Plot Against Paul
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
We have been following the story of Paul in Jerusalem after his 3rd missionary journey. He had a heart to return to Jerusalem while completing his third missionary journey, and you remember that everywhere he went, he was informed by prophecies , that chains awaited Paul in Jerusalem.
It seemed like every City that Paul came to on his way to Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit would reveal this truth to Paul through one of the believers.
As we picked up in chp. 21, we saw that Paul was now in Jerusalem and was in the temple announcing the time of his purification being over, with the 4 men that he was sponsoring, and while at the temple, there were some Jews from Asia who began an uproar against Paul.
and one of the main accusations against Paul was that he had taken a gentile from Ephesus into the temple area , which if you remember we looked at the breakout of the temple mount and saw where Gentiles were allowed and where they were not.
So the crowd grabs Paul and they pull him out of the temple and they begin to beat him. You remember that the commander of the Antonia Fortress , Claudias Lysias came down with some 200 men and rescued Paul from this crowd.
Now as the Roman soldiers are carrying Paul away from the crowd, Paul asked the commander if he can speak to the crowd.
Transition
-This is what we saw in chp. 22. Paul begins to address the crowd and we see that as he spoke , the crowd listened. Paul then begins to give his defense.
and he starts with his testimony. He speaks about how he was a a pharisee , and how he persecuted the church, how God had got a hold of his life on the damascus road.
then we get to verse. 20, where Paul describes God’s calling on his life after his conversion. He says that God told him to “ depart, for i will send you far from here to the gentiles”.
when the Jews heard Paul speak about the “gentiles”, the crowd lost it. An uproar began again at this point crying out “ away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live”
remember that the Jews looked down on the gentiles, on those who were not Jews. Remember the rise of Jewish Nationalism that has been rising in Jerusalem, the pride of being Jews or pride of being separated from the anything non Jewish. so to speak about the Gentiles in the same context of God’s salvation to his people was blasphemy to the crowd.
Transition
now remember that these people were speaking in either the Hebrew language or Aramaic , so the Roman guards or the commander would not understand the speak that Paul has just given. They can’t understand what the people cry out.
all the commander sees is the crowd is losing it and getting crazy after this man Paul spoke to them and this could be a bad situation here in the temple mount.
so the natural thing for the commander to do is to take Paul away from the crowd and put him back in the barracks , in order that they may examine him themselves .
the commander did not know what the problem was, so his thought is, we can examine him under scourging , or punishing him until he tells us what the problem is and why he is being accused by the Jews.
Now what the commander did not know is that Paul was a Roman citizen, and according to Roman law, you could not arrest a Roman citizen without a trial, let alone scourge a Roman Citizen without a proper trial and judgement.
so as soon as they find out that Paul is a Roman, they stop the plan of beating information out of Paul. But the question still sits in the mind of Claudias Lysias as to what all the commotion is about. He needs to find out what the problem is.
The next day, because he wanted to know for certain why he was accused by the Jews, he released him from his bonds, and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down and set him before them.
I. THE SANHEDRIN DIVIDED AGAINST PAUL (V.1-10)
A. PAUL SPEAKS TO THE PEOPLE (V.1-5)
Paul begins to speak .and he declares that he has done nothing wrong .... “Men and Brethren , I have lived in all good conscience before God”
Paul is stating the obvious, that he has done nothing to which he should be arrested and nothing to deserve this trial.
now we are told that when Paul said that, the High Priest, Ananias commanded those closest to Paul to strike him in the mouth.
Obviously the High Priest did not like what Paul said here.
Transition
now what we have here is a trial with the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem. This counsel of religious leaders were called the Sanhedrin. And the Sanhedrin was made up of 70 leaders plus the High Priest, a total of 71 men.
The Sanhedrin was made up of two specific groups of religious leaders, the Sadducees which would be considered the liberal group. And the Pharisees which were the more conservative group.
Now many believe that Paul himself at one point was a member of the Sanhedrin some 20 years earlier before his conversion. It is possible that there may have been men still apart of the Sanhedrin that Paul knew, people he sat next to in judgement
What Paul did by calling them “ men and Brethren” was that he was making all these men equal with him including the High Priest. The normal practice in these religious meetings was to call the High Priest father. So not only did Paul make all these religious leaders equal with him, but he said that he had lived in good conscience before God, which in the current trial he was in, was in a sense declaring that the religious leaders were the ones at fault here..
this is what made the High Priest call for Paul to be smacked in the face.
Transition (v.3)
Paul responds to having his face hit saying....
Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! For you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law?”
Paul calls these religious leaders “whitewash walls”
A term that Jesus used as well for these religious leaders.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
During this period of history in Jerusalem, people were not buried in the ground like we do today. When a person died, they would be put in a tomb inside of a cave or wall.
they would then cover the tomb by placing a rock etc to cover the opening.
Now we have to understand that the religious Jewish leaders over time had added well over 600 different laws that they were to keep. And they were very strict about staying pure and not being defiled.
if a person was to touch a dead person or the tomb of a dead person, he or she would be considered unclean. So in order to avoid someone accidentally touching a tomb, they would paint the walls of the tombs white.
this would let everyone know that this wall or tomb held a dead person in it and would serve as a way of staying away and not becoming unclean.
what Jesus and Paul both meant by these statements was that these religious leaders were so careful about the outward appearance , of not becoming physically unclean yet they were just like these white walls of the tombs....
clean on the outside , yet they were defiled on the inside.
The statement was calling theses religious leaders “hypocrites”
Paul is saying you act like you are God’s representative to carry out His law, but here you are judging me according to the law, yet you strike me which is against the law. The Jewish law forbid for a person to be struck without a proper trial and judgement. They were hypocrites.
There is something to be said about our outward appearance not matching our inward heart.
we sometimes can be like these religious leaders and we can focus on making sure we put on a good outward appearance before people , specially at church or for our parents or for the leaders.
we know what to say, we know how to pretend , we know what answers we are to give..... but many of us, the outward appearance does not match what is actually happening in our hearts. Jesus himself would condemn the sin of “hypocrisy”
Transition (v.4-5)
Those who struck Paul accuse him now of reviling or speaking against the High Priest. Paul says he did not know that he was speaking to the High Priest.
Many believe that Paul had an eye disease that was causing him not to be able to see properly ....
What then was the blessing you enjoyed? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me.
so it is possible that Paul didn’t know that he was speaking to the High Priest. Paul makes it clear here that he respects the office of a High Priest, but not the man who was a hypocrite.
B. PAUL DIVIDES THE SANHEDRIN (V.6-9)
We are told that Paul perceived that one part of the counsel here was Pharisees and the other part Sadducees.
As we said earlier, the Sanhedrin was a mixture of two main religious groups. The Sadducees who were the liberal group. They did not believe in a resurrection , or life after dead like heaven or hell, they did not believe the scriptures were completely the word of God, they didn’t believe in Angles or spirits…
the Pharisees were the conservatives who held strictly to the law, they did believe in a resurrection and in angels and spirits.
so Paul understanding the divisions that already existed, speaks to connect with the Pharisees, saying he himself was a Pharisee , he came from a family of Pharisees. and he is being judge here today because of his belief in a resurrection.
When he said this, the counsel went crazy and began to argue over the natural division they had in their beliefs.
they Pharisees now jump on Paul’s side and declare that they find no fault in him.
C. The Rescue of Paul (v.10)
Here we see the 3rd uproar in our story. First one in chp.21 when Paul was dragged out of the temple and beaten.
then in chp. 22 after Paul speaks about the Gentiles.
here now the crowd gets crazy after the division over the belief in the resurrection and the different beliefs that the religious leaders had.
so the commander comes to the rescue again of Paul. He is afraid that Paul will be torn apart by these people, so the soldiers go down and they take Paul back to the barracks.
II. THE PLOT AGAINST PAUL (V.11-22)
A. GOD BRINGS ENCOURAGEMENT TO PAUL(V.11)
This is an important part of the story to keen in on. We are told that the following night, the Lord stood with Paul and told him to “ Be of good cheer”, or litterally “take courage”.
the fact that God is telling Paul to take courage gives us insight to the how Paul might have been feeling.
remember that Paul had a heart to come to Jersualem and to minister there. Many along the way to Jerusalem had told Paul not to go up to Jerusalem.
Paul had now been beaten, arrested and had been part of 3 uproars and a trial. Things may not have gone the way he thought they would. You can imagine what Paul might have felt.
he might have been discouraged, distressed, disappointed. He might have been second guessing his descision to come down to Jerusalem.
“did God really call me to come down here” , “ Did i make the right decision?”
you can imagine that Paul must have felt alone, confused and discouraged.
and it is in this time, that God comes to Paul and brings comfort and strength .
Transition
it is neat to see how God brings comfort and strength to Paul here.
How does God Brings Comfort and Strength
By the Sustaining Power of His Presence
we are told that the Lord stood by him
in the darkest time of Paul’s life, the feeling of being alone and questioning everything in his life..... God came and stood with him. God brought his presence before Paul.
i can relate with this a bit. There have been times in my life that i have made decisions , i have heard the call of God to do something and then as i took steps of faith forward..... things didn’t play out the way i thought.
due to circumstances and decisions made that were out of my control, i was left alone on an island spiritually. Felt like i was left alone. I remember questioning every decision i made. Questioning if i made the right decision.
questioning if walking away from what i did was God’s will or if it was my will.
and i can remember calling out to the Lord in my desperation and it was God’s presence that brought comfort to me. Knowing that i was not alone, but that God was with me, that He would guide me and direct me brought such comfort to me and allowed me to keep pushing forward.
and so you can see how it was God’s presence in our lives that has sustaining power. It is his presence that can and will hold us together in times that we are ready to fall apart. It is his presence that gives us strength to keep pressing forward.
Story of David ( 1 Sam. 30)
we see a great picture of this. David had been out at war with his men and had left the women and children back at Ziklag.
When they returned they realized that the Amalakites had come and burned down the city and had taken everyone captive.
the men who were with David were upset and were blaming David, he was isolated as the problem and they wanted to stone him.
Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
Then David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, “Please bring the ephod here to me.” And Abiathar brought the ephod to David. So David inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?”
And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.”
David feeling much like Paul was here, discouraged, feeling alone...... strengthened himself in the Lord.
He called for an ephod and prayed to the Lord. David found strength for his soul in the presence of the Lord. and one way of entering his presence is prayer.
2. BY THE SUSTAINING POWER OF GOD’S WORD
We see that the Lord stood with Paul but he spoke to him. It was God’s word that would bring comfort and strength to Paul.
God’s word would bring comfort as he tells him....
a. To take courage
he would find courage within God’s word
b. Reassures him of his calling
God would tell Paul that just as he has testified in Jerusalem so he would bear witness in Rome.
God was affirming Paul’s calling on his life. He was confirming the promises that he gave him.
Application
it was God’s presence and God’s word that would sustain Paul. It was these things that would allow Paul to keep pushing forward in his trials and difficulties of years in prison. Paul was strengthened in the Lord.
this is key for you to understand . Because the reality is that we will all go through difficulties. We will all go through times of feeling depressed because of a situation. there will be times that we will feel alone, times when we question everything around us.
but how we respond to this is important and can have lasting affects.
i’ll be real with you guys....... for many people in times of depression , in times of discouragement , in times of feeling alone will turn to many things to be comforted by.
for some it will be drinking, for some drugs, for some sex or porn, for some it will be cutting or suicide , for others it is eating disorders....
and most of the time it is the desire to find comfort from the pain for a second, and turning to do these things is the hope of that comfort. I know, i came from a broken home..... i understand what it is to feel alone and discouraged and depressed and i know what it is like to turn to everything in order to find some sort of comfort from the pain.
but i will tell you that non of these things will ever bring true comfort and peace. True peace, true comfort from the pain will only be found within the presence of God and within the word of God.
We see that Paul was strengthened in the Lord.
B. Plot Against Paul in Created (v.12-15)
C. The Plot is Revealed (v. 13-22)
III. PAUL SENT TO FELIX (V.23-35)