Dennis Tuuri

# Paul’s Procession into Rome

Beginning at verse 12, we’ll read through verse 15. Please stand. Acts 28:12-15.

And I’ve decided the title will be Paul’s procession into Rome. I change these titles usually on usually late Saturday night. I hope that doesn’t upset you. But that’s what my topic will be: Paul’s procession into Rome. Acts 28:12 and following.

“And landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three days. And from thence we fetched a compass and came to Regium. And after one day the south wind blew and we came the next day to Puteoli where we found brethren and were desired to tarry with them seven days. And so we went toward Rome. And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and the three taverns whom when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage.”

Now, we’re going to pray through song that God would illuminate this text for understanding.

Now, let me just read, however, before we sing this metrical version of Psalm 119. Let me read Psalm 119:17-24. It’s a good thing when you sing a psalm that is metric to read the psalm first, you understand this is the inspired version, and the metrical version is good, but not inspired.

So, Psalm 119:17 and following: “Deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy word. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. I am a stranger in the earth. Hide not thy commandments from me. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments. Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept thy testimonies. Princes also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.”

Let’s pray that God illuminate the scriptures to our understanding through this metrical version of this portion of Psalm 119.

Okay, I’m going to reverse the outline. So, we’re going to start with point three. We have here, of course, very simply, a continuation of Paul’s journey to Rome where he wants to go to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts chapter 1 began with them asking when the kingdom be restored to Israel and Jesus answers and says, “Well, you don’t know the times or anything, but wait. You get power from on high and then you’re going to preach my gospel, be my witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth.”

And here we are at the uttermost parts of the earth, and a very significant uttermost part—the capital, so to speak; the prime city; the head entity here of the uttermost parts of the earth. So the account in Acts goes from Jerusalem to Rome. That’s the two centers here. And of course, Jerusalem is somewhat replaced by Antioch, but the center is outward and the motion is outward from Jerusalem to Rome.

And what we see here is Paul’s last little bit of his journey. Remember, they had carried three months on the island of Malta because of the bad seas, etc. And then they got in this ship from Alexandria, which we could talk about a little bit maybe as an object lesson.

You know, this was a ship, an Alexandrian ship, just like the one that had crashed. And some ships crash and some ships make it safely to Malta, and the one that Paul was on crashed for various reasons. And so our lives are filled with those kinds of things too. You know, sometimes you’re on the ship that makes it, sometimes you aren’t. But the hand of God overrides all things for our well-being and for our blessing, for the expansion of his kingdom, his purposes.

So they’re on that ship and they launch from there. We talked about the fact the ship was signed by the Dioscuri, the two Gemini twins. We talked about the significance of that. By the way, the city that they come to here at Puteoli also has those Gemini twins as the insignias, so to speak, the pagan gods that were worshiped in kind of particularly at that particular city they came to.

They landed Syracuse first. They tarried there for three days. We don’t know why. From there, they fetch a compass and came to Regium. By “fetch a compass,” a better translation would be they tacked. Apparently there was difficult winds. You know, if you’re sailing a ship like this, you got difficult winds. You tack. You zigzag back and forth and it takes a lot more time, but you can get to the destination. So they were tacking. That’s what the phrase here “fetch compass” translated in the KJV actually means.

And so they came to Regium and after one day there the south wind blew. Remember that south wind? That was the south wind that they thought would be good to them early on. And then the storm came up after they were sort of lured out by God’s south wind. And so we had that false blessing, so to speak, early on in this sea voyage.

And now we have the real thing coming through. The south wind blows and the end of the story is better than the beginning. It’s an important principle that the book of Ecclesiastes points out to us for our lives. The beginning of a matter is going to be very difficult. It seemed like God lures us into difficulties and troubles, but the end is always better than the beginning because God reveals himself increasingly to us through history.

Well, the south wind blows and we came the next day to Puteoli. So, they were quick to Puteoli where we found brethren and were desired to tarry with them seven days. Now, let me explain this. They come to Puteoli here and this is basically the central harbor that fed Rome, so to speak. The Appian Way, the Via Appia, is the great Roman road that goes from this port to Rome and one of the great highways of the ancient world.

And so they come to this harbor and as they’re finding brethren—Paul does. And the indication is that the brethren urged them to stay with them for a period of time. And then it says that we were desired to tarry with them seven days and so we went toward Rome. In other words, they asked us to stay. They pleaded with us to stay with them and we said okay. And it’s the plural usage of the term. It’s not just Paul. It’s Paul’s company.

And remember that Paul is being escorted to Rome as a prisoner. And so the man in charge of the Roman troops tarries seven days as well. And the text wants us to see all that tarrying in response to the brothers who ask and entreat Paul and the Christians to stay with him for seven days. We don’t know why seven. There’s other places in the scripture where he tarries seven days with brothers as well.

Seven is a picture of the completion of course of the creation week and entering into the seventh day of rest. It’s a picture of that. We had three days referenced earlier in the text. You don’t want to make too much of these things. But on the other hand, inspired word of God gives us the third day, a picture of the resurrection. The seventh day the entering into rest in this account of Paul’s processional to Rome. And then we have the soft wind blowing and then we actually have Paul being able to carry on his way as a prisoner to Rome with his guards, etc.

You know, this stand around and visit with the Christians for a week. This is a picture of blessing and leisure as Paul enters into Rome. The whole picture of the text gives us that.

So we stayed with them and so we went toward Rome. And see, that’s important too. Because I was going to say in the next verse some other things that happened on the road to Rome. But he says that here. God does this to show us that this is the manner in which they went toward Rome. You see, they didn’t go hurriedly. They didn’t go at the end of their trip with a terrible storm. They didn’t go being denied Christian fellowship. They didn’t go in a six-day stay someplace, a picture of, you know, incompleteness.

The whole picture is one that their voyage here, the end trip to Rome, his procession now as he heads toward Rome, is a victorious one and a blessed one.

And then finally verse 15: “From thence when the brethren heard of us, this is not the same brethren. These are the brothers at Rome now they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum in the three taverns. So Puteoli is about 125 miles from Rome. They stay there for seven days with the brothers. They start out again and they come to Appii Forum which is about 40 miles from Rome and there are brothers there to greet them as they come toward Rome.

They go out a delegation does to meet them. And that term there about the brothers going out to meet him is the technical term used of dignitaries from a city who would greet people, the rulers. Okay? So these people come out to Appii Forum. And it’s not just one delegation. Go another 10 miles. Now about 30 miles from them, they go to the three taverns and another group is there of Christians to greet Paul.

This is a beautiful picture, isn’t it? Of blessing and rest and leisure and victory. And when Paul sees them, he thanked God and took courage. No, it doesn’t mean he saw the three taverns and took courage and thank God. Not what it means. He saw the Christians, greeted him at the three taverns and as a result of that was encouraged in his soul.

Appii Forum was this area on the way to Rome. It was not a particularly good area. Various poets or writers at that time said it was essentially populated by thieves and swindlers and boatmen—boatmen who would take people through these terrible areas that they had to go through to get to other places.

So, it was kind of like, you know, kind of like that scene in the first Star Wars, that bar scene in that one town. You got a lot of weird people and people going to kill you and everything. So, Paul’s in the context of that. And when you can imagine if you’re in the context of a difficult place like that and you’re on your way to witness to Rome and who knows what’s going to happen to you there, you know, your spirits could get a little deflated.

And so, the brothers coming to greet him there is a tremendous encouragement to Paul. Then at the three taverns as well—taverns are really like boarding houses. So this was a commercial area. This next area about 30 miles from Rome. But these are the suburbs, so to speak, as you move toward Rome. And at these three taverns, another delegation comes and greets them. And so Paul goes on to Rome.

Now, we can do a couple of things with this passage that I want to do very quickly. And the first one is look at potential congregational lessons for us from the text. And I’m going to focus in here on verses 14 and 15.

Here’s look at verse 14. First phrase: “where we found brethren.” Okay, he’s talking about the city they came to at Puteoli where we found brethren and were desired to tarry with them seven days and so went toward Rome. And from then when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum in the three taverns whom when Paul saw he thanked God and took courage.

So in these two verses we can see various practical lessons portrayed for us as a congregation of believers that we should do. And the first thing we can see is an encouragement here to seek out brothers. Doesn’t say that the brothers found them. Paul says when we found them, we found brothers at Puteoli. And see the idea there is that Paul is looking everywhere he goes for other sons and daughters of the Lord Jesus Christ, other Christians. He’s looking for brothers.

And so it is, I believe, with us. We should seek out companions wherever we go who are Christians and profess the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we should find ourselves. We should look for ourselves and find people to fellowship with in whatever place we do in our lives. We should just seek out Christians for fellowship and encouragement. It should be. It is. It shouldn’t be. It is the new nature that God has given us in the Lord Jesus Christ that desires to be with people. The old nature that we’ve been saved out of doesn’t like people. Now, I may like people for our own selfish purposes, but it doesn’t really love fellow man.

I, you know, we’ve got brothers at our house, and I’ve been a brother, of course, I am a brother. And, you know, sometimes I wonder, why does God call it brotherly love? Other people with young kids were saying, you know what I’m talking about. See, in the fallen state, which we’re trying to train our children away from as they’ve been regenerated by God, there’s division and conflict with everyone, particularly those that are closest to us.

The beautiful thing about the book of Ephesians that Richard’s preaching through is that God has reconciled us to him, but he’s also reconciled us horizontally to our wives, to our husbands, to our children, to our friends, to people. See, so God gives us this new nature, and that new nature in you desires to be with people. And feed that. Don’t stop it.

In Psalm 119:63, “I am a companion of all them that fear thee and of them that keep thy precepts.” See, so I want to put that caveat in there that we’re talking about desiring to seek out brethren. They’re really brethren who love God’s word and law, not brethren who are antinomians who don’t have much to do with them. I don’t care what their external profession of faith is if they hate God’s word and you don’t want to hang around with them. But you do want to seek out those beautiful verse from Psalm 119:63.

Then that fear him, that reverence God, have a godly, have a correct respect of his judgments, but also a deep love and reverence for him, and as a result those that keep his word, his precepts.

1 Corinthians 12 is all about the body. Well, enough said. Matthew Henry says here in his commentary on this text he says, “Noted as an encouragement to those who are traveling toward heaven to meet with their fellow travelers who are their companions in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.”

So the first practical application we can say from this text is we should seek out brothers and secondly we should desire to be with brothers. Not just to find them, but to then tarry with them. I’ve listed a bunch of verses there on your outline. I won’t go through any of them, but it is a typical thing that we see of Paul over and over again in the book of Acts when he finds those brothers. Not just say, “Hi, how you doing? Good to see you.” And move on. He wants to hang around for a while.

Whether it’s a day, three days, frequently seven days, whatever it is, we should want to spend time with members of the family of the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, we want to. God’s spirit urges us that way. That’s one of the ways he writes his word upon our heart. As he tells us, as the Lord Jesus in Matthew 10:11 told his disciples, when you’re received in the name of Christ, tarry there for a while.

Okay? And this is what the model, the picture for Paul throughout the book of Acts is. We should desire to seek out brothers, but we should also desire to be with them for a period of time.

Third, we should seek to encourage brothers. Verse 15: “when the brothers heard of us, they came to us as far as Appii Forum and the three taverns. They wanted to go out to encourage Paul on his way. They were seeking ways to encourage Christian brothers. And so they do. Paul says that he took courage here.

And I’ve got a lot of scriptures laid out for you there that remind us that we have the great ability and the providence of God to be the comforters and consolers of Christian brothers. Jesus Christ himself had appeared to Paul earlier in the book of Acts and comforted Paul and encouraged him in his ministry. In addition, he had the prophetic word aboard the ship as well when Jesus came to him and ministered to him.

And now the Christians at Rome play this same role of encourager or counselor to the apostle Paul. And what a wondrous thing that we can each in our lives play the role, so to speak, of the Lord Jesus to encourage each other in the faith.

I mentioned last week that symbol of my failure and my love for my daughter, all that stuff. One of you this week called me midweek and encouraged me to proceed with that and that was such a neat call. I just enjoyed that and I thank God for that call and I did finish it by the way. I didn’t bring it today. Maybe I should have, but I did finish that little crib and my wife said she thought I’d never get that done. Why? Because I had the encouragement first just of your passive witness. I brought that forward to you last week and then of the actual encouragement of a brother who called me.

And so we should seek to do that very thing. John Calvin has a quote on this particular portion of the text. He says:

“For though he that is Paul was endued with invincible strength, so that he did not depend upon man’s help, yet God who useth to strengthen his by means of men did minister to him new strength by this means.”

So you see Paul is strong in the Lord, the power of his might. He didn’t need men. And yet God frequently uses the secondary means of men to bring new strength to people. And he did with Paul. Though Paul was afterwards forsaken when he was in prison, as he plaineth in a certain place in 2 Timothy 4:16. Yet he did not despair. It’s interesting.

See, because Paul writes in his epistle to Timothy that later on after this, he was abandoned by all at Rome. So, we have these people coming out to meet him, but then they’re later going to abandon him. But listen what Calvin says about that, too.

He says: “But he did not despair. He did fight no less valiantly and manfully under Christ’s banner than if he had been guarded with a great army. But the remembrance of this meeting did serve even then to encourage him. This is after they departed from him, seeing he did consider with himself that there were many godly brethren at Rome, but they were weak. And that he was sent to strengthen them.”

That’s a great perspective to put on those events. You could say, “Well, these are false brethren.” No, Paul would have seen it as well, these are weak brethren. They came out to honor and glorify me. When the going got tough, probably some of them went out those same roads to get away from Paul and the trouble he was starting to experience at Rome. They were weak. But Paul’s ministry there was to strengthen them the way they had first strengthened him.

And we should seek to strengthen each other and to tell each other as the Lord Jesus said again and again and again in the Gospels: “Be of good cheer.”

You know, he said that over and over. I got some texts recited there for you. “Be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven. Be of good cheer. Your faith has made you whole. Be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world.”

See, Jesus said that over and over and over and over. He wanted to encourage his people. And we should seek to encourage one another. And I know that many of you do. And I thank God for the many notes of encouragement I’ve received over the years from several of you. And you know who you are. And there’s a number of you that do that. And it’s such an encouragement to me.

And we should all seek to do that, one to the other, to play the role again of the Lord Jesus to bring encouragement, of the fact that our sins are forgiven, we’ve been made whole, that he’s given us faith, and that he’s overcome the world. So we want seek to encourage one another.

Fourth, we should honor ministers of Jesus Christ. Let’s not forget here that one thing that’s going on is this is an apostle. This is the first apostle to visit Rome. And so partly what they’re doing here is honoring a minister of Jesus.

And this is what Matthew Henry says about that: “They not only longed to see him, but thought themselves obliged to show him all possible respect as a glorious advocate for the cause of Christ. He had some time ago written a long epistle to them. It’s the book of Romans. And a most excellent one. And which he had not only expressed his great kindness for them but had given them a great many useful instructions. In return for which they show him this respect. They went to meet him that they might bring him in state as ambassadors and judges make their public entry though he was a prisoner.”

See we should seek to honor ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And one of the things that’s going on here is Paul is being honored. We just saw that as well on Malta. After he’d healed the people, they laded him with goods and gifts. And Paul writer writes in one of his epistles: “If he’s ministered spiritual things to you, then you ought to minister material things to him.”

And here they minister materially to him by coming to him and by their very physical presence bringing encouragement to the apostle Paul. We should do that.

Fifth, we should be thankful to God for believers who do these things. Paul’s response to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ ministered to these people was to be thankful to God. Says that “whom when Paul saw, he thanked God.” That’s not given in the text here for no reason. It’s a reminder to us that when these things happen—yes, we want to thank men, but ultimately we want to say that it is God who is at work in these people and we ought to be thankful to God that he ministers grace to us through secondary means.

Matthew Henry again: “If our friends be kind to us, it is God that makes them so that puts it into their hearts and into the power of their hands to be so and we must give him the glory of it. He said that we when we serve him, we should lift up our hearts to heaven in thanksgiving. Blessed be God that there are so many excellent ones on the earth. Bad as it may be.”

Paul had thanked God for the Christians at Rome before he had ever seen them upon the report he had concerning them. In Romans 1:8, he said: “I thank my God for you all.”

And here he thanks God for the presence of those who would seek to encourage him.

And then finally, the sixth lesson here: we should be encouraged by brothers. See, we should seek to encourage brothers. But when brothers seek to encourage us, we shouldn’t stiffen against that or pretend that we’re okay in and of ourselves. We’re invincible. We’re men. We can do it without you, you know.

No, we should allow ourselves. May sound funny, but in our day and age in America with the false wealth that God has given to us, etc., etc., etc., the way he’s building this country up for destruction and damnation and judgment—and he is—it’s very easy to have the facade that we’re completely independent and autonomous and not able to do that and not to be encouraged by people. And that’s there’s no quicker way to cut off the flow of the blood of encouragement, so to speak, of the saints toward each other than to refuse to receive encouragement.

And so the apostle Paul it said he thanked God and he took courage. He allowed himself to be encouraged by these Christians. And I’ve rested some other references there in terms of being comforted by believers. I’ll leave them for you to look up later.

And I do want to mention briefly here, however, that Joshua 1 here at the end of the book. This theme of courage is important. Joshua 1: we talked about the correlations between Joshua, the book of Acts and Joshua 1. Over and over again, God told Joshua and to tell the people to be encouraged to proceed in the word of the God of God and to be obedient to it and take courage, take courage, take courage.

Courage is an important thing for us. And I’ve listed some other verses there that when even when men don’t encourage you, David, it says in 1 Samuel 30:6, when people were really ticked at him because of a decision that he made that didn’t turn out quite right—I got very upset with him over the loss of members of their family. And we read that David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.

And those are, you know, you just don’t want to sit around and have a pity party when other Christians don’t encourage you. You want to take courage directly in the Lord your God. Psalm 27:14: “Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart.”

He doesn’t always use the secondary means of men. He frequently does, but not always.

All right. So that’s the first thing. These practical examples we can look at. They’re listed on your outline. But I think a little more importantly than those things, as important as those things are, is to understand again the thrust of the whole book of Acts and where we’re at here at the end of this book.

And I’ve tried to use those literary clues that God gives us in the text to show you how victorious and triumphant this text should be perceived as. I believe that there is a correlation here that God expects us to make—a correlation between the deeds of Paul here and what he’s doing and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have seen over and over and over the many ties God makes between Paul and Peter. Peter and Paul are the two big guys in the book of Acts. And both of them have been showed to have common events happen to them to link them together in our mind. And both of them are linked together to the Lord Jesus.

Briefly, we’ve talked about how the Apostle Paul went through the same courts as the Lord Jesus did as he was arrested at Jerusalem and then tried by the Romans as one example.

Well, if we think of Paul and if we think—as my title has tried to indicate for three years now—that what we have here are the acts not of the church, the acts not of the individual believers, the acts not of the apostles ultimately, but the acts of the Lord Jesus Christ through his apostles and through his church.

We should see in this movement now, this walking down this road to Rome, the Lord Jesus in the person of Paul and his church advancing toward Rome—capital, the uttermost parts of the earth. The Lord Jesus advanced toward another capital, Jerusalem. You remember that some churches celebrate Palm Sunday. “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

I talked about how this verse, the particular terminology that’s uses, these citizens come out, these Christians come out to meet Paul, referred to an official insignia or group of people to come out to meet the dignitary. Rome had its processions of victors. Rome had the Caesars as they came back from war. They’d come back in to the town and people would go out to meet them. They’d throw laurel leaves before them the way that the crowd did with Jesus. “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

After the Christianization of the empire at various points in medieval history, kings would actually be greeted by their subjects with those very words from the scriptures. “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” They’d understand that their kings who are submissive to the Lord Jesus were pictures themselves of Jesus conquering in people.

Well, here I think the Apostle Paul being represented as having these wondrous things happening to him, these great end of his journey. People coming out to greet him. He’s being greeted in his triumphal procession, I believe, into Rome.

Well, you say he’s a prisoner. What kind of prisoner is this? Who on his way being taken to the prison says, “Hey, you know, these Christians really want us to hang out with them for a week here. Is that okay?” And the head of the Roman soldier, the head of the Romans that are transporting him says, “Sure.” That’s clearly what the text says. These guys wanted Paul and his company to stay. And that’s what happened. And so they went toward Rome. The prisoner and the whole story of that ship scene increasingly moved to a fuller realization that Paul is in command. He’s a prisoner, that he’s in command.

You see, and here at the end of this, as we move in his triumphal procession to Rome, he can be seen as the Lord Jesus is said to have gone to the Father with all principalities and powers in his train. And so Paul has in his train the very soldiers who are supposedly having him in their train. He determines the agenda. He determines where we’re going to stay here in these last few weeks on the march to Rome. And he’s the one that met—it’s met. But the crowds who cheer him and go out to encourage him at Appii Forum and then again at the three taverns.

The apostle Paul here I believe is a picture of the Lord Jesus on the triumphal entry into first Jerusalem and then into Rome. Those are the two centers here that we’ve seen in the book of Acts.

That’s interesting too. We can see the correlation. The Lord Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. Those very people turned against him but he forgave him. The apostle Paul deserted Rome for a period of time. Yet he forgave him and saw those Christians as need to be to have strength to strengthen them and to cause them to mature and develop.

There many correlations we could draw, but I want you to understand that here at the end, Paul is going forth as a conqueror. We have some important truths portrayed to us in these processions. By the way, I’ve listed some verses there for you under point one, Paul’s processional, a triumphal entry. Let me just read a couple of them.

John 12 is the reference to Jesus going to Jerusalem. 2 Corinthians 2:14: “Now thanks be unto God which also causeth us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place.”

See the apostle Paul would go to places. He would walk and in his physical arrival God would make manifest the savor of God’s knowledge in these places where he went. And he was going in the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the procession of Christ.

Galatians 4:14, he says: “my temptation which was in my flesh, you despised not, nor rejected. You didn’t judge by external appearances,” he tells the Galatians, good to you. “But listen to this. But you receive me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.”

Oh jeez, you know, it sounds almost idolatrous, doesn’t it? The Galatians receive Paul as an angel even as they would receive the Lord Jesus Christ. But that’s just exactly what Paul is commending them for here because he is a picture. He’s going down to the if it was him for himself, they would be idolatrous. But they know the Lord Jesus is marching through Paul and they received him as such.

And those Christians at Rome knew, “Here comes Jesus in the person of his ministers, in the person of his church,” and they went out to meet him and to bless the Lord Jesus Christ as a result of his work to them.

Again in Acts 10, Peter going to Cornelius, the same picture. Various places in the book of Acts, the crowds would go with Paul as he left the churches. In other places they would go out to meet him when he’s leaving and entering cities. He goes with an entourage to take him on his way or to receive him because he’s going in a procession of history to places that the Lord Jesus is conquering.

So we also—I have other scriptures here—we also ought to receive such in this same way. But I want to just stress to you again that’s what I think is going on here.

R.J. Rushdoony in his important book *Christianity and the State*, one of his more recent books in the last decade, writes this in chapter 33. It’s a chapter entitled “Procession.” It’s all about the idea of procession. He says:

“An essential doctrine does not disappear when men neglect it. There is simply another and illegitimate manifestation of it in another sphere. Things don’t go away. People transform or pervert them.”

That’s what they do when we ignore biblical truth. We take God’s truth and pervert it. Lies are always twists of what God teaches.

His point is that processionals, status processionals have been the norm in the last 500 years. Think of the May Day parade with the Soviet Union. Now, every year they’d have that processional called parades nowadays. They’d have that procession or parade, not a picture of the beauty and triumph of the Lord Jesus, but of their own military might. It’s a procession geared to the idolatry of the state.

Now, all these things are perversions of God’s truth. And the theological truth behind the idea of a visible procession such as Paul going to Rome, the Lord Jesus with his triumphal entry, or now the perversion of it, status parades. The theological truth that undergirds those things is the procession of the Holy Spirit.

You’ve heard me talk about this a little bit in terms of the Nicene Creed, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, talking about the procession of the Holy Ghost. You’ve professed that. You’ve confessed that truth many times in this church: that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. What does it mean? Sounds kind of odd. Well, it just means he proceeds. He goes from the Father and the Son to you, to earth. That’s what it’s talking about.

The scripture that most people would quote in reference to this is John 15:26: “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”

He’s talking about the Holy Spirit and he says the Holy Spirit will proceed from the Father and he’ll testify of me. Jesus goes to be with the Father, right hand, and he sends then the Son. Remember why? Or sends the Spirit rather. Remember why the Spirit was not yet given? Because Christ was not yet ascended. Okay, it’s at the end of the 40 days after his ascension that Pentecost occurs. Then he sends the Spirit.

The Spirit proceeds then from the Father and the Son in heaven. Why does he do it? He comes to motivate, build and expand the kingdom and the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. All processionals in the church used to have this as their understanding.

In the Old Testament, the New Testament, procession indicates the coming—in this case of Jesus to Jerusalem, the apostle Paul to Rome, the procession of the Holy Spirit bringing the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ to a particular place.

Now these processions can have both negative and positive consequences. The Spirit comes to bless and establish the church of Jesus Christ. But the Spirit also comes to judge those outside of the church. Remember we’ve talked about the Lord’s day. God comes to be with us in a special way through the Spirit. Comes to meet with you. You confessed sin when you got here. I hope you meant it. If you don’t, Spirit’s not happy with you. He’ll spit you out of his mouth. That’s the picture the scriptures want us to have. You’ll get sick when you take communion. You see, if you don’t confess your sinfulness because he’s here in special sense.

But he doesn’t stay just in this church when he comes in the Lord’s day. The picture the scriptures want us to have is he goes into all the earth. He proceeds. He moves into history. And he does it through his church. He does it when we leave this place and take his word and transforming our lives and proclaiming to this culture. The Spirit proceeds.

Apostle Paul, the Spirit proceeds. The same thing is true in the apostate twisted versions of this with the state. The state would come triumphant to a city and bless it, or the state would proceed to judgment. And so when they had the Lord Jesus walk to Golgotha, it was a picture of procession of their spirit to judgment—ungodly procession, but a true picture that the Spirit comes both to bless and the Spirit comes to curse.

Now, we have a response that’s required of us to the procession of the Holy Ghost. And that is to desire to meet him. The way that the church gives us the picture in this passage from Rome—their response to the coming procession of Paul was to run out to greet him. We’re not afraid. We’re not going to leap back in our houses for Paul to come and give us hell. We’re going to run out because he’s bringing us heaven. He’s bringing us—who are aware of our sins—he’s bringing us blessing from God. And we want to honor him. We want to honor God through honoring Paul and his ministers. That’s our correct response to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son to us in every aspect of our lives.

We want to meet God. We want to seek him out as he comes to be with us. And we have that picture, you know, the Lord Jesus is knocking at the door and we’re saying, “Yes, yes.” We rise up. And there’s scriptures I referenced on your outline there that show the same thing. When Jesus returns, turns finally and consummatively at the end of the age, we go up to meet him. We don’t wait for him down here to get here. We rush to the door as the bride rushes to the door to open it for her husband. You see?

See, this is what the scriptures talk about in our day and age. Parades have become taken over by the state. And this isn’t new. This has been going since the medieval period. Well, actually, even before that—Rome obviously was a picture of apostate procession with the Caesars. But certainly in the last thousand years, the doctrine of procession, of church processions, which used to be communist—state processions—has become increasingly shoved to the back and in fact in many times in history civil governments would not allow public processions or parades that were Christian oriented or church oriented because the only public procession, the only public manifestation of power belonged to the state. You see?

One other thing I mentioned in passing again from Rushdoony’s article on procession: that it was in late medieval period that the academic procession began, you know, cap and gown, right? Academic processions. The professors all walk in during the graduation ceremony and they come in a procession. See, they’re the procession of the spirit now. And it was at that same time that the doctrine of academic freedom that said that the professors and the intellectual establishment was beyond the reach of church or state also began to be manifested.

Processions are important pictures of the theological truth of a claim to ultimacy, a claim to divinity, and a claim to power. So it is we need to develop again the understanding that the church is a picture of God proceeding to us and us as we do every Lord’s day, as he comes down to meet with us. We come forward in procession to greet him as he comes to us.

Procession is from God. Biblical procession, true procession is from God to man. Only secondarily do we respond to his procession to us by proceeding to him.

Baptism. Why do we have water coming from above? It’s a picture of the procession of the Holy Spirit to a particular individual. It isn’t a putting an individual actively into passive water. It’s the individual receiving active water passively. You see, the procession is from God to man. And only by way of response do we then rush out to meet our king.

Let me say finally that the procession is individual. Procession is not simply corporate, but each of you are the recipients of the procession of the Holy Ghost to you.

Let me read one of the final quotes from Rushdoony’s article. “Covenant man in faithfulness obeys the mandate of the procession. This is what’s required. One, we have to wait for God to proceed to us in a renewed sense of quickening his church. And secondly, a covenant man in faithfulness must obey the mandate of the procession. The procession does not convey an empty experience. It gives marching orders for the conquest of all things in the name and power of Christ.”

Our Lord commanded the church to move only in terms of the power of the procession, and then quoting from Acts 1:8: “But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”

Paul was the recipient of the procession of the Holy Ghost. And he was moving in response to that procession as he went forward and was a picture of that procession into all the earth.

I mentioned last week this poem, “Lord, Make a Regular Man Out of Me.” And I want to quote it now as we look to this new year. This is what we should want. Men particularly—now I’m speaking to you—rise up, O men of God. The church for you doth wait, and indeed it does in our day and age and maybe shall for some time to come. But may we be those who pray for and receive the procession of the Holy Spirit to quicken us as Christian men to true biblical masculinity and respond in covenantal faithfulness to him.

Let me read this poem:

> This I would like to be
> Braver and bolder
> Just a bit wiser because I am older
> Just a bit kinder to those I may meet
> Just a bit manlier, taking defeat
> This for the new year, my wish and my plea:
> Lord, make a regular man out of me

> This I would like to be
> Just a bit finer, more of a smiler
> Less of a whiner
> Just a bit quicker to stretch out my hand
> Helping another who’s struggling to stand
> This is my prayer for the new year to be:
> Lord, make a regular man out of me

> This I would like to be
> Just a bit fairer, just a bit better and just a bit squarer
> Not quite so ready to censure and blame
> Quicker to help every man in the game
> Not quite so eager, man’s failings to see
> Lord, make a regular man out of me

> This I would like to be
> Just a bit truer, less of the wisher, more of the doer
> Broader and bigger, more willing to give
> Living and helping my neighbor to live
> This for the new year, my prayer and my plea:
> Lord, make a regular man out of me

That’s a desire for the manifestation of the fruits of the Spirit in Christian men’s lives. A desire for God to make us those kind of men. A prayer that God would indeed make that kind of regular man out of us.

God does it. God is in the process of doing that very thing because the Spirit, the Comforter has been sent forth from the Father and the Son to us to make us those regular men. God’s Spirit has proceeded to us. Our response should be one of covenantal faithfulness to greet him, to seek God in all things, to look for the opportunities that he has given us to make us regular men, to make us men like the Apostle Paul, who then will be those who proceed forward to conquer Rome, to conquer Jerusalem, or to see its judgment and destruction as we proclaim the word of God with our words, but also with the regularity of the demonstration of the fruits of the Spirit in our life.

That’s what I want for me this year. That’s what I want for you this year: to understand the relevance of the doctrine of procession and the blessing that God has said is ours. It gives us this picture at the end of the book of Acts of the blessings of the apostle Paul going through all the vicissitudes of life that we go through and yet God has greased the skids most magnificently to take that gospel into all the world.

Let’s pray that be our experience as well.

Father, we do pray that we would recognize your Spirit’s work in our lives, that he would continue to proceed to us with power and endowment from on high, that we would respond in faithfulness. Lord God, make regular men out of us. May we lead our families, Lord God, in a responsive procession to your throne to seek you out as you come to us and to be obedient in Jesus’ name we pray and for the sake of his kingdom, amen.

—

**Q&A:**

Is there a mic anywhere? Is there a mic back there? Oh, up here in the front pew, guys. Who’s going first? Sean, I guess, or Howard?

**Questioner:** He talked about how Paul was a prisoner and yet he was the one in command. You know, it made me think of Joseph and it made me think of Daniel, and I was wondering: do you see the same parallel with us to be in this world and not of this world? Are we really prisoners of this world and yet were in command, and is that the essence of the apostolic message, or is it always a suffering church outwardly but inwardly?

**Pastor Tuuri:** Yeah, I don’t the way you’ve described it. I’m not sure I agree with either one. The first one sounded like maybe you didn’t mean to make it sound this way, but that we’re always in a position where we’re in prison yet really ruling. But prison in the scriptures is always—well, at least it seems to me—is usually a thing that is followed by victory.

So, Joseph goes from prison to the visible manifestation of his reign. Daniel, same thing. And so, you know, what we see, I think, is a transition from the imprisonment of Paul to his reigning and how that works its way out. So, I think that when the church is in a time of descendency, it can take great comfort in the fact that when it’s faithful in prison, it shall rule from prison. And then the end result of that would be deliverance from a sociological prison, if you will, you know, to where the nations shall indeed praise God.

And so all of Egypt will be converted, you know, and we’ll be brought out of prison to positions of authority and power. So, in a time like we’re in now when we’re in prison because of the just judgments of God for the most part, we can take comfort in knowing that even while in prison, we can be victorious. But it will manifest itself in an external way, too. So it’s more like the first of the two options.

I’d add that thing that it’s movement historically. You know, I mentioned the judgment too—the procession of the Spirit and judgment. It’s interesting that Puteoli, this harbor here for Rome, Vesuvius will erupt. From that area, Paul could see three great volcanoes. And one is Vesuvius. It will erupt in, I believe, AD 79. And Drusilla—remember Felix’s wife, who was interested in hearing Paul, but obviously didn’t help him out, who was Jewish and related to that whole thing. Her and her son were killed in that earthquake—or I’m sorry—that volcanic eruption, which was very akin to the sort of thing that happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. In other words, you’ve seen the records where people are just stopped in their tracks, you know, because of the tremendous amount of ash and lava, etc.

So anyway, the judgment will come along with that. And as Reverend Jordan mentioned in the Revelation tape, after AD 70, the Roman Empire is now no longer a vehicle for the kingdom and will suffer the judgments of God. But until its conversion under Constantine…