Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Please stand for the reading of God’s command word. Acts 25:1-12.

Now when Festus was come into the province, after three days, he ascended from Caesarea to Jerusalem. Then the high priest and the chief of the Jews informed him against Paul and besought him and desired favor against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him. But Festus answered that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, that he himself would depart shortly thither.

Let them therefore, said he, which among you are able, go down with me, and accuse this man, if there be any wickedness in him. And when he had carried among them more than ten days, he went down unto Caesarea. And the next day, sitting on the judgment seat, commanded Paul to be brought. And when he was come, the Jews, which came down from Jerusalem, stood round about and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove.

While he answered for himself, “Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar have I offended anything at all.” But Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, answered Paul and said, “Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem and there be judged of these things before me?” Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat where I ought to be judged. To the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest.

For if I be an offender or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. But if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar. Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? Unto Caesar shalt thou go.

Please be seated. Let us pray.

Almighty God, we do come before you to cleanse our way. We pray, Lord God, that you would help us in meditation upon this scripture to repent of our sins, to turn from them toward righteousness. May your Holy Spirit be in our midst today. May he, Lord God, be upon your servant to minister this word. May he keep your servant, Lord God, from sin and from carelessness of tongue or mind that may prove a stumbling block to others.

And may Lord God, your Holy Spirit cause your saints who are gathered here to hear your word, to hear only that word, but to hear it fully to the end that it might cause them to repent, to turn unto righteousness, and more than anything else to be moved with love and gratitude for the great salvation you have provided in Jesus Christ our Savior.

We thank you, Lord God, for him. And we pray that you would bless this next period of time together for the sake of his kingdom. Indeed, that we may glorify you in all things and enjoy you forever. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

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Appeal, and King. Justice, appeal, and king. J-A-K. Jack. Those are the three words I hope you’ll remember from today’s message and take with you into the week.

Paul had a great sense of justice. We don’t think of that word as frequently as we ought. For some reason in Christian language, we seem to have separated in our minds the ideas of righteousness and justice. Righteousness and justice are synonyms one for the other. And in the responsive reading today from the prophets, we had the term justice used several times. And frequently it’s important for us to recognize the word that is translated righteousness, and some of our translations, may easily be translated justice as well.

And so Paul had a sense of justice. He had a desire for it. That desire for justice caused him to appeal, to call on Caesar to hear his case. The idea of appeal is central to the text that we’ve just read. Paul’s sense of justice caused him to appeal and he appealed to the king or sovereign. And ultimately, of course, Paul appeals to God in heaven, the true justice of all justices, the true sovereign and King of Kings.

But very significantly his appeal, his call was to Caesar, corrective for us.

As I contemplated the message this morning and contemplated the last two messages in my absence by Mr. Skipper and Mr. Lawrence, I thought this is really kind of a nice third part to those sermons in a way. It’s amazing how accurately the psalm that Greg preached on correlates to Paul’s condition that we find him in once more in this fairly long section of Acts where he is delivered time and time again from those who sought his death.

He waited on the Lord for years, literally years, for the deliverance that was to come. So this sermon correlates well with that psalm, but it also correlates well with much the thrust of Howard’s sermon last week. It is, as I said, significant, very significant that Paul’s appeal is stated to be to Caesar.

It’s more significant when you recognize, as you wouldn’t necessarily from the English translations, that the Greek word here used for appeal is the word that is used throughout the New Testament to identify those who are Christians as those who call on the Lord. To appeal means to call on a savior. It’s not a technical term here, a judicial term. It might have been used that way in the Roman Empire at the time, but in the scriptures, the word is specifically identified with calling on God.

One could almost, when they approached this text, if we read there that Paul had said, “I appeal to Caesar,” instead we read a translation that would say, “Paul then called on Caesar to deliver him,” we would almost think it’s sacrilegious, would we not? After all, we live in a time when we speak a lot about the messianic state and how people call upon the civil state to save them. And yet, apparently, according to the text and according to the terminology used, that’s just what Paul does. Just what Paul does. It’s a corrective to us.

We’ll go through this in a little more detail. But I do think that these three words, justice, appeal, and king are central to our text. And next Lord’s Day, God willing, if I’m back in this pulpit, I will ask you again to remember those three words. And we’ll ask you to make an evaluation of your life this week as you contemplated your sense of justice and how well you do justice and seek justice in the world round about you. How often you call out to God for deliverance in the context of injustice and then do you use the secondary means of God’s rulers and church and state and family in that calling upon God, or do you use all authorities in this world as you seek only to call upon God in heaven, which would be a denial of the fact that he has given us rulers and church and state and family that we are supposed to call on according to the apostle Paul here and according to the rest of scripture.

So justice, appeal, and king. And we’ll be talking about that. And finally, you’ll see the last point on the outline there. I’m going to talk about some general truths about all deliverances that are sought from and affected by God for his saints. And then some specific truths relative to this text. Then finally, in summation I’m going to ask you who you going to call—20th century man.

You know that I am movie oriented and all this stuff. I say it to my shame frequently, but this phrase came to mind, you know, “Who are you going to call?” And in the modern parlance, it’s the Ghostbusters, right? Time of deliverance, who are you going to call out to? And it’s a test to us to see whether we call out at all or if we call out only to God or if we call out to God and the secondary means which he uses. And that’ll hopefully be the correct application, the third alternative.

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All right, let’s first of all though take a look at the text before we get into this three-part outline. Let’s look at the text to make sure we understand what actually is happening in the book of Acts here.

Let me just mention as we turn then in your scriptures to Acts 25, if you’re not there yet, that I’d ask you to pray particularly for my sermon three weeks hence on July 30th. Lord willing I’ll be speaking on the first chapter of the book of Haggai and the title of the sermon will be “Is It Time to Build?” Haggai is about the building of the Lord’s temple, the need for people to attend to it and I’m going to take make application during that sermon both to consider creation of a permanent dwelling place, or at least in the sense of a human perspective permanent, for Reformation Covenant Church but I think also very importantly as we think of building the dwelling place of God which is his people, that also our participation by service in the context of the institutional church is also a very important application. So it’d be a very important sermon. I’d pray you’d give me, you pray for me that God would give me grace to understand and then expose his word clearly.

Well, let’s turn to Acts 25 then and we’ll just go through a very quick overview of the text and then turn to these three particular points of the outline.

First of all, we read in verse one that when Festus was come into the province after three days, he ascended from Caesarea to Jerusalem. And there’s lots of little points of application you can make here for yourself. I don’t want to dwell on them. I want to state these three points I’ve made. But we have here first of all by way of factual information that there is a new governor, Festus. Felix has been removed from office and very significantly, you’ll remember that I’ve told you several times he’s removed because of, among other things, the complaints of the Jewish nation.

So Festus comes in as the new man. Now Festus—I mentioned before that Felix is from the term “Felicitus,” or happy, means happy. Festus is from the term meaning festival, of festival, or festival. So we had happy man before as the governor of this province under Caesar. And now we have party man, I guess we could say, who comes into town and we’ll see that party man does no better than happy man in terms of applying the justice of God’s word to a prisoner who stands there condemned but never proven guilty and in fact demonstrated time and again to be innocent.

He will not get released from that man either.

Well, anyway, so we read here that after Festus came into the province after three days he ascended from Caesarea to Jerusalem. Three days is a significant term in the scriptures. It is, of course, that its preeminent use is on the third day the resurrection of our Savior. This is a deliverance narrative you could call it by terms of literary structure. And you know God does write the scriptures as literature—yet good literature is based upon the literature of the scriptures. God writes these narratives for us and we have a compact little narrative with a beginning point and a very definite literary subending point where Paul appeals to Caesar and Festus says, “You appeal to Caesar? To Caesar you’ll go.” So there’s a particular block of text. This is a deliverance narrative.

Now after this we’ll see some more communication going on with Festus and Agrippa and Paul. We’ll get into that in the next couple of weeks but this narrative could stand all on its own as a deliverance narrative and it begins with this time reference again, that after three days of being there he went to Jerusalem.

And so God clues us off, I believe, with statements like this. But this is talking about deliverance. It’s like when Samson gets born, it’s been 40 years of oppression. At the end of the 40-year time, God delivers his people. That again is a frequent passage in scripture to indicate to us right up front what the text is about. So we see right up front here, this is a deliverance narrative.

We also notice that this ruler immediately goes from Caesarea to Jerusalem. Immediately heads to Jerusalem. Now, there are probably political reasons for this. After all, these were the people that were offended and so got Felix booted out of office. There’s probably that going on. He probably wants to acquaint himself with the capital city of the Jews there, the area in which Judea, which he would govern. But I think it’s also good by way of application to think that all rulers should go to Jerusalem upon their ascent to office to seek proper worship of God, to seek prayer on the part of the institutional church for their service.

There are those who think that the pagan nations round about Jerusalem understood—maybe certainly not perfectly, certainly not with a good apprehension of the sovereign God who rules, but understood this religious system as being perpetually in place to give prayers for the nations. And so it could be that he went there seeking prayer. We don’t know. But in any event, he goes up.

Remember, we always ascend to Jerusalem. We always go up to the city of God, city of peace, Jerusalem. And we always go down when we go away from it. You came up to church today. And you’re going to go down on your way back home. Now, it doesn’t mean that your place at home is any different substantively than when you gather together as a people because you’re the temple of God whether you’re met corporately or whether you’re out individually in the context of the world.

You could say you go down from your home into your job tomorrow morning or whatever your first day of work this work week is. And as you go down the mountain, as the stream goes down the mountain, you go out to dispense blessing and grace as you move. It’s why you’re going down. You met with God and you go down from there to take that message of God into your workplace. And so it is in your family worship as well in your home and your Christian business. You go out then into the world.

Well, anyway, you know that you’ve seen that time and time again. We’ve talked about it. This is what goes on.

And then in the very next verse, we’re told that as he’s there at Jerusalem that the high priest and the chief of the Jews informed him against Paul and besought him and desired favor against him, that is Paul, that he would send for Paul to Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him. So here we have the Jews two years after, at least two years after the last trial of Paul at Caesarea and they still—the text wants us to see at least at the head of their mind as they meet with Festus—they want Paul again. They’re bloodthirsty.

You know when people have this kind of anger against a man it doesn’t go away quick. Sometimes it doesn’t go away at all. Sometimes disputes like this aren’t finished till people die. And these men years after the fact still want Paul brought and they want to plot again to kill him. And hopefully this time they think the plot won’t be discovered. And there’s nothing in the text to indicate it was discovered, by the way. But they want to kill him. They’re still burning angry against Paul.

And in their great sin, they seek favors from Festus. The term is plural here. They seek favors from him. And they want now for him to be brought down to. He said, “Hey, you’re here already. Why don’t you just bring that guy down? Won’t take many men to do that now will it? And then when he gets here you can try him in front of us.” See, they had a plan. That plan was based upon the fact it’d be a small contingent to bring him down and they would then assassinate him out in the countryside.

But Festus answers that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, that he himself would depart shortly thither. Let them therefore, said he, which among you are able go down with me, and accuse this man, if there be any wickedness in him. When it says able it means your strong men, your chief men of your city and of your religion, and come on down to Caesarea and I’ll treat with him there.

Now, it’s interesting here immediately see God’s providential use of Festus here to prevent Paul from being assassinated. Why did Festus make this decision? Well, we don’t know what might have been in his mind as to why he made this decision. We know that in God’s mind, he didn’t want Paul killed. God had better things in mind for Paul. He had promised him. The Lord Jesus had said, “You’re going to go to Rome and be my witness there.”

And so I mentioned before that this is a historical narrative. It’s a deliverance narrative, but it’s in the context of a long deliverance narrative in this whole section from the book of Acts. You know, it’s kind of like this—if you’re thinking of the Bible as music, Mr. Jordan has preached on that before—this is a short little piece of music here, particular area, but it’s set in the context of a longer section of the opera of the scriptures of which this entire section in Acts is a part.

And this particular part of the song, this verse so to speak, is different from another verse. Earlier in this particular song, you could say, God affected the deliverance of Paul by making the plot of the Jews known, remember, to the woman who had the young child who then came and told Paul’s jailers that there was a plot to kill Paul. And immediately the Romans sent him off under heavy armed guard.

So in that verse, we saw God working providentially through the disclosure of the plot. In this particular verse so to speak of the song, it’s sung in a different way and there’s no apparent secondary means of the discovery of the plot involved at all. We just know that God moved Festus to say no, I’m not going to bring him down here. Festus had time. He was going to be there. The texts tell us another eight or ten days he would have had time to bring Paul down. Why didn’t he? Because God’s hand moves the heart of the king this way and that way. It’s not dependent upon plots being discovered. It’s not dependent upon intelligence, so to speak, to the people of God. Intelligence in the sense of getting information about the opponents. God isn’t bound.

And so, this verse tells us again of God’s sovereignty and deliverance for his people apart from the other means he used. He uses other means this time. God uses a variety of means by which he brings deliverance to his people. He’s sovereign. And so, we have another verse here in this operatic theme, so to speak, of God’s deliverance of Paul.

This particular section of scripture, you got to look at the long line sometimes as well as the short line, so to speak, of the music you’re reading to understand God’s word.

So, Festus says, “You come on down to Caesarea.” And they’re sort of caught in their own trap. Now, it’s another frequent theme of the Psalms of the scriptures that the wicked lay a net and then they fall into the net. Their own trap backfires on them. And very much that is true of this case. They said, “Well, we want to charge this guy. You bring him down here, we’ll charge him.” They didn’t have a case ready, folks. They weren’t planning on having a good trial in Jerusalem and so having a defense or a prosecution ready.

They were planning on their prosecution was going to be to kill him out in the countryside. But Festus here turns the tables. He says, “Yeah, why don’t you come to Caesarea? We’ll judge him there. Come right away.” Well, now they’re stuck. Now they’re having to go to court. Not in whatever it was in the O.J. case, 30 days, 60 days. Now they got to go to court in a couple of days. See, they got to round up their witnesses, make their case and they’re not going to be able to do it.

They won’t be able to prove their charge. So, they laid a trap. They fell into their own trap and they have to go to Caesarea with a poor case. They’re not going to get a second chance. So, God also moves to frustrate men by using their own plans against him.

Verse 6, when he had carried among them more than ten days, eight to ten days is the indication, he went down into Caesarea, and the next day sitting on the judgment seat, the very next day, commanded Paul to be brought. And when he was come, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood round about and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they couldn’t prove.

While he answered for himself, neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at all. These are the same charges. In other words, we don’t hear the charges specified. But we do hear Paul’s defense specified as three particular things. I’ve not sinned against the people of the Jews. I’ve not sinned against the temple. I’ve not sinned against Caesar.

And those are the same charges essentially that have been brought earlier, two years before this. Same old charges. No proof could be made. And this is apparently evident to all. I mean, Festus is here once. Do them a favor. And if he could have found him guilty, he would have. But he doesn’t because it’s real clear to everybody that no proof is forthcoming relative to these charges.

Anger blurs the intellect. And the unrighteous anger of the Jewish leaders here blurred their intellect. They thought they could carry off this plan to get rid of Paul and they couldn’t. God frustrates men also through their own sinful anger which blurs judgment and blurs intellect.

Festus willing to do the Jews a pleasure answered Paul and said, “Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem and there be judged of these things before me?” He can’t find anything wrong with him here. So he tries another alternative. Sort of like remember a happy man Felix said, “Well, you know, let’s delay some here and let’s wait till that guy, my Roman head of my Roman troops there comes down and talks to us.” And here party man says let’s delay a little bit. Let’s take you up to Jerusalem and take care of things there. Is that okay with you Paul? Of course Paul’s going to say no.

Now he’s willing to do the Jews a pleasure. A favor singular. They’d asked for many favors of him. Here is a favor he’s willing to do for them. He wants to accommodate them. This is his political strength. You see, relationship with the Jews. His predecessor had been bumped out of office because of failing in this relationship. Wicked man make wicked plots. Unholy communion is at place here between the Jews and the Romans plotting against God’s anointed Paul.

We have here the duplicity on the ungodly. Everybody talks in the various commentators talk about how Festus was a lot better guy than Felix was. Came from a noble family. Felix came from a slave family. You know the scriptures talk a lot about he’d take a slave and make a ruler out of him. Not good usually. Almost always bad deal. And Felix was a bad ruler. Festus came from a noble family and every indication is he was a better ruler than Felix. He was a good man. Felix was a bad man. Festus was a good man.

But even though good men might be good, when push comes to shove, if their goodness is not founded upon the solid truths of God’s word, and his wasn’t, they’ll fail. They’ll fail. They’ll fail every time. And here Festus fails. He fails to carry out justice. That’s the only thing he’s supposed to do as a governor is do justice. Justice and he fails. Fails miserably. He wants to let Paul go up to Jerusalem.

So Paul then answers and says, “No way. No way am I going to do this?” And you know, Paul is no fool. I mean, Paul says, “Um, I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat.” He’s in Caesarea, right? City of Caesar. He stands at the judgment seat there where I ought to be judged. To the Jews have I done no wrong as thou very well knowest.

He says, “Festus, you know that I’m innocent.” That’s not mere words here. You know, I’m innocent. You know, they haven’t proved a thing. And this is where I should be judged. Why do you want to take me to Jerusalem? If I be an offender or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. Now, that’s quite a statement, a very important statement, which we’ll examine a little bit in more detail a little later on.

But he says, “If I’ve done these things, I’m worthy of death. But I haven’t done them. If I did do them, I’d be willing to jump to die for those sins, for those crimes. But if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, and of course there isn’t—He said, you already know that, Festus—no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal to Caesar.”

Well, he means no man can legally or lawfully or correctly or morally deliver me unto the Jews. Now, implied in this phrase in the Greek is again that same term favor. Okay. And Paul is saying you cannot. He says, first of all, I will seek no favor of you if I’m guilty. When it says, I refuse not to die, the expression in the Greek would be more like, I won’t beg off for paying the price for these sins. I won’t ask a favor of you.

See, Paul probably knows that Festus here is acting to do the Jews a favor. He said, “They want favors from you. I’m not going to ask any favors. If I’m wrong, if I’m guilty, I’ll die. I won’t ask a favor. And then he says, but if I’m innocent, you cannot deliver me up.” And implied in this is that Paul had knowledge that if he was delivered up to the Jews at Jerusalem, he was going to be killed.

So he’s saying, you for the sake of a favor to these men are willing to let an innocent man be killed, but I’m not if even if I’m guilty, I’m not going to ask favors from you in the same way. So there’s a real contrast here between the wicked who seek favors not according to law and the righteous who don’t seek those kind of favors. They seek the justice of God’s law as performed through the civil magistrate.

We read more in Acts 28 about this appeal. In Acts 28 when Paul is imprisoned in Rome, he calls some men to him and he says in verse 19—well let’s see, let’s start in verse 18 of Acts 28—when they had examined me, wouldn’t have let me go because there was no cause of death in me. He’s speaking now of this trial that he’s in the middle of now. He speaks of it later in Acts 28.

And here’s what he said. But when the Jews spake against it, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar. So what he says, what he informs us of later in the book of Acts is that Festus had pretty well already said there’s no truth to these charges. Indicated he probably let him go. And then the Jews argued against that and when the Jews kept arguing against it, Paul knew then that this Festus guy was a squish and that if he did go to Jerusalem, it was not going to be better for him.

If Festus was a squish at Caesarea, moving willing to move the venue of the trial to Jerusalem, how much more would he be a squish for those leaders in their home park, so to speak? See, Paul wasn’t stupid. Paul had been thinking a couple of years, and he was now determined not to let his fate be handled by judges such as these men were—unjust judges, happiness and party man here—that he’s not going to let his fate, if he can help it, be decided by those men.

He was not ignorant of the law of Rome. He was a Roman citizen and he knew that appeal had to be granted and it would do several things. It would deliver him from the oppression of the Jews. It would deliver him from the squishiness and injustice of the Romans. And finally, it would accomplish that great purpose for which he was now living his life: to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ at Rome. It would get him there.

And so he plays that card now. He appeals to Caesar. Paul isn’t a fool. He’s thought this through. Probably thought it through for both the two years he was in captivity. This is the center of the narrative, the appeal to Caesar. And it’s made in the context of conviction that this judge will not give him justice.

This is the third time Paul asserts his immunity and right as a Roman citizen. And so Paul then seeks and is given the movement of his case to Caesar directly. This is an ancient right of the people of Rome to appeal their case first to the people and then later as Caesar as the people’s emissary. And so Paul moves wisely and judiciously to get his case transferred.

Verse 12 then concludes this particular portion of the deliverance narrative. When Festus, which he—when he had converted the council—these were his advisers round about him—answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? Unto Caesar shalt thou go. And so Paul is saved and delivered to Rome to do his ministry there as well.

So that’s the text for us. We’re having here yet another trial, yet another demonstrable proof of innocence, and yet another Roman governor who fails to minister justice.

So let’s look first of all at some general lessons from this particular deliverance narrative—some general truths about attacks upon the saints and their deliverance from these attacks.

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Throughout scripture, we see these things that are shown here repeatedly mentioned in the context of those who would persecute the saints. First of all, satanic attacks. These are Satan’s attacks upon the church. This is obviously Satan working through secondary means of the Jews and the Romans to thwart the gospel of Jesus Christ being proclaimed. And so to do, to accomplish that thwarting, they want to kill Paul.

Well, Satan’s attacks upon believers—he does roar, walk about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He is still active in that sense in the world. His attacks still continue and his attacks almost always involve slander of some type. Slander. Paul is slandered here clearly over and over and over again throughout these accounts of the Jews attacks upon him.

John Calvin says this relative to this particular portion of the narrative. Again, when Paul was converted to Christ, he was a singular pattern of innocence. Yet, we see how he is subject to many slanders, cruel and false accusations. And this is almost always the estate of the servants of Christ. Wherefore, they must be the more courageous to pass valiantly through evil report and good report. Neither let them think it strange to be evil reporters—or rather, evil reported of what they have done.

Don’t think it strange when people slam or hinder you for what you do, even your good. What Paul was doing here, he was being evil spoken of.

Calvin goes on: that in the mean season, they must do their endeavor that they may not only have a clear conscience before God, but that they may be very well able to defend themselves before men when they have time and place. For Paul does not fail in his cause, but courageously sets the defense of his innocency against their false crimes.

Furthermore, let us note that the wicked can never be bridled, but they will speak evil of good men and will impudently shame them. For they resemble the nature of Satan by whose spirit they are led. Therefore, whereas we are commanded to stop the mouth of the wicked, it must not be so taken as if he shall be free from all backbiting whosoever shall behave himself uprightly. But that our life may answer for us and may wipe away all blots of false infamy.

So, Calvin is clear from this text. Here you got Paul, the picture of virtue and righteousness. And yet Paul himself is slandered repeatedly over and over and over. So when the scriptures say that elders should be able to stop the mouths of the ungodly, it doesn’t mean so to stop them that they never speak against the godly man. The scriptures say that’s not the typical outcome. But you can stop them by having your life lived with a good conscience toward God and men.

So that when people hear those slanders about you, they are less likely to take root in their heart. And so their mouths are stopped in that sense. Their communication is stopped, at least in putting it forth, by your good actions and good conduct before men.

Very important here though: Satan means accuser. And Satan’s primary task in terms of his attack upon the church is not usually martyrdom. God doesn’t usually give him that much freedom. Usually, it is simply to accuse them and to slander them with false accusations.

Now, by way of application, we don’t want to do Satan’s works, right? We’re here to do God’s work. We used to do Satan’s work. We were all children of disobedience, particularly in the context of this congregation. Most of us were unbelievers for some period of our life at least. And we used to do Satan’s work. We used to put down Christians, certainly conscientious Christians. We used to do that kind of thing.

Most of us—God forbid that we do it today. God forbid that we slander other Christians with untrue accusations or any man for that matter. When we do that, we’re doing Satan’s work. I used to always tell my kids, you probably ought to tell them—the younger ones coming up again—this over and over again, that what I heard from Ed Goodrich at Multnomah School—the Bible years ago—that God is the God of truth and Satan’s the father of lies.

And when you lie, you’re worshiping Satan. Worship means to do the will of somebody. And so when you lie, you’re worshiping Satan. When you tell the truth, you’re worshiping God. And we can apply it to this particular passage of scripture as well. When we act like Jews, when we slander good men, we’re doing the work of Satan. We’re worshiping him. And when we build up Christians in reputation, then we’re doing the work of our Father in heaven.

So don’t be a slanderer. Don’t let your children slander other children. And when you are slandered or where you see good men being slandered, don’t let it take heart in your bookcase. Don’t let it cause you much discouragement. Number one, knowing that your Father in heaven will provide deliverance for you over time. His deliverance is sure. And don’t when you hear slanders against other people, think that’s okay.

Rebuke slander when you hear it. Tell people don’t talk like that. If you have relationship with slanderers, cut them off. Cut them off. Plain and simple. Just get rid of them. If you know people whose lifestyle is characterized by slander, you know you got to pray that they turn away from that. But you don’t want to be infected by it. And you will be if you maintain relationships.

So first of all, Satan’s attacks almost always involve slander. Great warning to us Christians. Christian, be very careful with your tongue. You know, if you’re careful enough with your tongue, James says, you’re going to be careful in everything you do because the tongue is the hardest part of our body to control. Unlike what some people think today, there are much greater crimes than sex crimes. There are tongue crimes that are much worse, much more prevalent, much more difficult to control.

The scriptures say if you can control your tongue, you can control your whole body. So work on your tongue. Work on your tongue this week. Don’t slander. Justice. Seek justice. Justice doesn’t slander people. Unless you know facts, you cannot repeat those facts as facts. Slander. Cut it out of your life. Expect it though, right? Oh yeah.

I know people—you know, old—well, yeah, I’ve heard lots of things about that man or that church or that group. I want to stay clear of them because it may not be true, but you know, you just got to be careful when you hear things like that. Well, I’m 44. I’m still a relatively young man, but older than a lot of you. By the time you’re 44, you’re going to hear a lot more rumors about a lot more people and a lot more groups.

But if by the time you’re 60 or 70, if God gives you that many years on earth, and you take that way of acting around things and you hear problems with groups of people, you stay clear, you’re going to be pretty much staying at home and probably divorced for that matter because you’re going to hear things about your mate as well.

So don’t do that either. Expect slander in the world round about us. It’s part of God’s way of testing his people.

Secondly, Satan’s attacks may come through important people. These were not, you know, the mean-spirited small members of the congregation of the institutional church. You know, when you read of the party of the circumcised, for instance, we have parties of the baptized today. Circumcision was just the Old Testament equivalent of baptism today. And so these men had been circumcised.

I was talking to Chris W. earlier this week in my office and you know we place a lot of significance on infant baptism. That’s good and that’s proper. Well, these people placed undue significance on infant circumcision. They were the institutional church though. Do you understand this? They weren’t some you know outside group away from the church. This is the church we’re talking about.

Now it hadn’t respected its master when he came and so it’s apostate but it is the institutional church. These were the prominent men of the institutional church who attacked the godly one here, Paul. We should expect it in our day and age for prominent men in the institutional church—those that call themselves believers in God and even yes, Christians—who will frequently mount the attack against the body of Christ.

Problems come from inside. Paul said that later in his epistles. He said, “Men are going to come from the church.” He told it to the Ephesian elders. From it, some of you are going to be like wolves attacking the flock at Ephesus. So, expect that. Again, don’t, you know, don’t think it’s strange. This is the way Satan usually works.

Linsky says that we have the highest dignitaries of the Jewish court here, the supreme representatives of the Jewish religion, the greatest guardians of righteousness and law, but they ever stoop to the most vicious crimes. Pagans could have done no worse. So, it is. So, Satan works through prominent people. Prominent people in government, prominent people in the church, prominent people in business. That’s who Satan likes to use. Not usually the rabble. The rabble are moved by the prominent people.

Great warning to us not to let prominent people in the context of the church, the state or a business somehow be accorded more veracity, more weight on the basis of their position because that’s what Satan wants you to do. Well, how could a man who had that much prominence in the institutional church, even if he’s not quite true about Paul—there’s probably something to what he says. Otherwise, this is the high priest. These are the elders we’re talking about here. No, no, it’s injustice to give them more weight somehow and they don’t have reports that are backed up by truth.

So, let’s be careful because Satan uses prominent people.

These prominent people are frequently—they attack to their own political advantage. You know, this is the Jews are currying favor with Festus. Festus is currying favor with the Jews. They’re working on unholy communion. They’re trying to help each other out. One hand washes another in the context of our world. That’s frequently the way Satan uses attacks. Men will have community. It’ll either be community founded on justice and God’s law and submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, or it’ll be community founded upon a mutual interest to each other.

And that frequently moves into injustice. Justice when it’s convenient, injustice most of the time—that kind of community. What kind of community do you have the people round about you? Is it the kind that just seeks advantage with each other or is it a kind based upon the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and adherence to his kingdom, his truth, his justice?

That’s the community we’re trying to build here at Reformation Covenant Church, Lord willing.

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And then for—let’s talk then. That’s Satan’s attacks. Let’s talk about God’s deliverance now in this narrative and in scriptures usually found in scriptures as well.

Sometimes frequently God’s deliverance takes a long time. First of all it’s rather obvious I suppose but in the context of the world in which we live we’re so instant driven. We want things done right now. I remember hearing about how this is no offense to Indians at all but R.J. Rushdoony you talked about many times, children raised on Indian reservations were not disciplined in their youth and so they grew up having very difficult time trusting to the realities of life in the world and they became they were raised as children who had instant gratification.

Of course, this culture, no culture is going to give you instant gratification. Our culture attempts it doesn’t do a very good job. Well, most of us have been raised more and more like that in our culture with the advent of Dr. Spock, the first one, not the TV Dr. Spock, the child rearing Dr. Spock, who advocated no real corporal punishment or discipline of kids. Well, we’re all raised that same way. And so, we have this propensity as well. We want instant gratification, not have patience and perseverance over time.

But Paul has been in prison years. Years he’s been there waiting for God to deliver him. Of course, God delivered him pretty quickly out of Jerusalem. Then he sat around there at Caesarea for several years waiting for God to act. God doesn’t always act quickly. In fact, he very rarely acts quickly. Why? Because he loves us. He’s not like those Indian parents on the reservation. He’s not like American parents in the 1950s who don’t really love their kids with a proper biblical love. And so, train them to be self-governing. Train them to be weaned, for instance, instead of always at the mother’s breast wanting instant gratification.

Psalm 131 says, “We’re supposed to be like weaned children.” And we know that our sustenance comes from God, but we know that he gives it in his time. He’s not into demand feeding. So, don’t be into demand requesting. You’re going to be sadly disappointed by God. And that’s gracious of him because it trains us to have patience. Tribulation works perseverance. Perseverance. Patience.

See, God is making Paul persevere and become patient through this long deliverance he’s given to him. Matthew Henry on this text says that it’s an instance of the slow steps which providence sometimes takes, not bringing things to an issue so soon as we expect by which we are often made ashamed both of our hopes and of our fears and are kept still waiting on God. The cause had before been adjourned to another time, now to another place, to another court, that Paul’s tribulation might work patience. Patience. God works slowly.

We meet on the Lord’s day. I was talking with Reverend Gravening. Richard and I were on the last trip to Eugene for the Oregon Alliance of Reformed Churches. We were talking about the Sabbath, and he mentioned how one of the great truths of the Sabbath is God exists outside of time. And because God does exist outside of time, calls us to be patient. Don’t be in a hurry. Don’t be so timebound on everything.

This building fund—I hope we don’t talk about it a lot, but it is something important to be talking about. We were sitting around talking at Roy’s house the other night. I said, I don’t, you know, if my children see the erection of a permanent structure for Reformation Covenant Church, I’m happy. Or if their grandchildren do, I’m happy. I don’t need to see it in my day and age. I doubt unless God works very supernaturally and providentially that I’ll own a house in my life. That’s okay. But if I can take the small steps now and train my children to take the small steps that they might eventually be freeholders of property, I’m happy if that happens in a generation or two.

I’ve slowed down. I’m 44, no longer 24. We need to slow down and we need to wait for God’s deliverance. Greg’s sermon laugh two weeks ago was “Wait on the Lord.” Paul’s waiting. He’s going to wait some more. He’s going to wait some more to get to Rome. Then he’s going to wait when he gets to Rome. God says, “Wait.”

God’s deliverance is sometimes very, very slow in coming.

Sometimes he employs very unusual means. And this is what I mentioned earlier as I made the introduction to this sermon. The unusual means here of Paul calling out to Caesar. It’s just a fascinating thing, you know, the way this is phrased. You know, appeal. You know, we discussed this verse last year. We’re discussing our constitution and whether we should have appeal processes, what they should look like. And you know, we were at the Oregon Alliance of Reformed Churches meeting a couple months ago and they were talking about Acts 15.

The only passage in scripture that is explicit in teaching about the relationships of churches one to the other in terms of discipline and organizational structure. Is it Presbyterian, Episcopalian, old style congregational? What is it? Acts 15. And nobody knows because it doesn’t, you know, the scriptures—they just don’t meet our models. We build these models and God is not so intent on making the scriptures conform into our models. And our models are often skewed, particularly at this point in church history where the church has fallen away from God’s word, fallen away from his sovereignty, fallen away from his law, fallen away from understanding that he works history to victory at the proclamation of the gospel.

Now we’re going to figure out church polity. No. No. Not likely. Not likely. Again, for a long, long time, if my children have a better understand of it than I do, praise God. Now, we work hard. It means we still have to work. But we were talking about Acts 15.

Oh, well, you know, the Presbyterians want us to look at Acts 15 and see there that’s the graded court of appeals. That’s, you know, a session going to presbytery or general assembly. And yet, you know, we got talking about it and there was no judicial decision apparent back where these guys were coming from that Paul was appealing. There was no decision at the local church. Those guys were right. So, it’s not an appeal in that sense. The Jerusalem council doesn’t have representatives from the churches that are governed by it. That shoots out the whole Presbyterian theory of jurisdiction.

In order to have jurisdiction over other churches, they have to have representation at the council. You understand this? At Acts 15, those churches that the authoritative pronouncements that the Jerusalem Council went to, they didn’t have representation of the Jerusalem Council that I know of. So, how does that work? Well, it doesn’t. See, it doesn’t fit quite the Presbyterian. I’m not saying Presbyterianism is bad. It had some good things. I’m just saying that Acts 15 is not apropos for it.

So then people will say, “Where’s the appeal in scripture?” Well, the heads of tens, fifties, hundreds, thousands, graded courts of appeal. Well, no, it isn’t. No, it isn’t. It doesn’t say if a man doesn’t like the verdict, he then appeals it to the head of fifty. Doesn’t say that. It says that the case is too hard. That’s taken to the fifty and then to the hundred, then to the thousand, or to Moses.

See? Well, okay, maybe not there. But how about Paul’s appeal to Caesar? Well, this doesn’t fit the model either. The prophets of God sees these things very unclear. Sometimes we have no judicial decision yet from Felix that’s recorded. Some people made the case there’s an implicit announcement of innocence on the charge against Rome. Maybe, maybe not. But we have no explicit definition of verdict here that Paul is appealing.

And when you do the study, you find out that in the Roman sense of appeal, you didn’t have to have a verdict. In the middle of the trial, you could say appello.