Acts 23

Acts 23:1-5

THE FURY OF Acts 22:22 to Acts 23:5OUR introduction of a chapter at this point is like the placing of many of the chapters of the Bible. It was without other occasion than convenience. The twenty-second chapter could easily have been treated in its entirety. In very truth, the remaining portion of this Book of Acts involves so continuous a narrative, that chapters were not only non-needful to the sense, but rather an impertinence. However, the average reader is short-breathed and demands many pauses or resting places, and to that fact we accommodate ourselves in this whole series. Furthermore, there is a profit in the introduction of paragraphs, and that is in the profit of more thorough study. It is better to abide over a few verses until they have surrendered up their secrets and borne their adequate testimony, than to skim over a whole volume, sounding its depths at no point.The verses we elect to treat here will compass a complete presentation of our theme, The Fury of Prejudice, and their proper analysis shows The Fury Excited, The Sufficient Defense, and The Farce of a Hearing.THE FURY EXCITEDIt was roused by the use of a word.“And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. “And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, “The chief captain commanded Him to be brought into the castle, and hade that he should he examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him” (Acts 22:22-24). The opening phrase is extremely suggestive, “And they gave him audience unto this word”. “This word” is not the Bible in this case. It is not even the speech in which the Apostle Paul had rehearsed his personal experience, but it is the single word with which he concluded what he had to say. “Gentiles” is the word. That word was to the Jew what a red flag is to a bull. It infuriated. He did not believe that any true apostle or prophet could be sent to the Gentiles. He hated the Gentile.

The Gentile was to him a dog, and dogs are not proper subjects for a gospel. The only religion they could possibly have would be the Jewish religion, and the only way that they could come into that was already prescribed in the form of Jewish ceremonials, and to speak of such a thing as getting them in another way was a flagrant offence.It is a marvel how far prejudice can carry a man and what fury the use of an offensive word can excite. “Fundamental” is a good word.

It is doubtful if there is a better one in the whole dictionary. That is true whether you take its original meaning—“the foundation or ground work”, or its historical employment—“indispensable, primary, essential, basal”—and it is even more true when you apply it to the great underlying facts of revelation. And yet, how many men there are that grow red in the face the moment you pronounce the word “fundamental”, and their fury knows little or no balance!Prejudice is, of all mental attitudes, the most blinding, the most deafening, the most deranging. It has eyes but sees not, ears, but hears not. Such hearts “have waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted” (Matthew 13:15). No man is in healthy mental or spiritual condition when the use of a word flings him into a frenzy.This fury voiced itself in a threat. “Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.

And they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air”. There are some states of mind that a true Christian cannot understand.

If he ever had such, regeneration so effectually removed them that even their memory is obliterated, and chief among them stands this mental attitude that would murder the man who does not speak an acceptable shibboleth.Christianity is not a non-controversial, compromising, easy-going religion. It has been polemical from the first. It has stood ever ready to resist falsehoods, even unto death; but Christianity has never persecuted or sought to crucify its opponents. In all those cases where church men have been parties to martyrdom, we have a positive proof that they were members of the visible body only, and not members of His body.Paul is supposed to have been beheaded at Rome. Peter is reported to have been crucified with head down. Jesus Himself hung on Calvary’s Cross.

Few of His direct Apostles fared any better, but there is no record that any one of them ever sought the imprisonment, scourging or crucifixion of his opponent. In this connection we want to calm the fears of modernists.

They are constantly saying that, as the church in olden time killed men who did not agree with it, so the fundamentalist movement of the present day will yet imprison and otherwise persecute those who deny the validity of the Word and the Deity of Christ. Their speech is without occasion, their fears are utterly groundless.The fundamentals of the Christian faith demand another attitude entirely. Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude all joined their pens in defending the fundamentals of the Christian faith against the skeptics, atheists and rationalists of their day, but not one of them ever drew the sword against skeptics, employed a prison with which to silence their speech, or even asked a civil government to condemn or even call it into court. Threats then, as now, emanated from the opposers of the Gospel and the enemies of Christ, and not from the defenders of either. It still remains so and so it will be till the end of time.There are many persecutions taking place today. Faithful men are being removed from pastorates by ecclesiastical superiors, or driven from the same by local celebrities.

Ministers’ families are being left without food and clothing. By an ingenious ecclesiastical system church doors are being shut in the faces of those who have been forced to seek a change.

But practically every bit of this emanates from the enemies of Christ and the opponents of the Gospel, who, like the high priest of the text, have secured controlling positions in the modern church, but who give little or no evidence of ever having been regenerated by the Spirit of God, or having any vital relationship to that spiritual Body —His True Church.These opposers accomplished Paul’s arrest. “The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him” (Acts 22:24). An arrest is an easy thing to accomplish. With courts constituted as they are now, an unjust condemnation is often secured; but that’s a thousandfold more seldom than an unjust arrest. The people of America would be amazed if they kept tab on their county prisons. A political revolt would be born if police records were an open book and the public studied them. There are not scores, but hundreds of cases every night in the year of men arrested, flung into prison without charge and dismissed the next morning. Their officer had a suspicion and this gave him a chance to confirm it, if possible, and failing, he quietly told the jailer to let the individual go, and in nine cases out of ten, being men and women of little or no means and few friends, no disturbance follows.

They quietly slip away, glad to be out of the lockup and free from the sight of the threatening face of an officer.One might imagine that this antique method of examining, by scourging, belonged to a period twenty centuries dead; but not so. It goes under a new name now—the third degree—and there are literally thousands of men and women treated after the same manner in our supposedly Christian civilization.

The third degree seems to be growing in favor with policemen. By keeping their suspect awake three and four days at a stretch, plying him with questions confusing in character and multitudinous in number, smiting him with the open hand, or cracking him over the head with a billy, or beating him with a broad strap, they bring from their victim confessions that are pure fabrications, given only because they were demanded and in the interest of escape from further suffering.Time moves, but civilization does not necessarily improve. The philosophy of evolution fails to find an illustration anywhere. The state employs more veneer now than it did in Paul’s day, and the religiously bigoted and intolerant are more careful in conduct and in speech. They both bring forth after their kind; the species does not change.Let us turn now toTHE DEFENSE“And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? “When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman. “Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. “And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. “Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him” (Acts 22:25-29). His first defense was on the basis of citizenship. “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned”? Christianity, then, does not deprive a man of the rights of citizenship, else Paul would not have appealed to his Roman birth. How strange that good men are so often and so easily deceived! Present vendors of infidelity have had a triumph at this very point. In a dozen states of the Union very recently Christian citizens have sought to save their children from being steeped in a philosophy false to nature’s facts, inimical to Christianity itself and a growing menace to good government, and in every instance they have been practically told that a Christian had no citizenship rights. To be sure, the phraseology has not followed that exact form.

They have said to him: “Don’t mix church and state; don’t try to compel by law any peculiar views; don’t use physical and political means to obtain mental and spiritual ends; don’t seek to correct society by mere legislation; don’t try to convert the state into an advocate of your personal philosophy.” And, strange to say, this fallacious argument has seemed sound to thousands of superficial thinkers.It is a fact that a Christian is a citizen of Heaven, and that, in the truest sense, he is a stranger and pilgrim in the earth; but it is also a fact that his heavenly citizenship does not deprive him of his earthly citizenship, and that when earthly powers seek to oppress, persecute and impose upon, he has a perfect right to appeal to the State. The law is intended for his defense; legislation is enacted in his behalf.There are those who would have every man in the state made safe by law except the Christian, and leave him to the mercy of any civil criminal or destructive critic.

But the motive of such is easily understood. They are out to secure a triumph for their particular philosophy and they care not on whose rights they trample if only their atheism triumphs. The faithful of today have an obligation to Paul for the example here set of employing his citizen’s rights.He caused the chief captain instant concern. “Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. And the chief captain answered, with a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born” (Acts 22:27-28).There are many political appointees who have no respect for the church and no regard for a Christian profession, but who are very sensitive to the will of the state.

These men feed at the state table and are gowned at state expense, and their families are looked upon as state favorites, and their station in life is determined by state religion, and what the state says concerns them. Very promptly and quite seriously, “Tell me, art thou a Roman”?The apostle’s answer ended the opposition. “He said, Yea”.

Mark the result. “Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him” (Acts 22:29).There are many occasions when the enemies of the truth strike a snag. More than once the Master Himself silenced critics. When they brought the woman taken in adultery to Him for condemnation and demanded her stoning, he suddenly confused the whole company of them by asking that the sinless one should “cast the first stone”. He looked, and lo, they were gone.There are fair propositions that make further procedure difficult and render retirement hasty. There are apparent successes which prove to be signal defeats. It is one thing to howl against a Christian and to affirm that he is unfit to live, but it is another thing to unjustly scourge an honorable citizen.

Thousands have done the first and only suffered in their sordid spirits for the same. But hundreds have attempted the second to discover themselves legally entangled and justly endangered.

One conscience-free man, knowing his rights, can fling fear into the heart of both court and crowd and compel them to search for the way of escape. Such a search here results inTHE FARCE OF A HEARING“On the morrow, because he would have known the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his bands, and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down, and set him before them” (Acts 22:30).“And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.“And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.“Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall; for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?“And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God’s high priest?“Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people” (Acts 23:1-5).Analyze this record and your interest will center further around Paul and the high priest, into whose hands he is committed.There was a time and place set for Paul’s trial.That act constituted a show of fairness, but in nature it was foul. The chief captain knew that the charges against Paul were forged and should have set him free, but with an eye to political preferment, he feared to do that lest Paul’s enemies should not support him in his next candidacy. Officials pushed into a corner often pretend fairness by the calling of a council. A little investigation will show that in nine cases out of ten it is a shadow pretense. When the council convenes it will be an ex parte one.

It will be made of men whose predisposition is known, whose judgment is prejudiced and fixed.How seldom has a minister of the Gospel ever had a fair hearing! In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred his trial was brought about by his enemies, and the object from the first was not to find out the truth, but to effect a conviction.

To this end they will do what was done in the case of the Master’s ministry, suborn witnesses, and, as in His case also, trump up charges, and the findings of the court will not express justice, but voice a predetermined judgment.The minister may be the equal, or, as in this case, the infinitely superior of his judges. But if so, he dare not so much as refer to the fact that he dwells on a plane of equal social level with them, equal mental acumen, equal spiritual attainment, for if he do, they will smite him as one guilty of an assumption, as they smote the Apostle when he addressed them “Men and brethren”.It is always interesting, and almost ludicrously interesting, to see the man who gets into an ecclesiastical or political position of judgment, take on an air of superiority. There never was a policeman so ignorant or so gross that he did not resent every word of defense that “the highest citizen might speak, in case that gross officer has decided to criticise or arrest him.Paul’s retort is that of a true man. “Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall; for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law” (Acts 23:3)?We love that flash of anger, that burst of righteous indignation. There are people who think that a Christian is never to know anything other than soft words or cringing spirit. We do not believe with them. God is angry.

Anger under certain conditions is a positive virtue. It is a proof of character.

It is the voice of righteousness itself. The man who can permit one of his fellows, who happens to be an official, to perform an outrage against him, to play the hypocrite and pretend to represent the law, and yet, in the very pretense violate the law itself and say nothing, is not a man. He is a mouse.Beyond all doubt, Peter made a mistake when he drew his sword and smote off the high priest’s ear, but what red-blooded man does not admire Peter a thousand fold more in that moment of his error, than he admires him, when, a few hours later, he is cringing in the presence of the high priest and friends, and with a mock modesty meekness is saying, “I do not know the Man”.It is a fact that Jesus rebuked Peter for the use of the sword, but it is also a fact that when Peter’s repentance came, it was not that deed that grieved him most. It was his cowardly conduct, his cringing behavior. Aye, that is what sent him to his knees broken in heart, and left him for hours and days without God and without hope.And yet, that Paul was not a mere fire-brand is proven in what follows. “And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God’s high priest? Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people” (Acts 23:4-5). This was the Apostle’s respect for authority. A man has a right to respect authority, a right to regard office, a right to see in the individual official the state itself, and respect it as such. But there is often a difference between the office and the official. The governor’s office is a good one and an honorable one and should be respected. But when you have a governor in the office who is a charlatan, you may, at one and the same time, condemn the official and respect the office.A worthless president does not prove that the state should know no such an individual. Paul is here conforming his conduct to what he will later voice in one of his Epistles. “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves” (Hebrews 13:17).

And again, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil” (Romans 13:1-3). The difference between a first-class Christian citizen and an anarchist is at this point. .A Christian citizen will in his heart condemn the hypocrite in office and seek to fill the same with another and a better man, while the anarchist would abolish the office itself and leave the people without government, just as the Christian citizen believes in a ruler of the universe, and the spiritual anarchist prefers a universe without God.

Acts 23:6-35

THE THAT FAILED Acts 23:6-35. THE best works of fiction are produced in order to illustrate and argue some certain convictions. Those convictions are made to voice themselves in personalities, and as we read the novel we keep constantly in mind the hero or heroine. In fact, every chapter after the first is eagerly begun because of our interest in the individual and our anxiety to know what is to happen to him now.The Book of the Acts, though so evidently history, is a volume planned on the personal basis. While it was written to illustrate the progress of the Church in the fulfilment of the prophecy, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8), its illustrations of interest are individuals. In the early chapters, Peter, James and John, Philip and Stephen, hold conspicuous place, but with the ninth chapter the true hero is introduced, namely, Saul converted and named Paul. From that chapter until the end of the Book, he holds central place in the picture, and one eagerly peruses chapter after chapter to see what next will happen to Paul. The remaining portion of this twenty-third chapter presents him in a most conspicuous role. As usual, he is in trouble; and, as usual, competent to care for himself. An analysis of these verses might involve The Smoke Screen, The Sworn Conspiracy and The Successful Deliverance. THE SMOKE SCREEN “When Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. “And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided. “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both. “And there arose a great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees’ part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God” (Acts 23:6-9). Here Paul created his own barrage. Our language was much enriched by the world war. The words most commonly employed were, many of them, nonexistent or unknown when that war began, but its fortunes brought them to the fore. Barrage is among such words. Originally, it referred merely to the act of barring, as a dam across the watercourse, and then it began to mean a concentrated fire on a sector of an enemy’s line, and in the late war, was often used in the sense of a fire, intended especially by smoke and shell to cover the real movements of the army, either in attack or retreat. Certainly Paul threw up a smoke screen in this speech. It resulted in instant controversy and consequent confusion, and it put one-half of his enemies out of commission and set the other half of them in Paul’s defense. For while the Pharisees and Sadducees would occasionally unite against a common enemy, they themselves were old enemies of long standing, and it was not difficult to break their mutual agreements. Paul adroitly used that fact. By affirming himself a Pharisee, he split the opposing forces and converted them into enemy camps. There are men who would hesitate to employ such tactics. But Paul did not belong with them. He knew that in war many things were justifiable that might not be approved in times of peace, and that was war—war of the most serious sort—war, so to speak, to the very death. The Apostle must either defeat his enemies or be defeated by them.

His victory, if won, will not be a personal victory, and if lost, will not be a personal defeat. The whole cause of Christ is involved. The Apostle fights as one who fully realizes the responsibility of his undertaking. He would not lie in order to conquer, but if, by a bold declaration of the well-known truth, he could win, why be silent? There are times when one ought to speak. There are enemy camps that ought to be split. There are enemy plans that ought to be exposed, and enemy objectives that ought to fail. Paul was facing such, and with these sentences he flung the whole opposing camp into confusion and started one-half of them to fighting against the other half. In the midst of such a controversy, escape was made easy. Paul could have literally walked away and left those men in a war of words, and they would not even have missed him, for “the dissension was great” and “the multitude was divided”, and the Sadducees were shouting, “There is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit,” and the Pharisees were saying, “If a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God”. Paul did not walk away; and Paul was never known to run away. But he is out of the controversy. Having clearly voiced himself on the great question of constant debate, as between these Jewish sects, he was silent. He was like the man who sic’s dogs on. He could complacently sit down now and watch the fight. In the judgment of this writer, there are many occasions when the principle that Paul here employed is perfectly justified. We believe that liberalism today is made up of men who have little or nothing in common, except their agreement against fundamentalists. If dissensions can be brought into their ranks and they can be set to fighting one against the other, who will say that that would not be a blessing? Take the situation in China today. It is a situation in which China and Russia are combined. The watchword in China is “nationalism”.

The objective of Russia is “sovietism”, and the two unite against Christianity and determine to drive it from the great Chinese continent. These two are not one. They have no right to be together. Their union is not healthy. The objective that they have is dastardly, and the combination they have effected should be broken. America has wisely refused to give any full recognition to soviet Russia, and when America sent her forces to Chinese waters to defend the Christians whose lives were put in peril by the combination of a rising “national (?) spirit” in China, and a corrupting Russian sovietism, America did right, and we know, now, that but for the firing of certain naval and English men-of-war upon the so-called nationalist soldiers a bit ago, many more American and English missionaries would have perished, and many more foreign women would have suffered outrage and indignity, if not destruction; and the whole spirit of the so-called revolutionists would have been more threatening and dangerous. We cannot join, then, with that liberalizing organization known as “The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ”. We belong in a better company—the company of the true Christians, who make up His body, and who believe with Paul that evil combinations deserve to be broken, that Christianity may have a free passageway to follow the leadings of its own deep, ethical and religious convictions. Mark further, The Lord seems to have approved Paul’s policy in this, matter. “The night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome” (Acts 23:11).After all, there is but one supreme judgment in the universe, and that is the judgment of God. The man who secures favor in that direction need not bother his brain about what very wise and very statesmanlike citizens or ecclesiastics say about him. There are some men that are always anxious to have their “prominent brethren” stand by them. There are ministers who are greatly distressed if their “prominent brethren” do not compliment them. Alas, for our superficial thinking and our shallow judgment! There is only one in the universe that the Christian needs to have stand by him, and that is the One who stood by Paul, even the Lord. There is only One in the universe who never makes a mistake when He bids us “Be of good cheer”! There is only One in the universe whose commendation of our testimony is eternally valuable, and there is only One in the universe who can determine what our future testimony will be, and where it will be given. That is the One who speaks to Paul in Acts 23:11. You have heard of songs in the night. There is something sweeter than the songs of men or the songs of nightingales, or the songs of angels; and the night air is only wholly musical when it is laden with the speech of the Lord, and that speech is always best heard at night. It is when other voices are silenced; it is after the curtain of darkness has been drawn; it is when one’s soul is bared before His eye; it is in the secret place He speaks, and oh, what blessing, what comfort, what cheer! Do you remember the words of Martha to her sister Mary, “The Master is here and calleth for thee”? No night is dark after He has arrived; no silence is oppressive when once He has spoken; no discouragement can victimize us after we have heard His cheering voice. Speak, Lord, and we will hear! Mark, however, in further study, THE SWORN It held the Apostle Paul as its proposed victim. “Certain of the Jews handed together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul” (Acts 23:12)There are some men that cannot be tolerated; they are commonly the men who tell the truth. There are some men who must not be let to live. Often they are the men that are living the noblest and most conquering of lives; but ignobility and indifference cannot endure such men. This determination to kill Paul was a dual revelation. It showed the superiority of Paul. Murdering mobs do not commonly speak of any slothful, or indifferent, or dumpy individual, and say, “He must die.” They hate, rather, the man whose accomplishments call the attention of the world, whose character and conduct contrast unfavorably that of the common rambler. That is particularly true in the theological realm. The spineless ecclesiastic is seldom or never attacked. The half-baked delegate never comes in for denunciation or even concern. It is the independent thinker that annoys, and it is the man who consults God only as to the way he should take that is tracked and hounded, and, were it possible, would be sent to hell. If there was no other indication of Paul’s greatness than that forty Jews bound themselves with an oath to take his life, that fact alone would prove him extraordinary. Furious warriors train their guns against the strongest centers of opposition and seek the death, or capture, of the most competent in the enemy’s camp. This conspiracy involved forty determined men. Why so many? Paul is supposed to have been a small man in stature. On this occasion, there is no record that any of his Christian friends were with him, or that any competent police had been appointed to protect him, and yet, four men dare not go against him; ten men refuse to undertake; twenty and thirty are not enough. The oath must be taken by forty. Therein is their proof of intelligence.

The enemies of Paul may have been knaves every one. They seem not to have been fools. Somehow they knew that a man in the right was more than a match for one, or even a dozen, of his own size. Somehow, they understood and half believed it, that God was with the Apostle, and that made the undertaking a serious one. The world could never frame the Biblical philosophy that “One chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight”. But, somehow, the world feels the fact it has not voiced. In all the years of life, I have never known an instance where liquor men, or gamblers, or bad hoodlums of any sort, would undertake to meet an outstanding Christian man and risk a test of strength, man for man. That is all the more remarkable when it is remembered that most Christians, like their Lord, “neither strive nor cry”. They don’t strike back. They are feared, none the less! On that night, when the mob went out to take Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the sight of His face and the sound of His voice, the whole crowd went backward and fell on the ground. The strength of this world is abashed when it comes into the presence of God, and it grows cowardly at once if it must face Christianity. There are reported instances of butchery, indignity, rape, and indescribable horrors wrought in China in connection with the present revolution, and against foreigners, and for the most part, missionaries. Who works them? The individual loyalist Chinaman? Not at all! He would not dare it. His courage would fail him at the thought.

It is a great company of armed men—men with guns in their hands and two governments back of them that have wrought these godless, and in some instances, even nameless deeds. They are like these forty— cowards converted into bullies by their number, and even then they seek to strengthen their case, and reveal a fear lest it fail, for they begged the chief captain that he, with his cohorts and army of men back of him, bring Paul down. Why didn’t they go after him? Why didn’t they bring him? They did not dare! Cowardice is never conscious of strength. Somehow it seems to know, “strength belongeth unto the Lord”, and fears to fight with Him. This conspiracy failed for unexpected reasons. Paul’s nephew heard of the plan and told it to the chief captain, and the chief captain, instead of falling in with the scheme, sets about thwarting the same. Two centurions, backed by two hundred soldiers, he sends to Caesarea to bring the Apostle, and to bring him in safety. Alas, for the unexpected! It is that that always happens. The plans of men go awry. Those upon whom they depend refuse to perform as directed, and the finger of divinity often controls the movements of even ungodly men. Watch the result! THE God’s army always outnumbers that of men. The Jews had forty oath-bound dependables with which to attack Paul. The chief captain—God’s unconscious agent—has two hundred soldiers and seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen. Paul will be brought in safety, then. When did the forces of man ever equal the forces of God? We recall the time in the Old Testament when Elisha had sent for him “horses and chariots, and a great host; and they came by night, and compassed the city about. “And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? “And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. “And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. “And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha” (2 Kings 6:14-18). You remember, also, that when Jonathan and his armour-bearer went, single handed and alone, against the Philistines, they perished by the hundreds. “They that be with us are more than they that are with them”, since all the forces of heaven and all the forces of earth are at His command. God’s enemies may even be made God’s agents. There is nothing in this story to indicate that the chief captain, the two centurions, or the two hundred soldiers were any of them Christians, and there is nothing even to indicate that Claudius Lysias was a believer on Paul’s Christ, but he became the Apostle’s defender none the less. He provided him abundant protection. He prayed that he might have a fair hearing. He performed like a friend. God can, and at His pleasure, does determine the course of men. Our thought and decision is not outside the pale of His influence. We imagine ourselves independent in what we think and do, but are we? Who is independent of God? Who can successfully resist Him? For agencies, God is not shut up to believers. He maketh His enemies to do His bidding, and even the wrath of man to praise Him. God’s plan appears only in its outworking. The plan of these forty Jews was stated clearly. To that, each of them subscribed with his own hand and bound himself, at the cost of life, to carry the same out. The Divine plan was never stated. It was never seen save in its workings, and it was never understood until it was a finished fact; and then, Luke, moved by the Holy Spirit, wrote it down for the first time. We read that the soldiers “took Paul, and brought him by night to Antipatris”. We read that “On the morrow they left the horsemen to go with him, and returned to the castle, who, when they came to Caesarea, and delivered the epistle to the governor, presented Paul also before him” (Acts 23:32-33). That is all true, but it is a very partial truth. The soldiers “took Paul, and brought him at night to Antipatris”, but the soldiers only wrought God’s will. “When they came to Caesarea, and delivered the epistle to the governor, and presented Paul also before him”, they were unconsciously working out the Divine plan, and “when the governor had read the letter, he asked of what province he was. And when he understood that he was of Cilicia”, the governor supposed that he was in the place of power, and that his judgment would be final. But, alas, for the folly of shortsighted men! The final judgment belongs always with God. The governor may decide to leave the Apostle in Herod’s hall.

That does not determine what shall be done with Paul. If you would know God’s will, you will follow on, and when the final sentence is written and the Apostle’s earth history is finished, you will see clearly the Divine plan and approve ardently the wisdom and grace Divine.