Acts 22:30-23:35 | Christianity On Trial

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Take your Bibles with me again to Acts chapter 22.

Acts 22 · chapter mention

You are our guest.

We've been working our way through the book of Acts for the last year or almost year.

We're going to finish it soon.

We find ourselves in the end of Acts chapter 22 and all through Acts 23 this morning.

Acts 22 · chapter mention

So we're going to begin, or Chad began reading for us in verse 30.

The end of chapter 22 leaves us with this uncertain situation.

The Apostle Paul has been attacked by the people in his hometown.

He's preaching from the steps of the temple, and they are upset about it, and they begin to attack him.

He is rescued by the Roman authorities.

And he is examined.

They find out that he is a Roman citizen, which doesn't fit most Jewish people, but it does for Paul.

And we don't know what happens until the end of chapter 22 and verse 30, where the next day the Roman tribune wants to figure out what is really going on with this guy named Paul.

Because for some reason, Paul is a Jew who is opposed by Jews.

And he is a Roman citizen who is now in the custody of Roman authorities.

You know, genuine faith in the true God has always faced opposition.

We could say it started in Genesis with Cain killing Abel.

It's continued and persisted through centuries and millennia of history, from the prophets and the kings of Israel to the great king, the Lord Jesus Christ, his apostles, his followers.

In fact, more Christians are persecuted and martyred today than at any other time in church history.

Churches and individual believers in Christ often face accusations, questions, challenges to your faith, as if we and our faith are enemies to be defeated or crushed, or at least kept in quiet submission.

The reason for that is that our faith is seen as a threat to cultural and political systems.

And so believers in the United Kingdom cannot even pray quietly in their own hearts outside of abortion clinics.

It's illegal.

It's illegal to be a Christian or to evangelize in many Islamic countries.

And in our own country, we can quickly become the enemy of culture if we speak out against the sinful activities on display merely by pointing to what Scripture has to say about them.

Could be even more personal.

You may be asked not to discuss your faith at family gatherings.

Or you may be asked not to share the gospel with coworkers at work, which could risk your job.

Genuine faith in Christ has always faced opposition.

We're familiar, of course, with those heroes of the faith throughout church history who gave their all when the reason for their hope was put to the test.

We've already seen in the book of Acts how Stephen was put to death.

He was stoned to death.

Most of the apostles were martyred, along with early church pastors, Polycarp and Ignatius, all the way to William Tyndale and Jan Hoos and John Knox and Jim Elliott and the four men with him, and untold numbers of believers who have suffered to the point of death for Christ.

This great cloud of witnesses spurs us onward to endure suffering as good soldiers of Christ Jesus.

Now, most of us here will not be called to suffer for Christ in that way.

But if you follow Christ faithfully, Scripture promises that you will be persecuted in some fashion.

For Christianity is always on trial.

There may be no clearer example of this in the pages of Scripture than the actual trials that the Apostle Paul endured in these later chapters of the book of Acts.

He was on trial before the great Sanhedrin of Israel.

He was on trial before Roman governors, before kings.

And because Paul was on trial, Christianity was on trial.

The Apostle's example, then, in these last chapters of Acts, guides us in our lives today to be prepared for the moment when our faith will be tested.

Paul sets an example to follow.

That example is trusting in the providence of God in each and every situation when we face cultural and even political opposition to faith in Christ.

Look with me at chapter 22, beginning in verse 30.

We see first in verses 30 through chapter 23, verse 11, what I've called a council conflict.

This is the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council, the Jewish Supreme Court, you might say.

Paul is brought before them because in this situation the Roman tribune wants to know what is the real issue with this man.

We find out later, at the end of chapter 23, that it's just something related to Jewish law.

He's done nothing wrong, nothing that is deserving of death or of beating or even of imprisonment.

But that's what he's on trial for here before this council.

And it begins in chapter 23, verse 1, with Paul giving an honest assessment of the situation.

But that honest assessment generates an unrighteous reaction, a hostile reaction.

His honest assessment of his own life and situation is in verse 1.

Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.

Now that doesn't mean that Paul is perfect.

It doesn't mean he's sinless.

It doesn't mean he doesn't make mistakes.

It means he's kept a clear account with God.

That whenever there is an opportunity, he repents and confesses his sins and receives forgiveness and he moves on from there.

That's why, just a chapter later, in chapter 24, verse 16, he says, I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

He doesn't want to have anything left undone.

Anything that can be legitimately pointed at and make a legitimate accusation about him.

That's why later on to his young apprentice Timothy, he writes in 2 Timothy chapter, I'm sorry, 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5, to the church at large, he says, the aim of our charge, the aim of our teaching, the aim of our fellowship and our worship is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

1 Timothy 1:5

The Apostle Paul stands before the council and he says, Listen, this is how I've lived my life.

But the high priest's unrighteous reaction is both emotionally and physically striking.

Verse 2.

The high priest, Ananias, commanded those who stood by Paul to strike him on the mouth.

Just so you understand, this isn't a light smack across the face.

This isn't just a light tap on his mouth.

Luke employs the same word in chapter 21, verse 32, to refer to the crowd beating Paul.

It's the same word that Matthew used for the soldiers beating Jesus before his crucifixion.

So this is not just one smack and you're done.

This is beating him up.

This is a punishment for something that he's done.

So what would generate that kind of a reaction from the high priest?

Well, it seems to be connected to Paul's claim about that clear conscience.

Here's a Jewish man who claimed to be a faithful, God-honoring Jew while proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the high priest couldn't imagine those two elements going together.

If Paul's going to preach Jesus Christ, then he certainly can't have a clear conscience.

And if he has a clear conscience, then he would not be preaching Jesus Christ.

In his mind, Paul was blaspheming.

Paul couldn't be a loyal Jew and a loyal Jesus follower.

As we saw last week in most of chapter 22, we begin to see this sharp split between Judaism and Christianity for the first time.

Paul's response in verse 3 to the one giving the command, he doesn't know who he is yet, is like an Old Testament prophet calling down God's judgment on an unrighteous leader of God's people.

In fact, he applies God's condemnation of false prophets who are like whitewashed walls from Ezekiel chapter 13 to this high priest.

Ezekiel 13 · chapter mention

In Ezekiel 13, God speaks about the leaders of God's people, false prophets who are like whitewashed walls.

We've all repaired walls, right?

Sometimes you have to patch a hole.

Sometimes you just have to paint over something because it's been marked up in some way.

That's kind of what this is like, combined with sweeping up all the dirt in your kitchen and just sweeping it under the rug.

You're not really taking care of the problem, you're just covering it up.

And God in Ezekiel chapter 13 spoke of ancient false prophets like that.

Ezekiel 13 · chapter mention

He says, you're just covering up the evil that is residing within you and making yourselves look good on the outside.

And the apostle Paul pulls that into this situation and calls the high priest a whitewashed wall.

This isn't an off the cuff reaction to being hurt or offended or slandered.

Paul is issuing a biblically informed judgment on a leader of God's people acting in an unbiblical way.

Maybe, we don't know this, we're not told, maybe Paul received some spiritual revelation.

Maybe the Holy Spirit made it clear to him what Ananias' heart was like.

We don't know.

But he recognizes that this man acted contrary to God's law while claiming to be a leader of God's people.

And so this high priest stands in the shoes of those who went before him, those whom Jesus condemned as whitewashed tombs, all pretty on the outside, but rotten and corrupt on the inside.

Now we see a humble acknowledgement that leads to a righteous claim.

Not from the whitewashed high priest, but from the apostle Paul.

Verse 4.

Those who stood by said, Why would you ever talk to God's high priest like that?

Paul's acknowledgement, though, is that he's ignorant.

Verse 5.

He says, I didn't know.

I'm sorry, I didn't know that he was the high priest, because it is written, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.

Now, Paul would have known that Ananias was the high priest by his official clothing.

In official gatherings of the Sanhedrin or in official activities, the high priest had to wear special clothes.

He would stand out like a sore thumb.

Everybody would know that's the guy.

It would have been obvious to anyone.

So taking Paul's statement just at face value leads us to the conclusion that this must have been an unofficial gathering in which Paul, who's been out of the country for several years and may not have recognized Ananias on his own, didn't realize that this is the high priest.

He's not dressed in his normal official clothes, he's just dressed like a normal person, fitting in with all of the other leaders.

Now that would give Paul some excuse, wouldn't it?

But notice how the apostle Paul responds.

Notice his humility.

He says, brothers, I didn't know.

Because that's a breaking of God's law.

He unwittingly broke God's expectation for respect of leaders of his people from Exodus 22, verse 28.

Exodus 22:28

And Paul acknowledges this wrong, even though it's unintentional.

Paul then moves on in verse 6 to a righteous assertion.

The reason for the party, a violent party, apparently, was Paul's hope in the resurrection of the dead.

And a son of Pharisees.

Now that automatically is going to divide the group.

Sadducees on one side, Pharisees on the other side.

I don't mean to say you guys are Sadducees, but that's what happens.

This is like a modern political division.

Republicans and Democrats, a sharp division right down the middle, and fighting and dissension on both sides towards each other.

Paul cries out, listen, brothers, the reason I'm here is because of our hope in the resurrection of the dead.

Now, one side is going to have that hope.

The other side is not going to have that hope.

Sorry, I'm painting you guys negatively again.

Switch.

All right for a bit.

Because the Sadducees don't have this hope.

They don't believe that there is a resurrection from the dead.

They don't believe in the spirit world.

So in their minds, none of this is a reality.

It's all false doctrine.

And the other side says, oh no, Scripture teaches about a resurrection from the dead.

Scripture teaches about angels and demons and spirits in this world.

And because of this sharp division, that automatically drives them to fight about that issue.

Either way, whichever way we take this, that is, as hope and resurrection being two separate things, or hope and resurrection being the same thing, because of the distinctive makeup of the gathering, a family squabble breaks out that directs the attention away from Paul and effectively ends the party.

But the squabble is so intense that Paul has to be rescued by the Roman soldiers for the second time in two days.

The Roman tribune is afraid that they're going to tear Paul to pieces.

I don't think I've ever been in that kind of an elders' meeting.

Not quite.

Been in some intense ones.

But not where somebody's going to be torn to pieces.

Now, amid all of that, notice how Paul is able to take a tense and uncertain situation and turn it to the key issue.

Our hope as followers of Christ, our hope and our faith are useless if there is no resurrection of the dead.

And your faith is vain.

Especially here in Jerusalem.

The noted scholar, F.F.

Bruce, noted decades ago that a Sadducee had great difficulty becoming a Christian.

Some of them did, because most priests were Sadducees.

And Luke says in the early chapters of the book of Acts that many priests came to faith in Christ.

But a Sadducee had great difficulty becoming a Christian because to do so it meant abandoning his distinctive theological positions.

He had to go from not believing in the resurrection to believing in the resurrection.

He had to go from not believing in angels to believing in angels.

He had to go from not believing in spirits to believing in the Holy Spirit.

It was an incredible transformation.

But a Pharisee could become a Christian and remain mostly a Pharisee, at least in the early decades of Christianity.

And Paul is using all of those distinctive elements to bring the key issue to the forefront: the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul's example here is worth imitating.

He didn't back down from his interrogators, but he stood on the clear application of Scripture, while also humbly submitting himself to God's word, while calling all of his interrogators to the same standards.

And at the end of the day, after the end of the council party, only Paul is innocent.

Don't miss the prime piece of this conflict account in verse 11.

Later on, Paul goes back to the barracks, he goes to sleep at night, and the Lord Jesus appears to him and speaks to him.

And Jesus says, Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify about me in Rome.

Now that does several things.

Number one, Jesus confirms Paul's conscience.

It's clear.

Jesus confirms Paul's innocence.

And then Jesus counseled Paul's spirit to take courage.

Be encouraged.

Be emboldened.

Just as Joshua needed courage to lead Israel into the possession of God's promise, Paul needed courage to take the gospel to the Roman Empire.

That leads us to understand that remembering the Lord's promise to be with us should give us courage to stand firm for him with clarity and boldness no matter the situation.

Even if your entire family, in this situation, all of the Jewish council wants you dead.

Friends, Jesus promised to send his spirit to be in us, to be living, take up residence within us.

The Father and the Son are also with us all times and all places.

Jesus promised to build his church through the service of his people.

And so the Lord's faithfulness carried Paul through many trials, through sufferings of all kinds.

At the same time, as frail human beings, we need encouragement, don't we?

Sometimes we need that sense of boldness.

So we must take courage in Christ, in his power and in his faithfulness rather than in our strength and our abilities.

It's amazing to me how the apostle Paul was just like the energizer bunny.

Whatever the situation was, he just kept going.

Why?

Because of the strength and an endurance that he found in the hope and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And so Luke reminds us now, after Paul has been whisked away from danger once more, that he had not escaped from all danger.

We see that beginning in verse 12 with a concealed conspiracy.

It doesn't take Luke long to show us that Paul's assessment about whitewashed walls is 100% correct.

Verse 12.

Those are some strong feelings, no?

Now, maybe, maybe they didn't think it all the way through and they thought, we're just going to miss lunch.

Big deal.

But they quite obviously thought this is going to be a quick and easy situation to take care of.

But the Jews here in verse 12 are not the council.

These 40 plus Jews come to the council to say, hey, we've made this deal with ourselves, now we need your help to pull it off.

They come under the guise of religious zeal, apart from the religious leaders.

Now, maybe you remember, maybe you remember how Judas felt terrible after betraying Jesus.

And you remember what he did with those 30 pieces of silver?

He went and he tried to give it back because he felt guilty for betraying an innocent man.

But the religious leaders refused to take the money back and put it in the temple treasury because they said it's blood money.

We paid to have somebody betrayed to us.

And so receiving it back would, in a way, make them complicit in that evil.

Luke very carefully paints this group of leaders in this exact same way.

Think of yourself as a fly on the wall of this meeting in verse 14.

You have this council that's just tried to tear Paul apart.

And the next day they're gathered together with 40 Jews who say, Hey, we want to finish the job.

How do you handle that?

You hear this plan, you don't really have to do anything except for ask for Paul to be brought back.

Oh, but you're just going to twist the truth a little bit.

You're going to say you want to investigate the situation more thoroughly.

Luke doesn't tell us what they said.

He doesn't put any words in the mouth of the council.

He doesn't record any instruction from Ananias.

He doesn't record any of the debate.

All we see is it happened exactly that way.

Which tells us that these leaders agreed implicitly to what was asked.

And they were going to ask the tribune to bring Paul down.

Luke implies that the ambush is agreed upon in verse 16.

The religious leaders put on a good show of being righteous while behind closed doors they become complicit in attempted murder.

So the Apostle Paul's judgment, that they are whitewashed walls, right on target.

At the same time, recall what the Lord Jesus said to Pilate before he was led to the crucifixion.

He told that Roman ruler that nothing took place unless God determined it.

Unless God put in place the specific people in specific places of power, because God's providence rules over the affairs of mankind.

And if you know your Bible, you've heard that somewhere else.

Not by a Christian, but by an almost Christian, who was at this point in time the most powerful ruler in the known world.

King Nebuchadnezzar, ruler over Babylon, after he'd spent seven years eating and living like a cow for God's judgment, said this in Daniel chapter 4, verse 34 At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returns to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored him who lives forever.

Daniel 4:34

Why?

Because his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation, for all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing.

And he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, What have you done?

Because God providentially superintends the affairs of mankind.

Therefore, Scriptures tell us that the Son of Man went to the cross as it has been, had been determined.

Luke says that in Luke 22, verse 22.

Luke 22:22

And in an ironic twist, using that determination term, the basis for this conspiracy is to determine Paul's case more clearly.

But if you know Luke's use of that term determination and God's providential outworking of events, you know that God is the one who determines whether things can or cannot occur.

Therefore, Jesus went to the cross because God determined that the Jewish council would send him to Pilate, and Pilate would agree upon it because that was the only way to atone for sin.

Similarly, God determined that this Jewish council would enter into an unholy alliance so that Paul could proclaim the gospel in Rome to the Roman Emperor.

In similar ways, what we face always rests in the providence of an Almighty, perfectly trustworthy, good, and loving God.

Paul faced this conspiratorial counsel, and he spent time in confinement because he followed in the steps of the Lord Jesus Christ, who providentially determined Paul's path.

My friends, this is one of the hardest truths for us to learn.

Remembering how the Lord cares for us in his providence should strengthen our trust amid every uncertainty of life.

Everyone, everyone endures times of uncertainty.

Seems like for the Apostle Paul, every hour was uncertain.

And it becomes more difficult.

We know this, it becomes more difficult to trust the Lord the longer the uncertainty lasts.

Paul's uncertainty is just beginning at this point.

His confrontation with the Jews is just a couple of days old.

But he will live out the rest of his days in uncertainty, years.

Yet he knew that the Lord was worthy of his trust, no matter how uncertain the times might be.

And so we must remember and remind ourselves, speak to ourselves, tell ourselves routinely that the Lord providentially cares for us, and so command our hearts to trust in him.

And since any person who has lived any reasonable length of time knows that feeling of needing to trust and has lived through it, friends, you are in a place to be an encourager to others if the Lord has carried you through times of growth opportunities.

You can help others look to Jesus amid hard times by helping them see how he is your faithful guide in life.

How even though you can't see him or sense him, he is always there taking care of you, proving himself to be trustworthy.

And in this particular situation, notice that God even used a young boy to demonstrate God's trustworthy character.

Doesn't matter how young you are, my friends.

You can faithfully encourage others by being God's messenger.

We don't know anything more about Paul's sister or his nephew.

Verse 16.

All we know is that this young man was a means of God's revelation and encouragement to the apostle Paul.

Paul is taken from Jerusalem to Caesarea.

It tells us about his military escort.

But it really tells us about the means a Roman official used to convey a unique conundrum.

He didn't know what to do.

What do I do with this situation where a Jewish man is about to be torn apart by Jewish people when he didn't do anything wrong?

What do I do with that?

So he conveys that to the person above him.

In this case, the governor Felix in verse 26.

He sends Paul to the Roman governor.

He orders his accusers to present their case to Felix as well.

And because of what he's heard from Paul's nephew, he sends him away in the middle of the night with a massive escort.

There are hundreds of soldiers escorting him from the Jewish enclave of Jerusalem north to the Roman enclave of Caesarea.

Even though, in verse 29, he believes him to be innocent.

Paul continues to remain in custody even though he's innocent, because the Jews want to kill him.

So in this situation, being imprisoned by the Romans is the very safest place for him to be.

So the conundrum is what do I do with this guy?

The tribune conveys all of this to the governor in writing, who will hear Paul's case in chapter 24, verse 1, in about six days when the Jews arrive to Caesarea.

Now we might think that this short unit that moves Paul from the raging anger of Jerusalem to the relative safety of the Romans in Caesarea has little spiritual value to us.

It's just historical transition.

But if we think that it has little spiritual value, we would be wrong.

Because this section demonstrates to us that remembering how the Lord providentially controls all circumstances should motivate and generate a sense of contentment in our hearts as we submit to the will of Christ.

At no point do we see Paul resisting what happens to him because of his testimony for Christ.

All of Paul's legal trials and his imprisonments are presented to us within the providence of God.

Even more than that.

They're part of God's direct intention to get him from Jerusalem to Rome so that the gospel will go to Rome.

God, please use some other way for me.

I don't.

No, we don't hear that.

Paul already knows that in every place he goes, persecution and affliction and imprisonment awaits him.

He already knows God wants him to go to Rome to proclaim the gospel in the imperial city.

He knows that.

And so the means that God is using to accomplish that is imprisonment.

And it just so happens to keep him safe from those who want to kill him.

This leads us, I think, friends, to multiple applications.

First, as one commentator notes, Luke teaches us here how to interact with governmental systems that oppose the gospel, that put pressure on Christians or even imprison or persecute Christians for their faith.

Number one, be innocent.

As Peter tells his listeners, it's better to be beaten if you're innocent than to be beaten if you actually sinned.

Be innocent.

Like Paul, be innocent.

That is, have a right conscience before God where everything is right.

You are sincerely following and doing what God wants you to do.

Number two, possess greater justice than the political systems.

Don't act underhandedly.

Present your case properly and witness to Jesus no matter what.

We must fear the Lord Jesus more than we fear any government, any religious, or any legal group.

Take every opportunity to stand firm for Christ.

That's, I think, one application.

Another application is we need to remember the Lord's purpose.

Because remembering his purpose helps us lift our eyes up from the present momentary afflictions, difficulties, even imprisonments in this situation, to the glory that awaits us when we are with Christ.

And if you want to lower your vision a little bit from the glory that awaits us from Christ, you can look out and see this just provides me more opportunities to speak of Christ.

But if all we do is focus on the immediate, on the present situation, we get so immersed in how we feel in the stresses of that moment that it becomes more about us than about God's providential working in his world.

I love how commentator William Jennings put it.

Paul is not safe either among his own people or in the hands of the state.

His safety is between both in the hands of the Holy Spirit.

We say that again.

Paul is not safe either among his own people or in the hands of the state.

His safety is between both in the hands of the Spirit.

But maybe more often than not, it means that he carries us through difficulties to fulfill the Lord's purposes.

But in the midst of that, he is the one who, no matter what happens, remains pure, innocent, and righteous.

And knowing that he is in the right, standing on the word of God, he can content himself even when the results are less than desirable from a human perspective.

We may never understand why the Lord chooses certain routes and paths of life for us.

But we can always be certain that He is providentially directing our paths to fulfill His purposes for our eternal good in making us like Christ to bring us safely home to glory.

And that will only be good news for us.

If we are truly trusting in Christ alone, if we are resting in the Lord's promise to be with us, if we remind ourselves of his care for us and find our contentment in the Spirit's sustaining work for all that Christ has called us to.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, help us to trust you more.

Cause us to look to you as our only hope.

Lord, you have confirmed our hope by rising from the dead.

The tomb is empty.

You have risen from the dead and ascended to the Father's right hand.

And you are working your work in all ways in every situation.

And that includes in us.

Oh, cause us by your Spirit to look to you, to find our hope and our trust solidified in the risen and living Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

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