Dennis Tuuri

Scripture is found in the 22nd chapter of the book of Acts beginning at verse 22. And I’ll read through Acts 23:1. This is an account of troubling times for the Apostle Paul. Difficult times and yet times he was prepared for and times the conclusion of which, the last verse in the sermon text today, verse 11. Paul being still upon his bed does indeed know that God reigns and Jesus appears to him and comforts him.

Acts 22, beginning at verse 22, please stand for the reading of God’s word. And we’re taking this account up after his speech to the assembled Jews who were very angry with him and had brought false charges against him. And this is the end. Verse 21 records the end of his speech before he’s interrupted at verse 22 of chapter 22. 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 they that he should be examined by scourging, that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. 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 freeborn.” Then straightway they departed from him, which should have examined him. And the chief captain also was afraid, and after he knew that he was a Roman and because he had bound him on tomorrow 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.

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.” But 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 said so, 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 angels 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 had spoken to him, let us not fight against God.” When there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded his soldiers to go down and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle.

And 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.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And as we take it now, we take it with thanksgiving and consecrate our use of this word for your purposes and not our own. Help us, Lord God, to avoid the great sin of using this word to somehow justify our sin. We know that’s what these some of these very men did. And help us not to be like that. But help us rather to consecrate our use of your word for your purposes and not our own.

We pray you’d be in the context of our assembly now that our ears would be open to hear what you have to say. And help me, Lord God, to have wisdom to speak according to your word and no more. I pray too for the Sabbath school teachers that you would help them to teach the children entrusted to their care for this short period of time by the parents that decide to do so to teach them from your word and so point them to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repentance toward God.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Paul was not on a vacation to Jerusalem. He wasn’t engaged in sightseeing. He wasn’t there by chance. And this was not just one of many visits he might pay to the holy city. He was there on a very specific mission given to him by God. And as this account develops, and we’ve been in it now for several weeks, and I’m sorry for the interruptions. But if you remember the flow of what’s occurring here, remember he had been told that bonds awaited him at Jerusalem.

And then he comes and engages in the fulfillment of the Nazerite vow and is arrested in the context of the temple. You remember all this. They take him outside the gates of the temple and then begin to beat him nearly to death. And the Romans rescue him. They take him up the stairs to this castle or fortress of the Romans. And then he says he wants to address the people, which they let him do. And he addresses them in Hebrew and we talked about that several weeks ago.

The people cry out at one point where he denies their natural privilege. He talks about going to the Gentiles and the Romans rescue him the second time which was we just began this text with that second rescue of the Romans by the Romans of Paul from the Jews. And they take him in and they’re going to scourge him now. They’re going to beat him with a whip that had multiple pieces of leather and little pieces of bone or metal at the end. It was a big deal.

And then Paul asserts his Roman citizenship and that leads to him being taken before the Sanhedrin or the council.

What’s going on here? There’s many correlations between the actions of Paul and our Savior. We’ll point out more today. We’ve already pointed out some in the past. What we’ve got going on here is that Paul has been sent to Jerusalem by God as a second witness, so to speak. Third witness really. They had Jesus, they had Peter, that portion of the church. And now they’ve got Paul giving them a last opportunity to repent of their sinfulness.

Paul in the providence of God is there to engage the city, the members of the ancient church and also to engage the rulers of that church. He has already engaged the multitudes gathered there from many nations. He’s spoken to them his defense of who he was and how he was the true lineage of the Old Testament institutional church and the ancient people. All Christians are based upon that foundation. The Apostle Paul has witnessed to them and they’ve rejected that witness and now he goes before the Sanhedrin to give them the final witness of the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he’ll be rejected there too.

By the end of the story, the Romans have rescued him for the third time from the Jewish population. And then the next week we’ll see the fourth rescue from a plot actually to kill him. And so Paul is there on a very specific mission. He’s not just sort of there doing his thing and then gets arrested and gets taken up and all this. God has him there for this purpose to testify to the Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem to the people which he’s done and to the rulers of the people which he’s now in the process of doing in this particular text.

Now this is very important to get this down. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 10 and Mark 13, “When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your father which speaketh in you.” Then in Mark 13, “When they shall lead you and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what you shall speak, neither do you premeditate. But whatsoever shall be given you in the hour that speak ye, for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.”

Now that is not a verse that is given to us as somehow that’s the model for how we witness. We don’t prepare and all no this is very specific Jesus speaking to his disciples who would be persecuted in that city particularly and I think this has if there is one place of potential or direct application of these verses surely it is the apostle Paul before first the people of Israel and then the Sanhedrin as a final witness to the city of Jerusalem before he then departs and goes to Rome and transfers them the center of the church away from Jerusalem into the outer regions of the world.

So this is a momentous turning point not just in the apostle Paul’s career but in the career of the Christian church. This is about 58 AD and by 66 AD the war will start and by 70 AD there will essentially be no Jerusalem left. God will destroy it. And so Paul, this is very important to get in mind because our story today that the scriptures give us is filled with stuff that seems a little bit odd to us. And it seems it’s filled with stuff that people might want to put constructions on that aren’t quite right.

Well, you know that Apostle Paul, he just kind of lost his temper there. And he started yelling at the high priest. And then he said, “Well, I guess I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” That’s what some people say. And then he throws up this thing about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the resurrection just because he’s being kind of a smart alec and wanting to get these guys all stirred up. But that’s not what Paul is doing. Paul is very astutely being used by the Lord Jesus Christ to be his second witness or third to Jerusalem.

And the momentousness of this event helps us to interpret those things that Paul does in the correct understanding of them and avoids an improper understanding of them on our part.

As I said in this text, we have five essential elements on the outline. The overview of the text. Paul is brought here before rulers. He’s brought before civil rulers and ecclesiastical rulers. And then finally, there’s an appearance of the King of Kings to him and Paul is before him. And the way these things shake out is very interesting as they correlate one to the other.

We see in this text that Paul is first rescued, as I said, for the second time from the Jews by the Romans. Now, I’ll just mention this now and not mention it much more today, but probably more next week, there is a very significant scene being played out here where the Romans continually rescue the church from Jewish opposition. We’ve seen this in Paul’s missionary journeys. Do you remember how God used the Roman civil rulers to rescue the church and rescue Paul and other members of it? And this is consonant with Old Testament teaching.

This is Nehemiah again going to rebuild the city under the auspices of the emperor. The emperor even though may not be regenerate or whatever, the emperor is used by God for protection for his people in these kind of empire building times. And that’s we’ll talk more upon that next week, but I want you to understand that here. See repeatedly that it’s the Jews who are attacking and the Romans who are delivering. Next week we’ll see they send out hundreds of soldiers to escort Paul from Jerusalem to Caesarea. What a picture of the deliverance by the emperor!

But in any event, we see that in this particular text and then we see as the text goes on, we read of Paul’s Roman citizenship preventing his scourging. You know, Paul’s brought up and he’s going to be scourged there. They’re going to examine him. They would beat people like this and torture them. Then they’d bring them before the proconsul and say, “Well, what’s the truth of the matter?” And if you didn’t tell the truth, they’d take you back again if it didn’t kill you the first time. It probably would the second or third time. The way it worked.

So Paul is that’s what’s going to happen to Paul here. Now, it’s interesting because, you know, he does not simply take this. He asserts his right as a Roman citizen. He asserts the right of the city of which he was a citizen, the populace, the authority of Rome. He asserts that and he also asserts the right of natural what some would call common law. He says is it okay for you to beat a Roman and particularly a Roman who’s not condemned? You’re going to issue punishment to somebody which you haven’t heard the case of yet. And they oh well gee you’re a Roman better not do that.

Well, Paul asserts his rights. Paul uses tactics. He uses secondary means. Paul is not a quietist. He’s not somebody who’s just passive and lets whatever people do to him happen. He takes use of the secondary means that God gives him. And I don’t want you to, you know, I don’t think it’s proper to call Paul into question on this account because, as I said, we’re at the height really of his ministry here. In a way, everything else has been preparatory for Paul giving this final defense of the Lord Jesus Christ to Jerusalem, after which will come the judgment of God and successive phases leading up to the destruction of that city.

So, I think we should read Paul’s actions here commendably particularly in light of the fact at the end of all this the Lord Jesus Christ comes to him direct appearance and says be of good cheer you’ve done well and as you’ve testified in Jerusalem so are you going to testify in Rome he’s not doesn’t chide Paul from making mistakes so we should look at these actions as models for us and Paul asserts his rights as a Roman citizen and it is proper for us to assert rights of being United States citizens part of the secondary means that God has established.

And that’s what Paul does here. And it’s very interesting because the Romans give him the respect due a Roman citizen. And we’re going to see here in a couple of minutes, the Jews don’t give him any respect. And when they start to hit him, he’ll tell him the same thing. What are you doing here? I’m not condemned according to the law, but that doesn’t stop them. They want to go on and hit him some more.

So, you see the contrast here? Are the Romans without the witness of God really operating on the principle of conscience and on common laws, so to speak, to the world. And they are more godly, so to speak. They’re more moral in their deliberations than are these Jews who are supposed to represent God’s people. And so, there’s a great contrast here. Jerusalem is becoming Rome, and Rome is becoming Jerusalem. That’s what’s going on here.

And so, the Apostle Paul is delivered from his scourging by his assertion of Roman citizenship. And he says that he indeed was a Roman citizen. You’ll notice that there’s no big question about that. They take his word for it. Do you know why? Well, it’s because if you said you were a Roman citizen and you weren’t, the death penalty was immediately meted out to you. It was a big deal citizenship.

And boy, I pray to God that being a Christian to say that I’m a Christian might one day and maybe not the next generation, maybe several generations out have that kind of weight and moment to it when it is asserted both the dignity offered to people who claim that they are Christians and the way we should treat them with honor and respect and see them as very important people and also that false claims to be Christians can be blotted out by the church through the declarations of the church through excommunications and suspensions etc. I pray to God that one day this same sort of thing might be played out in the context of people saying I’m a Christian and on the basis of that more honor more glory is afforded to such citizens.

Well, we pray for that. And Paul goes on and we would like to have seen that in the case of the Jews as well, but we don’t see that either.

After this happens, the Roman officer here wants to know what’s going on. And so then he tells Paul, well, okay, they take him out of his bonds there. He’s really afraid, of course, the text tells us because it was highly improper and wrong for an officer to even bind or chain up a Roman citizen without cause. And certainly it was nearly a capital offense. It was a very big deal to beat a Roman in this way. And so he was very afraid of what he had almost stumbled into doing.

And he then puts Paul over to the next day and he summons the Sanhedrin. That shows you kind of the state of things in Jerusalem right there, doesn’t it? You got the civil magistrate ordering the Sanhedrin to meet to hear a matter kind of, you know, it’s not supposed to happen that way. The civil magistrate is not supposed to be able to direct the church to meet. But that’s what happens here. The Sanhedrin comes together then and they’re going to talk I think probably in I don’t think this is a trial. This is more of an informal appearance of Paul to present his case before the Sanhedrin.

And Paul only has one shot at this thing. I think that’s what’s in his mind at least. He’s got the one shot. And so he wants to make full use of it. And he, as J. Alexander says, sort of sums up in one sentence here all that he wants to tell the Sanhedrin because he knows he’s probably not going to get much more of a shot at it than this.

So Paul in verse one begins by earnestly beholding the council. In other words, he looks at them. He makes eye contact with the men that are around him. He stares. He brings to mind the import of what’s going on here to us of course and also to the immediate audience. The Apostle Paul earnestly beholds the council. And then he says, “Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God unto this day.”

And then of course he’s commanded to be struck.

Well, when Paul says, “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” Some people question what this means. What does it mean? I think that specifically in reference here are the charges relative to his supposedly wanting to profane the temple by bringing in Gentiles. So, I don’t think he’s going back to his days as a persecutor of the church and saying he was living in good conscience, although ignorant. Some people think that. Matthew Henry, for one. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on. He’s saying in reference to these charges, I have lived in good conscience unto this day. Since I’ve been here in the context of these charges, I am free and clear. I am not guilty. And in fact, it’s not that I’m not guilty. I am a good citizen.

The term he uses here to live means to exercise citizenship responsibilities. And Paul asserts here that he is a citizen of the people of God, the theocracy of God. And he is a good citizen of that theocracy. He has not sinned against the people of God nor the church of God. He is a model citizen as it were. And he these are fighting words in a way right from the get-go. You notice he doesn’t say men, brethren, and fathers. Now it’s men and brethren. He’s putting himself on a par with these people is what he’s doing.

Men and brethren. I have lived in all good conscience until this day. Conscience was a big deal to Paul and it should be a big deal to us. I’ll talk a little bit more about that a little later on. But Paul said his conscience didn’t condemn him and the law didn’t condemn him and he had lived as a good citizen of the theocracy of God.

Well, the response of the high priest to that he understands perfectly well what Paul is saying. I don’t think that what we see here is particularly uncontrolled anger on the part of Ananias. I mean, it could be that he this particular fella had a reputation for being cruel and being kind of out of control. It could be that. But I think he knew full well what Paul was saying. And that’s why he commanded to be smitten on the mouth.

To smite somebody on the mouth was an ancient way of making an official proclamation that what he’d said was incorrect and wrong and evil and also that he should shut his mouth and say no more. And so Ananias commands that Paul be smitten. Now we don’t know that Paul was smitten, by the way. It doesn’t say that he was here. What it says is that he was commanded to be smitten. Now you can imagine if he had been smitten what the Roman officer is going to do about that.

And he this is a Roman remember. But even before the Roman officer can get involved in this, Paul immediately then retorts to this command and he says, “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?”

He announces, not a curse, he announces a prediction, a prophecy that God will indeed smite him. How can Paul make the assertion because he knows that God is faithful to his word. He knows that when you’ve got somebody who’s supposed to be a ruler of the people and exercising evil in high places, that’s not going to be stood for by God long term. God will certainly and probably sooner rather than later, punish Ananias for this sin, not against Paul, but against the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Paul represents.

Paul is there not in his own defense. He’s there in the defense of the Lord Jesus Christ. And for the high priest to strike out at Paul, who brings who the messenger in Christ is to strike out at Jesus. And he says, “God’s going to smite you for that. Jesus will hit you in the mouth.” And then he calls him a whited wall. You know, walls get rotten and corrupt. They, you know, sometimes when presidents go to go to ghetto areas of big cities, they’ll put up big facades. They don’t see all the ugly looking buildings and the streets and all that stuff.

And that’s what this is. Whited walls of walls decaying. You put white wash over it. We did this in our basement not too long ago. I hadn’t thought of this till now, but there was some leaking into the wall and we painted over it with paint and you know, of course, it comes right through there eventually. A whited wall is a hypocrite, plain and simple. It’s somebody who asserts one thing and does another.

And that’s what Paul says. He says, “You’re asserting to judging by the law, but you’re acting contrary to the law because the law says you should only punish people after they’ve been heard, after they’ve had an opportunity to speak.”

This is a very important lesson for us. Matthew Henry says, “It’s against all law, human and divine, natural and positive, to hinder a man from speaking his defense and to condemn him unheard.” And that’s what the high priest is doing to Paul here. One sentence and he cuts him off and he begins to perform the punishment against him.

Now, in this, there’s another correlation here to the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, John 18:22 and Jesus had just spoken. One of the officers, this is when they’re leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, which stood by, struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, “Answerest thou the high priest so?” And Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil. But if well, why smiteest thou me?” Saying the same thing essentially Paul did. Paul is a little more energetic about it here, a little more colorful in his language, but he essentially says the same thing. It is a reproach to a people and to an institution when people come before it and are not even given an opportunity to be heard and are judged by that institution and then punished by that institution.

I see this go on today in institutional churches, denominations, people don’t have the right way to get out of denomination. That’s no problem. The denomination can still deal with those folks. They don’t have to even listen to what they say. And they can write letters asserting that this isn’t proper for you to come to us etc. I’ve seen this very thing at work in institutional churches today and it is a judgment from God against a sinning church that men don’t have the courage discipline and honor of other members of the church of Jesus Christ to hear them out and cut them off and then not only cut them off to pronounce punishments against them.

This is an abomination in the sight of God. And that’s what’s going on right here. Paul has done nothing wrong here when he tells this man, this Ananias, that God is going to punish him for that. He’s ministering grace to Ananias, if you want to look at it that way. He’s telling him what surely will come to pass in the providence of God to such men who strike out as representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then he tells him the basis for his sin, and that is that he walks contrary to the law. So Paul asserts that here. Then as the message goes on, one of the men that are standing by, we don’t know which one it was necessarily. He says, “Revilest thou God’s high priest?” And here people get a little confused, too. Listen, but listen carefully to what Paul says. Paul doesn’t say, “Oh, I didn’t know I was the high priest. Now I know, and I’m sorry I did that.” He doesn’t say that. Listen to what he says.

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.”

End of statement. Now, if Paul is going to repent of this thing, he’s going to say more than, well, I’m not sure that this was or is the high priest, he’s going to go on to say, I am sorry for what I did wrong. I shouldn’t have done it. He cites the law and he still maintains living in good conscience before men. And I think what Paul is saying was, I didn’t know he was the high priest. I’m not sure now he’s the high priest and I don’t think I’ve necessarily done anything wrong in this case. That’s what I think Paul is saying. Paul is saying this hypocrite, this whitewashed wall, this man who will condemn people without hearing them, who will strike out at the messenger of the Lord Jesus Christ has no authority to rule in this matter.

Ananias was not of the heritage of Aaron. That was a requirement for the high priest. Ananias had gotten this position through the Roman government. Ananias was a Sadducee. He denied the resurrection. He denied the fact that there were spirits. The men had souls that continued after the body died. He the Sadducees were materialists. The Sadducees were freethinkers. And the Sadducees had no belief in the resurrection or anything like it.

And Paul is correctly saying, “Well, who is this fellow?” In addition to this, the historical fact was at this particular period of time, there might have been two or three different men that claimed to be the high priest because the state of Israel is in such disarray as pointed out by this incredible procedure that even compared to Rome is found wanting on the part of the people.

So Paul is saying here, he’s not apologizing. He’s saying, “Yeah, you shouldn’t revile the ruler of the people, and I didn’t do that.” That’s what I think he’s saying.

Then he goes on then to talk about the resurrection. So we see Paul delivered from scourging through the assertion of Roman citizenship. But the assertion of Jewish citizenship and of a good conscience does not prevent him from being ordered to be stricken by the Jewish court. And then the text goes on then to tell us of the dissension and how God will once more free Paul from this inquiry of the Sanhedrin by the Roman soldiers.

We read that in verse six. Paul perceives that one part were Sadducees, the other was Pharisees. He cried out and said, “Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee.”

Now, once more here, we have to be very careful. There are people who are going to say, “Well, that Paul, you know, he was just getting kind of carried away.” And he said this because he knew that would work him up, get them all concerned. He wasn’t really meaning this. And people will take him to task. But you know what he’s saying here is a couple of things. First of all, the Pharisees originally that term came from the time I believe of Ezra. And the Pharisees were men who were set apart or separatists. To separate is what the origin of the word Pharisee meant. They were separatists from the ungodly. And in that sense, Paul is certainly a consecrated man. So he is a Pharisee among Pharisees.

He was raised as a Pharisee as well in the instruction of Gamaliel. But Paul is speaking specifically in reference to the resurrection, the hope of the resurrection. And that’s what he goes on to address. He says, “I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, of the hope and resurrection of the dead. I am called into question.”

Is Paul lying? He is not lying. He’s saying that when it comes to Pharisees and Sadducees, and we’re going to be talking about the resurrection and the hope of Israel, I’m a Pharisee. I’m on their side of this argument because the Sadducees deny the resurrection. The Pharisees have hope for the resurrection. We don’t know of any Sadducees who came to the faith. We know of a lot of Pharisees who came to the faith. See, because they held to some basic doctrines and commonality with what the truth was. And those men were part of the elect community of Christ and God brought them to salvation.

Well, the Apostle Paul is saying in terms of those arguments, I’m a Pharisee. I’m a good Pharisee. I’m a committed, dedicated man who believes in the hope of the resurrection. Now, understand, too, when Paul doesn’t just say the resurrection. And when he says hope, he’s not just referring to the hope of eternal resurrection of our bodies. Certainly, that’s part of it. But remember the audience again, he’s speaking to people whose context for judging things was the Old Testament.

And this community at this what they what the hope was to them was Messiah. The hope of Israel which Paul will later in another defense of his say that this is what he’s on trial for. The hope of Israel the hope of Israel is Messiah and all that Messiah brings to bear in terms of a reversal in the world round about. Okay.

So Paul is not just speaking of the eternal state. He’s speaking of the effects of the resurrected Christ in terms of the nation of Israel, the people of God who are truly Israel, those who rule for God and upon the whole earth. That’s what Messiah was going to do. And he says he’s on charge on trial here for the hope and the resurrection. And that of course causes all kinds of things to break loose here. And a great tumult happens, you know, the rest of the story. They get all upset and start arguing one of the Pharisees actually says, “I don’t see anything wrong with what this guy is saying. If he’s been envisioned by an angel or a spirit, well, you know, we don’t want to work against what God has done.”

Now, thinking probably of Paul’s earlier assertion the day before of his Damascus road experience when Jesus appears to him and so this Pharisees are saying we don’t know what exactly has happened there we don’t want to condemn this guy and probably the actions of the high priest enlivened the Pharisees against him and against the Sadducees they could see that this was not proper according to the law well in any event Paul then says I think completely properly that he’s a Pharisee of Pharisees and then hope for the resurrection of the dead.

And then all this problem breaks loose and then the soldiers come along and have to rescue him again because he’s afraid he’s going to be torn in pieces. And then finally, the last element that happens in our story is verse 11.

And the night following, Jesus comes at night, the time of turning from death to life, the time of resurrection. 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.”

And by the way, when Paul gets to Rome, he goes to the Jews first. He goes to the synagogues. See, cuz he’s going to testify at Rome the way he testified at Jerusalem, not necessarily the way he testified when he went to completely pagan cities. There are synagogues. There are seven big ones. And historically, at least three or four of them were converted by the Apostle Paul through his ministry at Rome. He’ll be effectual there. And so Rome becomes, as it were, the new Jerusalem, the place where the synagogues actually hear the message of the Lord Jesus Christ and respond affirmatively. Okay.

So that’s the text and let’s go over just briefly then some lessons from this text for us.

This text I think the last verse in this particular account is the pivotal one and that’s what I’ve taken as the message today. “Be of good cheer.” The word good cheer there means to be filled with courage. Have hope. Look forward to what’s going to be happening here. Okay. Hope means to anticipate the future with a joyful and a thankfulness for what God will bring to pass in the future and having that hope set before us.

The Lord Jesus says, “Be of good cheer.” Now, who are those who are the recipients of good cheer? Well, we know that in the gospel accounts that Jesus tied his giving of good cheer to specific things. He said, for instance, in Matthew 9:22 that when a woman had faith, she was supposed to be of good cheer because she’d been healed physically. Faith is a gift of God, as is the healing of the body. And that is a thing to be of good cheer for.

In Matthew 9:2, he tells a man to be of good cheer because his sins are forgiven him. And as you sit here today, you should be of good cheer and encouraged by the Lord Jesus Christ to have a good countenance about you, knowing that your sins are forgiven, that you have exercised faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God.

In Matthew 14:27, when he appears to the apostles, he tells them to be of good cheer. “It is I. Don’t be afraid.” And you know, I said last week that I heard a definition that paranoia is the cutting edge of the real realization that all things are connected. And you know, when that happens to you and things kind of click into place and odd things occur and you see coincidences happening and stuff, it can frighten you.

But those of us who know that history moves according to the sovereign hand of God and that every detail of history occurs because of God’s decree and then his providence in working his decree out into the created order. These things should not be things that cause us fear. They would apart from that realization. But Jesus says, “Be of good cheer. It’s I who’s moving this stuff. Don’t be afraid of the things that happen in the world. It’s I who am with you in the context and moving these things to fruition.”

In John 16:33, Jesus said that we might have peace in the world. “In the world, you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world.” And Paul, as he appears, as he has the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus reminds him of this fact that he can have peace in the context of tribulation because Jesus has indeed overcome the world and he can be of good cheer.

This good cheer works on the vertical plane. In other words, it’s a good cheer recognizing God’s hand upon us, his presence with us, his giving us faith, his forgiving us our sins, his overcoming the world and seeing us through tribulations. That’s all in the vertical plane. But it also works horizontally. Later on in Acts 28:15, we read that when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns whom when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage.

See, isn’t that wonderful that we can be, as it were, an appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to one another in the context of difficulties or trouble to see each other, to get together, to come over and just be with someone in the midst of difficulty. And as a result of that, we can be as the Lord Jesus Christ was to the Apostle Paul. Someone who comes along and says, “Be of good cheer. Be comforted.” Just our presence can do that if it’s received correctly as the apostle Paul received the presence of the believers.

Good cheer is an essential element of the Christian faith. And this text, the focus of that I’ve taken the description of who Paul was who received this good cheer and then applied it to us as well. Who are those in other words who receive good cheer? They’re those with a clear conscience.

Paul is the one who receives good cheer here. Paul is the one who had asserted before the Sanhedrin that he lived with a clear conscience. You know, boys and girls, men and women, a good conscience can only be had in one way, and that is to strive, to obey, to fear, to reverence God, and to obey him in the context of our lives. And that includes repenting of sin that we commit. Paul didn’t mean he was without sin, but he meant that when his conscience convicted him of sin, he did something about it. He confessed that sin. And he does mean that his life was lived essentially in conformity to the scriptures.

The Ten Commandments are not difficult to obey in most of their applications. Now, in the heart and in the thoughts, when we let evil things take rest in our hearts or our minds, then we’ve sinned. But it’s not difficult not to sleep with somebody else’s wife and it’s not difficult not to go kill somebody. It’s not difficult to avoid stealing from somebody. You can live in essential conformity to those things and you should. And if you don’t, if you stole something this last week or you shot somebody or if you broke the Sabbath last week, then you know your conscience is going to be defiled and hurt.

Now, we do things that are wrong. We have angry thoughts toward our brothers and our sisters. We have mean thoughts toward our parents sometimes. You know it when Paul quotes from the case law that it’s wrong to curse the leader of the people, the scriptures also say it’s wrong to think lightly or to curse a king in your heart as well in the Old Testament. See, the Old Testament was concerned about internals too. We can sin in those ways. But when we sin, we’re to confess that sin before God and do something about it. And we’re supposed to live with a clear conscience.

And children, adults, if there’s something you’ve done this past week that lays heavy on your conscience and you don’t have a clear conscience, I don’t want you to be encouraged by today’s message. I don’t want you to hear the words of Jesus Christ saying, “Be of good cheer.” What I want you to hear first is we’re called by the Lord Jesus Christ to repent of your sin, to confess it to God first, and then to others that you sin against, and to endeavor and try hard not to do that in the future. I want you to live a life like that. And if you have a life with a good conscience, then Jesus says, “Be of good cheer.”

Conscience is extremely important. You know, I was watching a play by Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Big Daddy. You know, if you ever seen that or read the play, you know, Big Daddy wants to buy everything. 28,000 acres, $10 million in the bank. And Big Daddy can’t buy life cuz he’s got the big C. He’s going down. Well, it’s true that money can’t buy you life. And it’s also true that a conscience, a good conscience cannot be purchased with money. And in fact, for most of us, money gets in the way of a good conscience.

And that’s one reason why God doesn’t give us very much money. We don’t necessarily sin with the money against God. But we sin by way of omission when we have money. It pulls us away from our duties and responsibilities to God. And it pulls us away from our awareness of dependence upon other people. People who are rich tend to get isolated. Big Daddy didn’t know the name of the people that worked on the fields that he owned, the 28,000 acres. Money tends doesn’t have to, but money tends to do that. Money can’t buy a good conscience and frequently gets in the way of it.

What can give us a good conscience is a knowledge of the forgiveness of sins of the Lord Jesus Christ and a response of love to him for that changes your life. Do you want to come here today to get changed or did you want to just come to kind of get assured that everything’s okay. See, I want us all to change after today. I want us to strive harder at the end of the message and out on into this week to have a good conscience toward God and a good conscience toward men. And so, that’s what God will give us if we attempt to live in terms of that.

The conscience is very important. There’s another reason, by the way, that we know that Paul wasn’t being sinful against this high priest. Because Paul himself would write later on Romans 13:5 “Wherefore you must needs be subject that’s to the governing authorities not only for wrath but also for conscience sake.”

Now here’s a big problem for us today because we’ve got ungodly rulers and yet God says obey them for conscience sake and this is one of the great areas potential today in our culture for defiling your conscience to sin relative to your civil rulers and that’s what it will do to have a improper attitude to the rulers that God has put in place who bear his name hurts your conscience. And folks, your conscience is important.

You have a good conscience. That’s a prerequisite I believe for the encouragement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said that he did exercise himself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man. A good conscience is not something that just sort of comes naturally. Paul said that he had to exercise himself. He had to exercise self-restraint, discipline. He had to strengthen himself and steel himself so that he might have a good conscience toward man and toward God. It’s not something that comes natural. It’s something you have to put out there as a goal and work toward it and work hard at keeping short accounts with people. And think right now to yourself, is there somebody in this church that you’ve got a fence with you haven’t talked to them about or someone outside of the church?

Maybe there’s someone you need to go to and exercise yourself to humble yourself before them that you might have a good conscience, not just toward God, Paul said, but toward man. Paul says that we’re supposed to be careful not to hurt other people’s consciences. Whole thing in First Corinthians about meat and all that stuff, he says, “Well, I’m not telling you shouldn’t eat some of that stuff for your own sake. You’re strong, but for the weak person’s sake, you don’t want to cause him to stumble. You don’t want to have him sin against his conscience. The same thing is true of us today.

We want to exercise ourselves that we have good conscience toward God and men and that we don’t hurt somebody else’s conscience as well.

Hebrews 9:14. And when we have the offertory here in a couple of minutes, we’re going to remember the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. And Hebrews 9:14 says, “How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

And then Hebrews 10:22, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

You know, when you come forward to give your offering or when you stand up and do the prayer, there’s a couple of things you can do with your conscience. You can plead the blood of Jesus. You can confess your sins and you can endeavor to make restitution for those sins is required by God’s word. That’s one way to have a good conscience as you come before God to worship him. The other way to have a supposed good conscience is to not pay attention to it. And as you get up or as you come forward and as a sin, God brings a sin to your mind, say, “Well, that wasn’t that big a deal.” Or, “I had reason for doing that.” Or, “Everybody does that one, so I don’t have to worry about that sin.” And God says, “You can sear your conscience then and make it less sensitive.

That’s the other way that frequently people come to church on Sunday and they instead of having their consciences pricked and being encouraged and goaded on to have a good conscience and to exercise yourself toward it. Instead, actions occur in the heart and in the mind and in the soul and in your intellect that makes you have a seared conscience. And what a judgment from God. Remember this is the day of the Lord. He comes and he’ll either move you toward a better conscience or he’ll probably have you sear your conscience in his providence. It’ll be a judgment against you, boys and girls, strive hard to have a good conscience. That’s what God wants us to have. Exercise yourself toward it. Okay?

Those who receive the good comfort and cheer of the Lord Jesus Christ, encouragement are those who have a good conscience. Secondly, are those who make use of God’s secondary means. The Apostle Paul, as I said before, did not sit mildly by and passive, waiting for God’s deliverance. He exercised himself that he might also accomplish his ministry and purpose. He didn’t just sit around waiting for God’s deliverance. He did something about it.

Now, he recognized that it was God’s deliverance. He recognized that God had made him a Roman citizen. He recognized that God had gifted him with an understanding of God’s law and of the theology of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He knew all that stuff. He knew it was God who gave him that knowledge. But nonetheless, he acted on the basis of what God had provided him opportunity to do. And he made use of the secondary means. And so, as Christians, we’re called to be active in our faith and not passive. Not sitting around waiting, but actively pressing forward the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ and making use of the full means of American citizenship, the Constitution, or whatever else God provides us in times of difficulty and trouble.

Now, Paul didn’t do this with a bad attitude.