Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

A lion, a fox, an a hyena were moving through the jungle collecting their dinner.

When they were done they had gotten a large pile of animals.

The lion said to the hyena, "Why don't you go over and divide the pile into three equal parts."

The hungry hyena said, "Sure."

He quickly separated the dead animals in three equal piles.

Immediately the lion sprung to his feet, and pounced on the hyena, and killed him.

He then put the three piles back together, and threw the hyena on top.

Then he said to the fox, "Why don't you go over and divide the pile into two equal parts."

The fox shuffled over and pulled out a crow and made that his pile, and he left all the rest for the lion.

The lion smiled and said, "Mr.

fox, how did you learn to divide so equally?"

The fox answered, "The hyena taught me."

Learning can take place fast with the proper motivation.

The Bible says that Satan goes about like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour.

The wise man learns fast that you don't eat this lion, or you will soon be a part of the menu.

But Satan is not the only lion in the Bible.

In Rev. 5:5 Jesus is called Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

Paul learned fast that here is another lion you don't mess with.

Jesus sprung on Paul on the road to Damascus, and He knocked him to the ground, blinded.

Paul was persecuting his people, and Jesus took it personal, just like a mother lion if someone is hurting her cubs.

The paradoxical difference in these two lions is that the goal of one is to devour, and the goal of the other is to deliver.

The Lion of the Tribe of Judah attacked Saul of Tarsus and delivered him from a life of bondage to law, and made him Paul the Apostle of liberty, with a Gospel of freedom and life for all men.

It was not the lion's bite, but the lion's light that penetrated Paul, and made him a reflector of that light.

This lion, and his prey, became the awesome twosome who together made Christianity a world wide movement that broke down the walls between Jews and Gentiles.

Paul was no lion tamer, but he had the paradoxical experience of being tamed by this Lion of heaven, who was king, not of the jungle only, but of the universe.

Jesus became Paul's Lord and King, and from his conversion on, Paul was a man with one priority-to do his Master's will.

But what we want to see is that being lion-tamed, that is under the Lordship of Christ, does not mean one is robbed of their individuality and uniqueness.

Paul, as a Christian, was still a very complex man with a great deal of variety about him.

He is different from any of the other Apostles.

The more we study him, the more we will see he is the product of two worlds.

He has both a strong Jewish background, and a strong Gentile background.

He is a hybrid, and brings together in one personality some radical differences.

Paul took seriously the obviously impossible goal of being all things to all men.

The result is, he had the potential for pleasing everybody, but also for aggravating everybody, and Paul was quite good at both.

As far as I can weigh the evidence, he was the most wanted man in the New Testament-dead or alive.

There were more plots to kill Paul than there was against Jesus, and all of the other Apostles put together.

Paul made more people angry then any other New Testament personality.

He was the most criticized by non-Christians and by Christians alike.

He has been the most controversial man of the New Testament throughout history, and still is today.

People love him or hate him, and sometimes it is the same people, for Paul can be so loving and yet so demanding.

James S. Stewart, the great preacher, said, "Paul can contradict himself, can land himself at times in hopeless antinomy, can leap without warning from one point of view to another totally different, can say in the same breath, work out your own salvation, and it is God working in you, but through it all and beneath it all there is a living unity and a supreme consistency...." His consistency is that he was following his Lord, for Jesus was also a paradoxical personality.

Jesus said such things as, to save our life we must lose it, to live we must die.

Paul says, to conquer we must surrender.

Jesus says, to be exalted we must be humble.

Paul says, to be wise we must become fools.

Jesus said, to be first we must be last.

Paul said, to be strong we must be weak.

Paul said we are to have the mind of Christ in us, and he certainly did.

He was Lion-tamed, and trained to think like his Lord.

William Wilkinson writes, "Paul, like his Lord, was found of paradoxes, and like his Lord he presented in himself a miracle of paradoxes reconciled."

In our text, and in the context, we see in Paul a man of unbelievable stubbornness and unbeatable flexibility.

He could be as hard as nails, and as soft as putty.

When it came to his goal there was no compromise, but when it came to means toward a goal Paul was open to compromise.

If we could be like Paul, we could stand fast, and yet bend at the right time, so as to be more effective in being a tool for the kingdom of God.

Let's examine the two sides of this particular paradox in Paul, and see if we can learn something about being both stubborn and flexible.

First let's look at-

I. PAUL'S DEMONSTRATION OF INFLEXIBILITY.

Verse 17 simply states that Paul arrived in Jerusalem.

That sounds innocent enough until you go back and see that Paul, in his determination to reach Jerusalem, defied most all of the steps for knowing the will of God.

He rejected the counsel, advice, and warnings of just about everybody who cared about him.

Paul smashed through more road blocks to get to Jerusalem that he did to get anywhere else in his world wide travels.

He was like a man obsessed.

He would let no one hinder him in reaching this destination.

It was Jerusalem or bust for Paul, and he meant it.

Everybody else saw Paul on a collision course with his deadly opponents among the Jews.

It was like watching him play chicken, and as the two vehicles raced toward each other, they warn Paul to pull off and save yourself!

But Paul never flinched, but like his Lord before him, he set his face steadfastly for Jerusalem.

Look at the obstacles he plowed through to get there.

In verse 4 of chapter 21 it says, "Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them 7 days.

Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem."

But Paul said good-bye and headed on to Jerusalem.

Then in verses 10 to 11,

it says a prophet named Agabus bound his hands and feet with Paul's belt and said, "This is what the Jews will do to Paul if he goes to Jerusalem."

It was a prophecy right from the Spirit of God, and everyone else was persuaded that Paul needed to change his course.

Then in verse 12 we read, "When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem."

Paul just said that he was ready to die if need be, but he was not going to turn back.

They argued with Paul, but he was so absolutely determined that they just gave up.

Everybody gave up on Paul, for nothing could change his mind.

He would not listen to anybody.

When Dr. Luke says we pleaded with him, he was including himself, and so all of Paul's best friends were all convinced he was making a mistake.

Red lights were flashing everywhere, but all Paul could see was green, and he was ready to go.

He was marching to a different drummer, and was as stubborn as any saint has ever been.

All his friends were like gnats trying to stop a run away locomotive.

Their efforts were all in vain, and Paul went on to Jerusalem.

Paul was as mule-headed as anybody in history.

There are some who match him, however.

Colonel Thomas Butler Jr., the Revolutionary War hero is an example.

He fought in many major battles, and Washington used him for special assignments.

When Thomas Jefferson became president, he made a new rule that American soldiers could no longer wear pigtails.

For over a century it had been a custom for military men to wear a braid of long hair down their back, usually tied with a ribbon.

Now they were to be cut off.

It had nothing to do with our feelings about being feminine.

Jefferson wanted no badges of

aristocracy, and the monarchy of the past.

Men of all ranks complained bitterly as their locks were shorn.

It made them feel like convicts, but they had no choice.

With one exception, Colonel Butler, they all obeyed.

Because of his great service to his country, the touchy issue was avoided for two years by his commanding officer.

But then they got into an argument, and the General ordered him to cut it off.