Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 23:23-28

Sermon text is found in Acts the 23rd chapter beginning at verse 23. Acts 23 beginning at verse 23 to the end of that particular chapter. We read an account of an amazing, astonishing rescue of the Apostle Paul. Please stand for the command word of our king.

And he called unto him two centurions, saying, “Make ready 200 soldiers to go to Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and 10, and spearmen 200 at the third hour of the night, and provide them beasts, that they may set Paul on, and bring him safe unto Felix the governor.” And he wrote a letter after this manner: “Claudius Lysias unto the most excellent governor Felix sendeth greeting.

This man was taken of the Jews, and should have been killed of them. Then came I with an army and rescued him, having understood that he was a Roman. And when I would have known the cause wherefore they accused him, I brought him forth into their council, whom I perceived to be accused of questions of their law, but to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds. And when it was told me how that the Jews laid wait for the man, I sent straightway to thee, and gave commandment to his accusers also to say before thee what they had against him.

Farewell. Then the soldiers, as it was commanded them, took Paul, and brought him by night to Antipatris. 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. And when the governor had read the letter, he asked of what province he was. And when he understood that he was of Cilicia, I will hear thee, said he, when thine accusers are also come.

And he commanded him to be kept in Herod’s judgment hall. We thank God for his word. And we pray now through song that he would illuminate our understanding that we might obey it. You may be seated.

And 70. That’s the number of Roman soldiers, meaning fighting men—the normal military troops, 200. 70 cavalry men. Spearmen, 200. We don’t know what the spearmen were exactly. The word spearman there sort of means the right hand, throws, to throw out. So they could have been slingers. They could have been spearmen who would have perhaps a shield in this hand and a spear in this hand to throw. We don’t know. They were the lighter troops. The 200 foot men, you know, the normal fighting troops of Rome. So we have 470 bad men here—good, I mean very mean fighting men to accompany one, if history tells us correctly, a diminutive small man and protect him from the Jews who were plotting to kill him.

An amazing rescue. At least for me, it seems absolutely remarkable this story as you read through it. Now there are probably reasons why we have 470 men. We know that there were 40 plus conspirators against Paul’s life that we read about a couple of weeks ago, but remember that, as was pointed out for instance by J.A. Alexander in his excellent commentary on the book of Acts, that the 40 were representatives of the nation of Israel essentially. They had their marching orders confirmed by the Sanhedrin that they represented the nation. So it isn’t just 40 guys who are out to kill Paul, who had taken this oath to starve or thirst themselves to death before unless he died. They represented the whole nation.

Remember too that at this particular time, as I said before in the history of Israel leading up to the coming and sack of Israel in AD 70, we have a tremendous famine going on. There’s a lot of problems. There’s a lot of thugs, gangs, running around killing people. There’s zealots in the context of the city of Jerusalem that when a Roman soldier goes off by himself, they’ll grab him and kill him. These are very disturbed times. These are not times of peace and order. And the countryside particularly is of course more vulnerable to robbers and thugs, etc., and also to conspirators.

So there’s a reason for 470. And you’ll notice the account says that after they get to Antipatris, kind of a midway point, not quite halfway, but about a midway point so to speak, between Jerusalem and Caesarea, 200 of the soldiers go back because after that the countryside is now fairly level plains instead of rugged hills area. It’s a little easier to defend. And so part of the reason for the huge number is the simple fact that they’re trying to protect this man from being killed.

But we want to recognize here that God places this before us for a reason. He wants us to see the remarkable way in which he delivers the Apostle Paul. We have here the culmination of imperial protection of the ministers of the gospel in the book of Acts. And that’s one of the points I want to talk about in a couple of minutes. In fact, the title I’ve chosen for the tape labels at least is “the Imperial Protector.”

And so we have here an occasion, the culmination of other verses in Acts where Rome protects the ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ and particularly Paul and at the same time does harm to the Jewish nation. Indeed, if we were to study it carefully, we’d see that the letter that accompanied Paul and the soldiers from Claudius Lysias, the chiliarch, whom we have here first named, the ruler of a thousand—that’s what a chiliarch is—that Claudius Lysias here presents this case in such a way as to bring discredit to the Jews. And there’s been a real transition in the book of Acts from Rome now being the persecutors of the Jews and the defenders of the true church of Jesus Christ. So that’s the first thing we’re going to want to talk about in a little bit: imperial protection.

But you know, as I meditated upon this text for the last really two weeks now, since we had and the providence of God and his great grace to us, Dr. Bahnsen and Dr. Kelly last the Lord’s day to preach to us, as I meditated on this for the last two weeks, I thought of these myriad number of deliverers of Paul and I kept thinking the Holy Spirit kept bringing to mind the text where our Savior told Peter, who had drawn the sword to defend him—you remember in the garden—to put his sword away and that those who pick up the sword will die by that sword.

Our Savior went on to say, “Don’t you know that I could pray to my Father?” Identifying God as his Father. In times of difficulty, we must remember that we have a father in heaven. Yes, we have a God, a master, a lord. But he has revealed himself to us as Father, Abba. And our Savior said that he had a father in heaven whom he could pray and not simply intreat but beseech. It’s a strong form of prayer. He could make strong petition to the Father and God would send myriads of angels—legions, over 12 legions of angels. He said legions being some say 6,000. So we have thousands of angels that could have come from the Father to the Son to deliver him from those who would take him in the garden and crucify him. And our Savior declined those legions of angels.

But here we have a distinction with Paul and in contradistinction to our Savior. God did indeed send angels, messengers of God, to spirit him away as it were and to protect him from those who would seek his destruction and death. And so we have that contrast. And I want to talk a little bit about that as we move along in this sermon as well. Talk about the imperial protection pictured here for us and some applications from that.

Talk about, as we’ve discussed, the many points of similarity between Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ as Paul goes through his passion so to speak in Jerusalem—same courts, much of the same accusations, same plotting, etc., as our Lord and Savior. But here we have a big difference. Jesus turned down, did not request, the legions of angels and Paul receives 470 angels as it were, messengers of God, to keep him safe. And so a distinction, a distinction that means much for us in our lives as we face difficulties and troubles. And I want to talk about that a little bit.

I want to talk about the fact that Paul is seen here as a man who needs help. He desperately needs help. He’s alone. Remember, he’s almost been beaten to death by the Jews prior to this. And then he’s brought into the Sanhedrin and slapped around and a plot’s made against his life. Paul is essentially helpless here, apart from the one great source of help, God, his Father, who does indeed send messengers to him. And in many ways, the ministers of the gospel are men who need help and who are shown forth in weakness before the world and before the Christian community as well.

And I think that’s by way of encouragement to Christians as we’ll see in this text as well. So this text, although seemingly having just a little bit of information for us and give us great illustrations that should provide great comfort to us in the context of our Lord’s day worship and not only to the rest of our lives. As we sang the processional this morning, in the first verse we read, “Be in his steadfast love secure. Come to the Lord with your thanksgiving. His everlasting love endures.” And I hope that if nothing else, out of this sermon, you go away from here with a firmer sense of his steadfast love residing upon you because you reside in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now it is interesting to note here that we have, as I said, a model of imperial protection. But let me just say this: we do not mean when we say imperial protection of the gospel that these men are necessarily regenerate. We know that many of them weren’t. And we know that particularly the governor here that will provide protection for the Apostle Paul is not a good man at all. This governor Felix, we know much about him from the historical record. He was the only slave to become a freed man and then a governor of a province in the history of Rome. So he’s kind of an interesting individual. He was the brother to one Pallas who was a favorite of Nero. And as a result of that he was given his freedom and then eventually was promoted as governor of this region and, as I said, he was the only slave promoted to such a position.

This is not a good picture for us though. Tacitus in his writings relative to the Roman history of this time said that Felix ruled with the authority and power of a king but with the spirit of a slave. The scriptures talk about when slaves rule it’s not good usually. And that was the case here. This was a very wicked, a very tortured sort of fellow who liked to torture people and was not a particularly beneficent fellow and yet, all the more so to see that this is the man the providence of God, the heart of whom God turns in his hand to provide protection for the Apostle Paul as he makes his way to Rome to the center of the empire.

Then now we have seen, as I said, in terms of this understanding of the imperial protector, we’ve seen a number of situations here relative to the imperial protection of the gospel and without going into it in great detail. Let’s remember that Paul is taken to Caesarea. And this is going to be this place of protection for quite a big chunk of time. And Caesarea, we know from a couple of major accounts prior to this in the book of Acts that God wants us to piece together with this particular account. Remember, this was the conversion of Cornelius. This was the home of Cornelius, the first real great picture for us of a gentile and particularly a Roman, a soldier brought into the context of the church. Cornelius, a military man at Caesarea, which was the head, the Roman capital of this region. And so we had a picture then, a foretaste so to speak, that indeed Caesarea, the city of Caesar, the capital of this region and indeed the Roman army would find itself being used by God for the furtherance of the gospel.

Remember too that Caesarea was the place that Herod went after his great persecution of the church and after Peter’s miraculous deliverance from his prison. Herod went to Caesarea and that’s where he died. The death of Herod occurred at Caesarea, an area of God’s judgment upon him. And so we have another picture there that says there’s a position picture for us in the book of Acts of transition and victory for the gospel and deliverance for his people from tyrants. And indeed we have the same thing here.

Remember also that in Philippi in chapter 16 the Jews were beaten and as a result of the Apostle Paul being perceived as a Jew, the text tells us that as a Jew Paul was also beaten but then the word came that he shouldn’t have been beaten and he was apologized to. He had apology given to him. And so at Philippi, we also see the Roman protector being used to chastise the Jews and yet to show favor to the Christians in the form of the Apostle Paul.

Later at Corinth in chapter 18, we saw the same thing. Remember the Corinth story begins with the account of Aquila and Priscilla. Aquila and Priscilla were at Corinth. Why? Because the Jews have been driven from Rome. Rome is no longer shown as a protector of the Jewish church. Rome is now seen as the persecutor of the false apostate church and yet as the supporter of the Christian church. And so toward the end of that incident at Corinth there’s a problem. They take Paul and the others before Sosthenes—or not before Sosthenes, before the Roman official. And Sosthenes the Jewish leader of the synagogue is the one who ends up beaten, not Paul. Paul is delivered and the Jews are beaten saying there’s no charge here that was any significance to us. So you guys get out of here now. They drove him away from the judgment seat. And they specifically beat Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue. And Apostle Paul and his entourage are released and let free again in Ephesus.

Remember with Demetrius, now not persecuted by the Jews, but by a pagan man, Demetrius. The Christians rather, not the Apostle Paul, but the Christians are brought before the officials of the town there and they’re let go because the men say, “Well, we’re going to be in danger of being seen as a riot here and Rome will punish us.” So Rome is seen preeminently through these accounts as being an imperial protector for the church.

And certainly the climax of all of that is in the account just before us and in the final few chapters of the book of Acts where Paul preaches the gospel before Roman officials. And here we have I think really the climax of that model where now for the fourth time, or third or fourth time in a series of just several days here, the Roman government is used by God to deliver Paul from persecuting Jews. That took him away when the Jews were beating him to death outside of the temple. They took him away when if you gave us a talk before the Jews up the stairs of the castle and the Jews said, “Oh, this guy needs to die.” They rescued him from that, put him back into the castle. They rescued him from the Sanhedrin and then from the plot of those who would seek to kill him and now they actually send him away from the region so that he might be saved. And we have Rome throughout the book of Acts is not pictured as a persecutor of the church. Rome throughout the book of Acts is seen as the protector of the church of Jesus Christ.

Now indeed in the Book of Revelation, we’ll see that Rome becomes beastlike and will be seen as promoting the apostate church in its persecution of the church. But here in the book of Acts, God very emphatically in big letters in a story of 470 soldiers and a governor who delivers Paul and a governor who provides protection to Paul, God in big letters writes out the imperial protection of the church by the Roman Empire.

Now this is not new. This is a consistent pattern throughout the whole of the scriptures. Remember that biblical history unwinds in a particular fashion. Biblical history begins with patriarchs, fathers, heads of families and then clans. Then it moves to a tribal formulation particularly in the land of Israel. That tribal formulation gives way to a monarchical formulation where we have a king over nations and all the nations are seen as having kings.

But the fourth development of that progression of history of God’s recorded history in the Old Testament is the development of world empires and specifically in Jeremiah 25 the world empire of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar is said to become now the overarching empire over all the earth and through its hegemony, through its cooperative associations with many nations it forms an empire. Now so there is this development from family to tribe to monarchy or kingdom and then to empire in the Old Testament and the empire in the Old Testament culminates in the coming of the empire in Nebuchadnezzar. And you remember Nebuchadnezzar was the head of Babylon where the people of the Israel nation was taken into captivity for their sins.

Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon is used to chastise the church when it’s become disobedient to God, who is the King of all kings and the Emperor of all emperors. But Nebuchadnezzar also then converts—you remember in the book of Daniel—Nebuchadnezzar stops being a beast and becomes a man having lived like a beast to picture what he really was in his apostate fallen state. God then through the secondary agency of Daniel and the men that he had in captivity brings Nebuchadnezzar to the faith and Nebuchadnezzar is born again and Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges the sovereign God on high and Nebuchadnezzar then provides protection for the people of God in captivity.

Nebuchadnezzar is followed up by other empires and past the Babylonian Empire which apostasizes so to speak, turns against and comes an enemy to God and to the faith in time of Belshazzar and as a result God causes his kingdom to fail. The Babylonian empire rather is succeeded by the Persian Empire where we have Cyrus, whose other name according to recent history is Darius the Mede, and the Persian Empire as well provides protection for the people of God.

It is the Persian Empire that will become the protective force under which both Ezra and Nehemiah travel back and then begin the reconstruction of the temple at Jerusalem. And so just as Nebuchadnezzar protected Daniel and his men and the growth of the church in the Babylonian captivity, so then the succeeding empire, the Persian Empire, provides protection to Ezra and to Nehemiah.

It’s interesting, by the way, in terms of correlation to what occurs with the Apostle Paul, that the Apostle Paul is protected by the empire with horses, with soldiers, etc., that Ezra in chapter 8 verse 22, on their way back to Jerusalem and determine how the nation is to be rebuilt, they become very concerned because of enemies just as Paul had enemies in terms of the apostate church. Ezra and Nehemiah’s big concern is not the empire, it’s not the Persians, it’s the half-Jews so to speak and the apostate Jews who want to stop the reconstruction and rebuilding of the walls at Jerusalem and at Israel.

And so Ezra is concerned about this. He doesn’t know what to do because there’s going to be people in the way who will attack him. And then we read in Ezra 8:22 that Ezra proclaims a fast. And he says this is why. He says, “I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way because we had spoken unto the king, saying, the hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him, but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.” So Ezra says, “We’ve told him that God needs no help. And so we don’t really want to ask the emperor here for assistance in terms of soldiers and horsemen because we’ve already told them God will take care of us.” And indeed God does supernaturally provide protection for them without the accompanying of protection of empire soldiers and horsemen in the book of Ezra. Ezra goes on to appoint the people they go back and indeed God keeps them safe in the way from all those enemies who would seek to persecute them.

God doesn’t need 470 horsemen. God doesn’t need the emperor’s troops to protect his people. And Ezra makes that very clear. But on the other hand, when Nehemiah comes along then and follows this work up, Nehemiah then comes to the governor beyond the river, it says in Nehemiah chapter 2:9, “And he gave them the king’s letters. And the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me.” Nehemiah had those 470, so to speak. He had the emperor’s protection on him as he went back to protect him from the apostate church that didn’t want the walls of the city and the people of God to be built up again. Didn’t want reconstruction. Didn’t want reformation. And God protects reconstruction, reformation through the emperor again.

And so the Apostle Paul is in a long line here of obvious biblical history where God raises up even world orders, one world governments for his purposes to protect his people. And so we want to be very careful in the context of our day and age. I have heard people for years—oh, it just saddens my soul—who tell me over and over, “Well, you know, when the one world government is raised up, what can Christians do? What can God do against a one world government with computers and technology and jackbooted thugs, etc., etc.?” Well, God has no problem with these things. And he has told us again and again and again in history that if empires are raised up, it is in his providence for the chastisement of his people for the protection of the growing reformation that will come forth from that chastisement from those within the context of an apostate church who will seek to deter the work of reformation, transformation, reconstruction in the context of any particular historical period.

We need not fear one world government. I don’t think that’s what’s happening now anyway. I think that what we’re headed for in the world today is now a death of empire and we’re moving toward a retribalization as some have written about. But nonetheless, we don’t know what will happen in the days to come in our lifetime. But if it is one world government, if it is empire again, we need not become downcast about that. We need not become disheartened. In fact, we should be very heartened and very encouraged knowing that the relationship of that one world government, if we see it in the context of history that God has ordained, will be to chastise his church to bring forth a people desiring reformation or reconstruction and then to protect them from the attacks of the apostate church.

Now as I said, there’s a counterbalance to this in the book of Revelation. The empire can be a beast just like the Father can be a beast. And just like the judge or the elders can be beasts, and just like kings can be beasts, emperors can be beasts as well. And apart from the grace of God, they are. But even when they’re beasts, as we see in the context of Felix, a beast, a man of terrible personal qualities, a man of bloodthirsty men, nonetheless God has the kings and the emperor’s heart in his hand and he turns it where he will and where he will be for the advancement of his people over and over and over again. And if the empire and his beastlike position strikes out against the church, it is that God might chastise the church. God is in total control. God brings all these things to pass. And so we must not somehow think that world government or the state is the big problem in life.

Part of the application of this first point, the development of the imperial protection by God is that the new world order or any existing state order is never our primary problem. Our primary problem is the apostate church.

We just had a great conference last weekend in which we consider the times of the reformation and I thank God, you know, that he set us on that road. I am so, I just am look forward with great excitement and anticipation over the next five or 10 years in the providence of God should our Genevan conference continue to think about the model that Geneva has given us in terms not simply of political action in the state but in the area of missions, for instance. Geneva became the great center for missions, Calvinistic missionaries into the known world at that time in terms of the exercise of benevolences, the hospital system not quite like we think of a hospital today but a system of benevolences to the poor that Calvin and the reformers of Geneva created as a tremendous model that needs to be brought back.

We want to do justice, but we also want to love the extension of mercy. And Geneva gives us a model of both. And then education. Geneva became the great seminary system that even the Jesuits modeled their own system after both in terms of education and missionary endeavors. So there’s much to learn from Geneva.

Remember though that the time of the reformers was a time very similar to what we read about here in the book of Acts. It was a time of an apostate church, the Roman Catholic Church. And it was a time when the apostate church persecuted and attempted to wipe out the reformation that God had brought to pass. And remember too that princes were part of that reformation and chastising the apostate church. And then princes became one of the great forces to provide protection to Luther and other reformers from that apostate church. God raised up emperors, kings, rulers over fiefdoms and castles to provide protection to his church even though many of them were not regenerate and were engaged in their own particular political machinations. Yet God in his providence used them for the furtherance of the gospel.

And so we should be greatly encouraged by this example in Acts chapter 23 of these 470 troops and the imperial protection. We should find encouragement no matter what government we operate in the context of knowing that government will normally be used of God to protect his people who have been disciplined and chastised and the result are applying themselves to reconstruction, reformation, transformation in their day. We have confidence to march forward into the future in such a system. We do not want to be like the zealots of Jerusalem who saw in the oppression of Rome the hand of man at work instead of the hand of God at work and thus chafed against God’s chastisement of them and struck out took the law into their own hands. The Sanhedrin in the case of Paul for instance consenting to a conspiracy to murder.

We have men today supposedly calling themselves theonomic or reconstructionists who are at the same place as these zealots who in their great desire to place the elimination of abortion above everything else in the moral order break the rest of God’s commandments to affect deliverance from abortion in the land. These men do not understand the sovereignty of God and the imposition of a civil magistrate who while wicked nonetheless gives the people of God protection and chastises the church. Until abortion is eliminated in the church, all political efforts to eliminate abortion will end in failure.

Now I don’t say that to lessen our efforts somehow. We just had a conference talking about the application of God’s word in the realm of political action. We must speak the word of God into that realm because there are magistrates there waiting to be converted. There are elect members of the body of Jesus Christ who will respond to that preached word and respond accordingly and will then transform their vocational calling in obedience to God’s word. We must continue to fight abortion. But understand that this passage of scripture as well as many, many others tells us the priority must be the reformation of the church, the institutional body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we know, we continue to try to believe the best, but we know down underneath it all that the church still requires great reformation. That the reformation has barely begun in the context of the institutional church in America.

So we have in the imperial protector a correction of our understanding, correction of what the basic problem is. It’s not the state, it’s the church, a correction of our proper response. We should not be zealots. Neither should we be Sadducees. We don’t want to be zealots and Pharisees taking the law into our own hands and rebelling against authorities that God has ordained. We don’t want to be Sadducees wiping away the faith for the sake of accommodation to the political empire. But rather, we want to stay right on course and recognize that on that course of reformation, reconstruction, preaching the gospel of Christ, we shall be protected by the providence of God.

God wants us to use secondary means as well. This means that when Paul appeals to Caesar, for instance, we have complete legitimacy in using every civil law on the books for the furtherance of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not forsake secondary means. We know that God needs none of these, but we apply ourselves to the secondary means that he has created.

We can do all this with confidence. We can do this for a hundred years. We can walk in this state that we’re in right now in this culture for a thousand years if need be because we know that history is formed and turned not by the mind of man but by the mind of God. It’s men who have no confidence about the future who turn to shortterm actions of sinful resistance. But it’s men who know that the emperor, if that’s what we have left at the end of a hundred years, will be converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. Who know that history moves in terms of the advancement of the gospel of Christ. Those men have confidence and patience and tenacity and perseverance over the long range because we know the end. We know that victory is ours.

And so with a dream like that, we can run for a thousand years and we can run with the spirit and power of the generations that have preceded us and the demonstration of God and his faithfulness to the church of Jesus Christ. And so this passage of scripture reminds us of the imperial protection and should provide for us a tremendous piece of encouragement and exhortation to us on a corporate level so to speak here.

But this passage also is about an individual. Paul isn’t simply a representative of the church of Jesus Christ. He’s a person and he’s a person who’s gone through beatings, who’s gone through a tremendous amount of tension, gone through incredible amounts of difficulty and stress in the week leading up to this particular incident. And God, you remember, has come to the Apostle Paul and he’s encouraged him. Jesus Christ came to him in the middle of the night and said, “I encourage you, be of good cheer. You’ll be able to fulfill your mission.”

And so we also have our missions to fulfill. And we’re individuals who walk in the context of a world in which much difficulty frequently can be ours. And I believe that God has raised up ministers of the gospel and given them particularly difficulties in the context of their life that they may be an encouragement to others who don’t have so many difficulties.

In Philippians, we read for instance that Paul said that his bonds—he said, “I would rather you understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places as well.” He says that the manifestation of his bonds, of his imprisonment, of what we’re reading here works out for the furtherance of the gospel. And one of the ways is in verse 14 of Philippians 1: “many of the brethren in the Lord waxing confidence by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” Paul says that as his example of being an apostle in bonds in the providence of God worked out that others might be encouraged to speak the word of God without fear.

Let me read a quote from Matthew Henry about this particular text from the book of Acts that we’re speaking directly from. Paul’s bonds, he said, were made considerable, that his bonds in Christ were made manifest all the country over and so great in honor having been put on them before by the prediction of them. In other words, remember that the Spirit had testified that these bonds would happen to him. And so there was great honor put upon Paul’s bonds by the prediction of them by the Holy Ghost. “It was agreeable enough that they should be thus honorably attended that the brethren of the Lord might wax the more confident by his bonds. When they saw him rather guarded as the patriot of his country than guarded against as the pest of his country, and so great a preacher made so great a prisoner, when his enemies hate him and I doubt his friends neglect him. Then does a Roman tribune patronize him and carefully provide for his ease and for his security.”

So you see Paul’s particular bonds in the story that we’re reading here were of a very remarkable sort. As Matthew Henry wrote, he was not seen as the pest of his country from Roman perspective. He was rather seen as the patriot of his country. And so his bonds were a thing of honor. And this was a great encouragement to the people of God who saw this. So great a preacher was made so great a prisoner—470 men to take him to the governor of the region and there find safety for him. His enemies hated him and his friends perhaps neglected him. But a Roman tribune patronized him and took care of him.

So we see the great grace of God in providing example through the Apostle Paul to all that would suffer as they see their own affliction being perhaps spoken of directly or indirectly by the Holy Spirit in their future. They could take courage because of the Apostle Paul and his example.

You know, it is true that tongues would have wagged. I’m sure you can imagine what the Jews said about the Apostle Paul. This did nothing to convince them of God’s sovereignty. You can imagine the apostate Jews: “Oh, you see Paul there? He has to be borne away by those unclean group of Romans. He’s consorting with the Romans now, you know. Hey, they just, they read that as a picture of God’s judgment upon Paul. No doubt. But neglecting their scriptures and neglecting to interpret things according to them, they didn’t recognize the pattern of imperial protection here.

I think that this same thing is true: the ministers of God being put to particular difficulties in our day and age. After last week’s Genevan conference I received a call on Monday from Pastor Dan Dillard, the pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Bend, and we spoke about many things, but one of the things that he informed me of that I didn’t know is that he’s had very bad health problems. His stomach is giving him great difficulty. And over the last few months, there had been long periods of time when he’s been restricted to simply bread and water to eat.

You know, Dr. Kelly was here and couldn’t stand most of the service on the Lord’s day because his legs gave him such pain and he has other physical afflictions as well. And Dr. Bahnsen, most of you know about his particular health problems. A bad heart, a medication then producing diabetes, diabetes medication somehow related to now a condition of gout that he has and medication for his gout won’t work because of the other medications he takes for his diabetes and his heart. And so the problems just go on and on and on.

And you may not know it and I don’t think you would want me to tell you but I will tell you that the first night in which he stayed in our city he vomited much of the night—difficult health problems, very difficult. He as well couldn’t stand for major portions of the service on the Lord’s day because of the gout in his ankles.

And I thought of these three men of God and God—why does God do this? Well, I think one reason God gives his ministers afflictions like this is to encourage you as you don’t have that kind of problem as Dr. Bahnsen does and you may not be restricted to bread and water the way that Dan Dillard does and you may be able to stand in the oral service unlike Dr. Kelly with great pain in his legs. And so that should be an encouragement to you that these great men are afflicted as well. Should provide encouragement just as Paul’s imprisonment provided encouragement to men to speak forth the gospel so you in your various trials seeing the witness of these men in the context of their lives and the difficulties God and his sovereignty has brought into their lives should be an encouragement to you to be persevering and to be good martyrs in the classical sense, witnesses of the grace of God while yet in affliction.

And then as I was contemplating all of this, my own particular health situation took another turn for the worse this last week and I have now been diagnosed as having diabetes probably brought on at least in part by a medication that I was taking in January—prednisone. So you know, I think why does this happen? Well, I’m sure one reason it happens is for me to in the grace of God deal with this correctly and dealing with it correctly to be an encouragement to you and the difficulties that you all face.

Paul was such an example and encouragement to those in the context of his life. Paul recognized the ministers of God, the ministry of God rather extended to him in the case of imperial protection. And so we also recognize God’s grace to his ministers. And I want to use then Paul.

My first point was the imperial protection of the Roman Empire. Secondly, that God’s ministers frequently suffer difficulties and yet are upheld in the context of those difficulties that we might be encouraged in our particular callings to difficulty and trials and tribulations.

And the third point I want to talk about is this contrast between the Apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ and the legions of angels being not taken up by the Lord Jesus Christ and yet Paul having many that would surround him and protect him. Paul’s provision, the provision for Paul by God, is the normal provision in scripture and it’s the provision you should rely upon in your particular difficulties as you come here on the Lord’s day to rest in his steadfast love secure.

You all have difficulties and I know most of you fairly well and I could go through the list of your difficulties in particular and you know what they are. You know you come here perhaps estranged from extended family, perhaps seeing yourself as being part of a cult because you hold to a position of God’s sovereignty as it applies to every area of life and thought. Our culture is marked by Arminian Christianity that sees true Calvinism as cult-like. And so maybe you’re suffering slander from those in the context of other liberal churches or other family members.

I know that some of you suffer health problems as I do that are particularly plaguing to you and give you a great cause of anxiety and difficulty and pain and suffering. And you know that usually with health problems, you suffer alone in the context of your own darkness at night. You consider your health difficulties and you feel the pain and you try to respond correctly in the grace of God to the physical maladies that God and his providence has given to you.

Some of you even today are facing the probability of losing very dear, dearly loved members of your family or friends in the near future. Death stalks at your house, physical death, maybe not your own, but those of very close relatives. These things are all difficult for us to bear. Apart from the knowledge of the grace of God extended to us in Jesus Christ, they are not capable of being borne correctly. We will not be proper witnesses. We will become stoics or we’ll feel sorry for ourselves or we’ll sin in some particular way in these difficulties.

I know that each of us here has their own particular problems, concerns and anxieties perhaps about your sense of vocational calling and what will you do the rest of your life? How will you provide for your family? Perhaps maybe a question that plagues you even now. You may be faced with problems relative to your own particular calling to assist others in their growth and their Christian maturation. They don’t seem to want to respond correctly to the word of God. And so this can be a great trial upon you. Loved ones rebel against the word of God.

We all have our particular difficulties even as the Apostle Paul did. And we all need to hear in the context of whatever it is that we suffer today in the providence of God. We need to hear that Jesus Christ cares for us, loves us, sends his legions of angels, so to speak, even when it’s in the form of mean, lean fighting machines like Roman armies. These are ministering spirits, the Apostle Paul sent by the hand of God to assist him. Now God sends these spirits in many different ways.

We read for instance in 2 Kings chapter 6 a story, hopefully most of you are very familiar with. The king of Syria is sending forth for Elisha. He’s the one guy that he’s out to get. He sends forth armies against Elisha to find him and capture him. He doesn’t want to give him a commendation, you know, a medal or something. He wants to—he has evil planned for Elisha. And Elisha’s servant is with him. And he gets very worried about the king of Syria and his approach with all these men. They compass the city roundabout—these horses and chariots, and a great host, an army compass the city roundabout where Elisha is.

And the servant of the man of God was risen early, and he goes forth. And behold, he sees this host compassing the city about with horses and chariots. And the servant said unto him, “Alas, my master, how shall we do? How shall we do?” The servant of Elisha seeing the great enemies arrayed against him and his master. I mean thousands of men out there and horses and chariots. What are we going to do about that? He says, “How could God possibly deliver us?”

And so we have tremendous health problems. How am I going to respond to this correctly, Lord God? You know what you piled upon me in my life. How do I respond to this one now without sin? How do I respond to the coming death of my loved one? What shall we do? It’ll break my heart to see this person no more until we come to heaven together. And it’ll break my heart if this particular loved one of mine continues to rebel against the Lord and suffer chastisements and judgments and Lord forbid that he might spend eternity in hell because he’s rebelled against you. What shall I do when a loved one dies or when a loved one turns away or spurns the counsel of God? And what shall I do when my friends around me simply don’t understand what I’m going through, the difficulties I’m having keeping the faith, keeping my sanity, keeping my family fed, whatever it is that your problem is?

And on our beds at night, it comes to us and we can cry out as Elisha’s servant did and as perhaps Paul did. What shall I do? These guys are conspiring out there to get me. They nearly beat me to death a couple of days ago. Now they’ve taken an oath that they’re going to kill me. What shall I do? Jesus has promised that I’ll get to Rome, but I have no idea how I’m going to do that. Jesus has given me my mission relative to my family or relative to my church, relative to my community, relative to my extended family. But I have no idea how I’m going to get from here to there when I’m compassed about with so great a number of difficulties—health, death, sin, whatever it is, enemies from outside. Don’t forget the model: the institutional church are the ones that attack reformation and reconstruction, not the civil state.

What shall we do when we’re compassed about by so great a host of the institutional church who hates the assertion of a sovereign God and hates the assertion that the church is a viable and needed institution in the reconstruction of society. What shall we do?

Elisha rather says to him, “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” Well, what are you talking about? Be with us? There’s two of us. I don’t know how many arrows we can make, but this doesn’t seem true. Elisha then prayed and said, “Lord, I pray open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw and behold the mountains were full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And indeed so God opens the eyes of the servant and he sees that from God’s perspective that the hills are not filled with enemies, the hills are filled with angelic messengers of God, angelic host to protect Elisha and his servant to deliver him from this pagan host who would seek to hurt them.

We are surrounded about in our particular difficulties with ministers from God’s throne. Angels who are sent specifically to us to protect us from harm and to keep us from sin and to deliver us from whatever it would be that would seek to persecute us and hurt us.

I think that’s the message God wants us to understand in this tale of Elisha and in this tale of Paul. He wants us to remember that he can send 470 Roman troops to protect us if that is his will. And he does regularly send those legions of angels that our Savior declined to assist us and to bear us up.

You cannot read the Psalms more than two or three of them without recognizing that life is filled with trouble and enemies and trials and sins and difficulties. But you also cannot read more than two or three Psalms without recognizing that God always promises to bring you deliverance one way or the other. Even if it’s a godly death, even if you die the martyr as Stephen did. Even if Paul dies as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. God delivers us ultimately into the hand of Christ.

And so God wants us to recognize it—over and over in the Psalms we read. It’s not difficult to pick out Psalms for the next few weeks of preaching in the book of Acts. No, for the next few when these enemies are trying to kill Paul and God protects them through various ways, because that’s what the Psalms are full of. The Psalms are full of deliverance because that’s what our lives are full of.

And all too often we recognize all the difficulties but we forget the promises of deliverance or we don’t believe it because we know we sin. We know we sin. You see, God says that he sent one who he would not deliver with legions of angels. The Lord Jesus Christ who said in the garden of Gethsemane, “I could do it. I could beseech the Father, but I’m not going to. I love the church. I love those that God has put into my hand. I must die for their sins.” And God delivers us from our sins and from the fear of death that accompanies a knowledge of our sins. And so God sent the one who would say, “No, I’m not going to take the legions of angels to deliver me” that we might indeed be delivered by those angels, whether they’re soldiers, supernatural forces, doctors, friends, whatever it is.

God promises that we can rest this day in the knowledge that he provides that angelic host for us. Moment by moment, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, all of your lifetime is compassed about with the love of God and the extension of his grace to you to keep you from the evil one, to protect you.