming?
·
The Holy Spirit. Many of us forget that we can rely on
God is such situations. It is true; the Scripture promises us
that He will give us the words to say.
Note that in all this there is
one thing which is certain: such boldness will provoke persecution. We are
the servants of Christ; they persecuted him. When we proclaim him boldly,
they will persecute us too.
Personal Testimony
Paul does not reason from
philosophy or first principles. Rather, he begins with his own personal testimony.
Note three things:
·
He begins with something that each of us can use: a comparison
of ourselves before and after our encounter with Jesus Christ. If Christ made
no difference in your life, you have nothing to say. But if he did …
·
He is not afraid to confess his sins. Indeed, as often repeated,
there is only one qualification for becoming a Christian: you have to be a
sinner first. Paul admits this, and in so doing clears the way for any other
sinner. If I, the sinner, can be saved, then so can you.
·
He proclaims the great mercy of God triumphing over the justice
of God. It is mercy we need, not justice.
Those who persecute
As we are certain to be
persecuted, we need to decide beforehand what our attitude towards our
persecutors should be. It is no sense trying to decide as the issue comes up.
It is much better to be prepared that to "wing it."
·
First, understand that it is generally God's will that we flee
from persecution!
Jesus understands that we are not heroes. By fleeing the Gospel is spread to
new locations. This is God's use of the unexpected.
·
But if we cannot, we need to remember that God's grace is
sufficient for our every need. It may not appear that we can withstand our
trials. Do not fear; he will provide.
·
More than that, as Paul appealed to Agrippa to become a
Christian, we must exhibit Christ's love for our persecutors. Here is how
Jesus put it:
(Mat 5:38-48 NIV) "You have heard that it was said,
'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' {39} But I tell you, Do not resist an evil
person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
{40} And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your
cloak as well. {41} If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two
miles. {42} Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who
wants to borrow from you. {43} "You have heard that it was said, 'Love
your neighbor and hate your enemy.' {44} But I tell you: Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you, {45} that you may be sons of your Father in
heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on
the righteous and the unrighteous. {46} If you love those who love you, what
reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? {47} And if
you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even
pagans do that? {48} Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Trust your Father to work in
unexpected ways, working all things together for your good. Do not succumb to
the world's ways, but rather live as God's children. Then see how your light
will shine in the darkness.