Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 28

Is Acts chapter 28. While we won’t deal with the entire passage, I do want to begin reading at verse 21 and read to the end of the chapter, verse 31. So, Acts 28:21-31. Please stand for the reading of God’s command word.

And they said unto him, We need to receive letters out of Judea concerning thee. Neither any of the brethren that came showed or spake any harm of thee. But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest. For as concerning this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against. And when they had appointed him a day, then there came to him many into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets from morning till evening.

And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed after that Paul had spoken one word. Well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people, and say, Ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it. And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him.

Let us pray that God might cause this text to be understood, not just or not primarily that we might judge others, but that we might indeed first have the beam taken out of our own eye. Let us pray.

This is an annual event for us, what some have called sanctity of human life Sunday—a worship service that remembers particularly the decision of the United States Supreme Court entitled Roe v. Wade, when abortion on demand was essentially legalized in this country with the killing of pre-born infants. And we mourn that fact. We acknowledge that there is guilt upon this nation because of that, as well as many, many other sins. And we pray to God particularly today that he might pour out his curses upon those who are committing these kind of vile sins. So it is a day of solemnity. It’s a day of judgment.

Of course, we have decided—I have decided—to call what my sermons are to be on this particular day to be not “sanctity of human life Sunday” but rather “anti-abortion day of the Lord.” The Lord’s day, the Lord comes to his church to judge his church. And then the judgment flows out over the land. And he judges the church. One of the things he judges the church on, of course, is its relationship to the children that are his. And so anti-abortion rather than sanctity of human life. Human life does not have sanctity to it if by that we mean it should never be taken. We know the scriptures give us particular things that we are required to execute men for.

We’re not pro-life. We’re anti-abortion. I’m not going to get into that a lot today. If you want to know more about our reasoning in saying that, hit last year’s tape. I talked a lot about the rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement, how it’s changed to pro-life. Now we got people calling for increased welfare programs who began their political involvement by being anti-abortion, becoming pro-life, and then saying that means also we’ve got to expand government welfare. See, that’s the trend that goes.

So this is anti-abortion day of the Lord, and God in his providence has brought us to the concluding verses of the book of Acts. Now, we’re going to spend a couple weeks on these concluding verses. We’re not out of it yet. I don’t want to spend a lot of time today on the careful exegesis of the text before us. I do want to spend time on a couple of verses in the middle of it.

But having said that, I do want to give an overview of what I think the entire framework of these concluding portion of the book of Acts is. These last fifteen or twenty verses. And I want to have that set as the context for the relationship of the judgment of Israel to the restoration to the kingdom to Israel. Okay, it’s where the book began. So you’ll see on your outline that under point one, we have an overview of Acts 28—and I should say the last, I guess really all of 28.

First, the deliverer of Israel comes to Rome. And so I’ve made a self-conscious correlation between Paul as the deliverer—Jesus, of course; he’s coming in the spirit of Jesus. He’s going as Moses did to his people to deliver his people. We talked about the correlations to him, the summoning of Israel. We said that Paul comes to Israel; the deliverer comes with processional triumph and pomp with the church proceeding and coming out, meeting and going coming in. It’s preceded also by those great stories of what happened with the deliverance from the snake bite and healing all those people on Malta, etc.

The deliverer comes to Israel beginning of Acts 28. He summons Israel together to give the message. The message is the hope of Israel is the reason why he has been brought to Rome, is the basis for his defense, and essentially also is the context of his message that he brings as he summons the leaders of Israel together to talk to them about how the hope of Israel has been met in the Lord Jesus Christ and the implications of that.

This leads to the division of Israel. We just read in the text: some believe, some believe not. And so there’s this division of Israel. And Paul then concludes the message just as he did when all this started for Paul particularly at Antioch Pisidia, the city in Antioch. Remember the first missionary journey he spoke to Jews and he gave this same message, and at the end of it he gave them the same kind of warning. And so he does here. He ends it with a declaration of the judgment of Israel, and particularly the negative judgment upon those members of visible Israel who reject Messiah, who will not hear, will not see, and will not have their hearts understand.

So it ends with this judgment, and that judgment is absolutely essential and the division that it brings in the context of visible Israel. That judgment and the proclamation of it by Paul—”Be it known unto you that this is happening now”—that declaration is absolutely essential for shaking out. The judgment begins with the house of God. And this is the essential end of that. And that is absolutely essential for the transformation of Israel. This final weaving together of the Israelites, the God-fearers in the context of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament leading up to the New Testament, all brought into one body now through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that transformation of Israel results from the division of Israel resulting from the judgment that God places upon them. And that sets up then the last two verses in the text, which says that the Gentiles will hear it. You won’t hear it. You’ve stopped your ears. God has stopped your ears. But the Gentiles will hear it. And for two years, Paul preaches and builds the church. And the last word in the whole book of Acts is “unhindered,” without any opposition. The state still is the protection for the church. And even the apostate church cannot touch or hinder the work of God as it goes forth. And as Paul establishes, Rome is a great missionary center, a capital of the world. That’s what goes on in Acts 28. And that’s the context for this message, this delivering of this address.

So second on the outline: review of the deliverer’s address to Israel. First, the occasion of the address. Remember, he comes and he summons them. This is why I’m here. And they then say, well, you know, we haven’t heard anything about this, but we’d like to hear what you’ve got to say about this stuff because we know that this sect—Christianity—is spoken against everywhere.

Now, we don’t know what’s going on here. I mean, it’s hard to believe they hadn’t heard about Paul. Some people think, well, you know, the Jews in Jerusalem, they just gave up when Paul was sent to Rome. I really doubt that. I know people who are animated by a deep sense of envy and hatred of other people. They don’t just sort of forget about it usually.

It seems you know we don’t know why Paul was in Rome for two years, why he wasn’t released nearly immediately. We know that within, I think, five days they were supposed to at least have the formal presentation of the papers. That’s how it worked. Trial could be a little longer than that, but we don’t know why. You know, I wouldn’t mind speculating here that these Jerusalem Jews know that they can’t take a frontal attack upon Paul. Remember, the Jews have been kicked out of Rome. I mentioned that several times now. They’ve been brought back now under Nero. Claudius kicked them out. The reason he kicked them out was dissension and riots and, according to some historical accounts, about Christos or Jesus Christ. So the Jerusalem Jews would have been greatly discouraged from this kind of frontal attack upon Paul and Christians because it just would have led to more trouble and everybody getting booted out of the city.

So I think it’s probably not too far-fetched to think they’re working behind the scenes, and that may have been the reason why Paul is under house arrest, so to speak, for two years. But again, it doesn’t hinder the gospel.

So the occasion of the address is they want to hear Paul. We don’t know if that’s sincere or not. You know, I know people who want to hear things from me, not because they really want to dialogue reflectively with me, but because they want information from me, what I’m doing. That’s the reality of life. And if you’re involved in management and business, you know, the same thing is true of you. Your competitors try to get information from you. We don’t know why. We don’t know what their motivation was. But in the providence of God, God had chosen the Apostle Paul as his chosen vehicle to reach these people. And whatever their motivations, God’s purpose in bringing them to hear Paul now, all day long preach Jesus, was for the transformation of Israel. The division of Israel, the judgment upon some, the blessing of the others, the inclusion of them into this one church. So God wants Paul to address these men.

So the occasion of the address is: first, Paul summoning him to give his defense, and then second, the desire of Israel’s leaders to hear him. They want to hear from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. And God is working through Paul. And then the actual address itself is given for us in this particular text we just read.

Now, this portion of the outline really comes directly from verse 23. Okay, verse 23 is just really quoted in how this is laid out here. First we see Paul’s method of speaking to the leaders of Israel here. But by the way, it’s not just leaders. More come to this second meeting than at the first meeting. And so that’s significant for us. It’s good to remember that.

But Paul here in verse 23—it says that he brings them together and then “to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and of the prophets.” And then it says that he was actually there from morning till evening, giving us a picture of the sincerity with which he preached to this group, his devotion to the cause.

So first we have Paul’s method. He had two things: he expounded and testified, and persuaded them. And I bunch it that way because in the Greek these two terms—translated “expounded” and “testified”—are kind of linked. They’re like two sides of the same coin, and you’ll see them lumped together repeatedly throughout the New Testament. “Expounded” means to lay out by order. You know, like an exposition of the text. Expository preaching starts with a verse and expounds it in order. So he expounds to them. He lays things out in order, and he testifies. Testifies means to attest to the veracity or truth of what he is demonstrating logically from the text of scripture to them. He testifies this is truth, and it involves a solemn affirmation and a responsibility to respond—responsibility of the hearers to respond to this exposition not just with intellectual curiosity but with bowing to the need of the truth. Okay, so you got exposition and you got testifying, talking about the solemnity of the event and the need to see this is true and it requires an affirmation by them of that truth. Those things kind of go together.

Then the second term that’s used is “persuading” them. Was it enough for Paul just to prove logically to them or even to just prove logically and then say you got to respond? He earnestly strives to enlist them—is the way Jay Alexander puts it—into the service of the one whom he had expounded and testified to: the Lord Jesus Christ. So he tries to persuade them. You see, he tries to draw them in. He’s not going to do that by moving away from the truth, but he’s not going to try to make the truth tough for them. I mean, the truth is tough enough, but he takes that truth, expounds it clearly and with affirmation, but then he does it in such a way as to persuade them, to enlist them in the cause of Christ. There’s a winsomeness involved here, I think. And there’s an earnestness of his desire to see these Jews enlisted into the service of Christ. Okay?

Paul’s message is the kingdom of God and Jesus. We have a correlation here. He speaks about a kingdom and he speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ as the king. Okay? We’ll go back over some of these things in the next week or two to come, but just quickly, you know, his message is the kingdom of God relative to the Lord Jesus Christ. Those things are always linked together—unlike in the Christian church today when you hear the message of Jesus and there’s no concept of kingdom. And I went to a, you know, a conservative Baptist church for a number of years and I got great instruction on how to exegete the word. But I never, virtually never, heard the word “kingdom” used, ever, and virtually never heard the word “covenant” used. And then when I found out those are huge concepts in the scriptures as you read through them, you wonder what’s going on.

Well, see, we understand the relationship of Jesus to the kingdom. The kingdom is a king with law with peoples gathered around him. And that’s what Paul’s message is here to them.

Paul’s content—how does he do this? Is out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets. He goes to the scriptures. Again, here we can look back and we’ve talked about this several times. Hopefully you’re really getting it in here now. When you’re talking to somebody who affirms a belief in the scriptures, your apologetic style is different than when you’re talking to a pagan. When Paul went to the Jews, he always took them to the scriptures. They say they believe the scriptures. That’s the standard by which God’s truth must be measured. So he starts there with them. Okay? And he tells them, “Well, this is what the scriptures say.” And he matches verses with them, so to speak. Okay?

He requires an understanding the law of Moses first and then the prophets—talked about the application of the law of Moses in the history of Israel. So that’s the way of seeing it. Remember when we, years ago—you don’t remember? I don’t hardly remember—when I used to give the sermon on sermons in the order of worship? We talked about how frequently that would be—that’s an excellent way to structure a sermon: to start with the law of Moses, to go to either the wisdom literature or the prophetic word, then to go to the gospels and epistles and culmination of that same truth. And it’s quite easy to do because the Bible is one word.

Well, Paul uses the scriptures. Now remember, with pagans he didn’t start with the scriptures. With pagans, what did he talk about? Do you remember? He talks about creation. God made you. And then he talks about providence. God has sustained you. And then he talks about judgment. God’s going to judge you.

The Westminster Little Children’s Catechism—not the shorter, but the little children’s catechism they’re using with the two and three-year-olds class here—a lot of us use it at home. Why should you glorify God? Because he made me and takes care of me. And I’m starting to add this other little clause with charity: and will judge me. Because there you’ve got the three-fold picture that Paul always gives to the pagans, whether it’s at Athens or wherever it was with the pagans. That’s where he began: creation, providence, and judgment. Okay? And it’s good for us to be reminded of that judgment. And that’s one thing we do today. Okay?

So Paul’s content to the Jews is the scriptures—the Old Testament scriptures. And notice his devotion. He does this from morning to evening, all day long. He’ll stay there as long as they’ll stay there. He’s committed. This is all his life is about: preaching Jesus.

What’s the result? The Jews result in division. The Jews end up divided. Some people think that by “division,” some believe, some did not—they think they see there the outline of a Greek phrase which means 50/50. So half believed and half didn’t. I don’t know if you can draw that out of it or not, but the fact is some did believe. There’s no indication that most didn’t. So I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to think that—well, we should think of this in terms of some believing, some not. And if it is indeed that Greek expression that talks about 50/50, think what an incredible day this has been for the Apostle Paul!

Eleven huge synagogues in Rome. All the leaders of these synagogues and others besides come to hear him preach. All day long he goes from morning to evening out of the scriptures talking about Jesus and the kingdom. And what does God do? He blesses that teaching—maybe with over half of the leaders of those synagogues becoming converted in one day. I mean, it’s like calling together all the churches in Portland and talking to them about the full gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, last week there was a press conference where a bunch of the liberal churches—Jewish and Protestant churches—are starting a new Christian political action group. They’re talking about their own Christian voters guide to combat the Oregon Family Council Christian Voters Guide, which is too conservative. They’re liberal, pro-abortion, and all that stuff. Be like calling together all those people and half of them at the end of one day being convinced of the infallibility of God’s word, the reality of the kingdom, the need for God’s law, all that stuff. It’s an amazing thing.

Notice also that it’s an amazing thing that here Paul—”the charmer charms ever so excellently,” as we read from our responsive reading in the Psalms—in other words, you got the best preacher probably in the world here, right? And he’s got his best message and content: kingdom and Jesus. He’s using the Bible, which he knows really well, trained under Gamaliel. Think of all that going on. And yet, you know, maybe 50% or more don’t believe. See, it’s not of the messenger ultimately. It’s not of the person. It’s of God’s sovereign grace. God opens some people’s eyes, and he closes some people’s eyes.

So the division happens. And in the context of that division, then there is contention. This is amongst the Jews. They go out, you know, with great reasoning or debate. Great contention is what it means as they leave. And in the context of that great contention, then the other side of that is the Gentiles will hear the message of Paul, and the word will continue without let or hindrance—and so it is a positive result.

Now I want to then focus on several aspects. First of all, I want to—so what we’re going to talk about now is the third part of the outline. This is where I want to spend most of the time: judgment and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, the context of our service of malediction. And I say here that there are three agencies involved in this judgment, which is linked to the restoration of the kingdom to Israel.

You know, because what you’ve got is the book beginning with: “When will the kingdom be restored?” Jesus in answering that says the gospel’s got to be preached. You be my witnesses. And now Acts ends with the gospel being preached. And now Rome becoming a missionary center for going to the uttermost parts of the earth. And so we have now the transformation of the reign to Israel. And so the word goes out unhindered. And that happens as a result of the churches being woven together, and involved in that is judgment and division. The false church must be demonstrated to be false, and it must be judged, and the true church must be revealed to be the true church.

In our class this morning on Reverend Jordan’s tapes on Revelation, for the next three, four, or five weeks, we’ll just be doing overviews of the whole book. And with the overview now, he talks about how chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation correlates with chapters 16-20. What you’ve got is the true church is being addressed and the false church is being revealed, and the true church is being revealed at the end of the book. So there’s that going on. And that’s what’s going on here. There’s a time reference to all this which we’ll get to a little bit later, which I think is very interesting.

In any event, okay, so there’s three agencies involved in this judgment and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. What we’re talking about now is that closing word to Paul’s presentation. And understand, you know, that he’s not saying here—Paul is not saying that all of Israel has rejected it. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s not saying, “Okay, none of you guys will believe, so now I’m going to the Gentiles.” That’s not what he’s saying.

He’s saying that God is sovereign. That you may think you’re of Israel, but so did your fathers. And they weren’t. My fathers were; your fathers weren’t. And your fathers demonstrated that they were of a different seed, that they’re of Satan’s seed by their being closed to hear the prophetic word. And now closed to the hearing of Jesus. So, and as you leave here, he’s saying, “Think about this one.” It’s good for us as we leave here today to think about that same warning to us who are placed in the context of the visible church. So that’s what Paul’s doing.

And he does that with a quotation from Isaiah 6 in verse 25 and 26 of the text. “Well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto the fathers.” And then in verse 26, he quotes from the Septuagint version of Isaiah chapter 6. And there are some differences between this and if we look at our version of Isaiah 6. So he gives this quote in a particular way.

“Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see but not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross and their ears are dull of hearing. Their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes have they closed. They’ve closed their eyes lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them.”

That’s the message he gives them. And what I want us to see here—in another text on the outline where this same quote is used—our Savior spoke in parables. And when asked why, in each of the gospel accounts, he says Isaiah 6. And he quotes it in short form, and in long form it’s recorded. But he quotes the same verse. And I think that we can see three agencies also, by the way.

I believe that the description of these three agencies comes from J. Alexander’s commentary, not mine.

First, they have the ministerial agency of the prophet. The prophet has to go. Isaiah 6—you go back to that Isaiah 6. Back, turn in your scriptures to Isaiah 6, and we see the ministerial agency of the prophet being spoken of here. This is right after what I read earlier about having the altar sacrifice placed to his tongue. And then he says, you know, I’ll go. I’ll be the messenger. And then verse 9, Isaiah 6: “Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their ears.”

See, now if you read it in Acts, it sounds like they’re saying, “We’re not going to see because we don’t want to be converted and we want to be healed.” And that’s the way it reads in Acts. But back in Isaiah 6, the way it reads is God tells the prophet, “You go shut their eyes. You go make their hearts fat, because we don’t want them seeing.” See, that’s what it reads. Isaiah 6. So we have the ministerial agency of the prophet. The prophet must go out and stupefy the people.

By the way, just by way of side comment—and we talked about this in a Revelation class as well—the Bible has chiastic structures: A B C B A. And if you look at this in the book of Acts, this particular quotation: “heart is gross. In verse 27: ears are dull, eyes have closed. They can’t see with their eyes. They can’t hear with their ears and understand with their heart.” Heart, ears, eyes, eyes, ears, heart in and out. And that’s a useful structure to look for as you do your personal Bible study because it helps you to understand both sides of those things.

Then in the context of the book of Revelation, it’s significant that it starts with the vision of Jesus and ends in chapter 21 and 22 the vision of the church. God wants us to see that chiastic structure and understand the significance, then, that we’re getting the glory from Jesus. Well, anyway, okay.

In the context of that quote, the prophet according to Isaiah 6 must be the ministerial agent of this hardening. Who hardens these guys? The prophet hardens them—is what Isaiah 6 says. God says, “Go harden these guys.” Okay? And Paul does the same thing. And while he quotes it to stress their responsibility, he then says, “Be it known unto you.” And we’re today involved in the prophetic ministry of the church, declaring and affecting judgments in the context of our land relative to abortion. We’re fulfilling the correct ministerial agency of the church and making these proclamations.

We’ve gone to God and fallen down like Isaiah, and he’s raised us back up, and we said, “We want to go and be your messengers.” And he says, “Here’s the message. Go declare judgment to this church, to those members that won’t hear. You make them hard-hearted. You’re be the agency to stupefy this people, and my judgments will rain down on them.” That’s what he calls us to do, and that’s what we do today.

And secondly, you have the judicial agency of God. Turn to John 12:40. There’s another quotation. He says verse 37: “Though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him, that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Therefore, they could not believe because that Isaiah said again, “He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted and I should heal them.”

So here it’s the judicial agency of God that is stressed. He’s saying that he is the one who hardens them. God directly. The prophet doesn’t work out his own initiative. He’s carrying out ministerially the judicial agency of God himself. And over and over again in the scriptures, we have scriptures about this fact. For instance, Deuteronomy 29—don’t turn there. I’ll just read it to you. He’s talking about Pharaoh and the servants of Pharaoh and how he’s delivered Israel. And Deuteronomy 29:3, “The great temptation which thine eyes have seen, the signs of these great miracles, yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear unto this day.”

In verse 5: “I led you around in 40 years in the wilderness. Your clothes are not waxed and old upon you. My shoes not waxed and old upon thy foot. But you don’t understand what that means because the Lord has not given you that understanding. You’re walking dead men. And if God doesn’t let you see, you’re not going to see. If God doesn’t bring to pass your sight, he’s not going to show you anything. You will not be able to perceive. Now, you don’t really want to perceive because you’re a dead man.”

Isaiah 29:9-10. By the way, there we have it again, don’t we? We have creation, providence. God has provided for the wilderness, and he’s going to judge them now. Okay. Isaiah 29:10: “The Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes, your prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.” And he says, you know, you have this book, but it’s sealed. And even if it’s unsealed, you’re not learned because I haven’t taught you.

It is God’s sovereignty that decides who sees and who doesn’t see. We’re walking dead men prior to God’s regeneration of us. But you know, it’s a funny thing about dead men. They can’t really see and they can’t really hear. But God in his grace has given them the ability to impersonate the living. They can see, but they can’t really see what’s going on.

And the whole point of this is he’s talking about the visible church. And there are people in the visible church who look like everybody else. They look like the living people, but they’re dead people impersonating the living. God says that it is ultimately the judicial agency of God that produces the prophetic ministry that hardens the people.

But there’s also a third element to this, and that is the suicidal agency of the people themselves. And here in this text, as well as in Matthew 13:15, the stress is upon human responsibility. And these guys have closed their eyes because they don’t want to be converted and healed. They’re dead men, and they don’t want to be alive. So there is the suicidal agency—as Alexander calls it—of the people that’s talked about here.

Ultimately, it is, of course, God himself. Calvin said this in the context of his commentary here. He said, “Though he sets down both things distinctly—that God is the author of their blindness, and that, yet notwithstanding, they shut their own eyes and become blind of their own accord—as these two things do very well agree together.”

As we said elsewhere, ultimately it is the act of God, but man is responsible. Man in his unregenerate state is unwilling as well as unable to come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. By the way, there’s a handout that I’ll have downstairs from our Friday night study on the Canons of Dort that talk about the five points, and it also talks about the five causes of salvation that sort of addresses this same subject. I’d encourage you to pick one up later on. Okay, so in the context of this judgment that divides Israel and transforms it, there’s this hardening. There’s the self-conscious hardening on the part of the prophet, and there is God’s sovereign hardening of these people.

Division is necessary to affect the transformation of Israel. The word brings division. It brings a discordant note. That’s what the Greek word means here. When it says that they were divided, they’re out of tune. They’re out of, you know, they’re not working. They’re not singing the same song. Now, they came in singing the same song, and they walk out divided. But don’t think that ultimately it’s the word that produces division. The word is the son that reveals what God has accomplished in the two hearts or what God has ordained in the two hearts. It is the sin of man that causes the division.

Ultimately, the word of God reveals the division that’s already there. The antithesis that’s been placed judicially in the world is revealed through the preaching of the word. And so it is here as well. Division occurs. Division must occur. They come together, they seem united, they walk away from the preaching of the word. There is division. Okay.

Now, this leads up to a consideration of our particular liturgy of malediction and its relationship to these texts.

The prophet, as I said, must fulfill his agency to speak forth the words that bring God’s judgment upon the heads of those that the prophetic ministry has stupified, so to speak, through its judicial pronouncements. And he comes to that great judicial pronouncement that indeed thus: “Be it known unto you the gentiles—you’ll be removed. The word’s not going to you anymore. It’s going to the Gentiles, and they will hear it.”

There’s a prophetic declaration there. And malediction is in the context of this understanding that the word includes gospel blessings. But as Matthew Henry said, the word also includes gospel threatenings. All the words of God are good, and so they’re all gospel. But the gospel has blessings attached to it, and the gospel has threatenings to it. The full gospel of God—it includes malediction. It includes prayer for bad, words, bad things to come to those who are troubling God’s people, who are committing overt and self-conscious evil in the land, to the end that they might be recovered and converted—hopefully. Or to the end that if they’re ordained to reprobation, that be made manifest. They be removed from off the land.

And so malediction is part of this entire process. As Calvin said, you know, Paul has tried to persuade these guys, right? It’s part of his message, persuading them. But at the end, it doesn’t look too persuasive. Now, and what Calvin says about that as well—we ought to be persuasive with men, but we also must, as Calvin says, cite the stubborn unto God’s judgment seat. Sight, cite all of them to God’s judgment seat. Those of you who are stubborn and hard-hearted, Paul says, who won’t believe on Christ are summoned to the judgment seat of God, and his judgments will come upon you.

Calvin goes on to say that what Paul is doing here he meant with this—as with a mallet or hammer—to beat in pieces the hardness and frowardness of the wicked and to encourage the faithful who are as yet weak and tender, lest the unbelief of others should trouble them. Understand that they knew their Old Testament history, not just some sort of abstract word. He’s talking about—well, I guess you’re not going to see very well when Isaiah gave that message through God’s sovereignty to the people. It was followed by actions of God. Okay?

This stern rebuke—as one commentator calls it—in the book of Isaiah ultimately terminated in judgment on Israel and resulted in destruction of its cities, devastation of its fields, and the exile of its people. Verses 11 and 12 in Isaiah 6 were to go back there. That’s what’s talked about now. A stump will grow up. There’ll be a recovery. It’s not a total destruction. God always has a people. But the point is that’s why Calvin says Paul is hitting them with a hammer here because they knew that the end result—the mouth of people who are hardened according to Isaiah 6—is visible judgment coming from God.

Now, you know, it’s interesting to me—see if I have this in this part of my talk. I don’t, but I’ll save that for later. But anyway, so that’s what Paul is doing: reminding them of the great curses to come upon them.

Luke chapter 2: we read, “Simeon rather said that Jesus was set for the rising and falling of many in Israel.” Jesus said, “I didn’t come to bring peace. I came rather to bring division. That is what I came to bring.” He says in Luke 12, “I am come to send fire on the earth. And what will I if it already be kindled? Rather,” 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 says that “we’re a savor of life to the world.” That’s all the church wants to talk about today—is how Christians are to be winsome and a savor of life. But it goes on to say that “we’re a savor of death to those that are dying.” We must speak forth gospel threatenings as the Apostle Paul did to those who are stubborn and resistive to the word of God and who would hinder the work of God’s church. That’s particularly important to understand in the context of Acts 28.

As Calvin says, if we will have peace with God, we must strive against those which condemn him. So it is with us.

The psalmist, rather, in the 104th Psalm concluded with this verse: “Let sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more.” That’s what we pray for when we pray a prayer of malediction. Here’s a commentary on that: “The psalmist prayer is the vehement expression of a desire that the earth may no longer be defiled by the presence of wicked men. That the wicked may be utterly consumed and may give place to men animated with the fear of God, just and holy men, men that shall be a crown of beauty on the head of this fair creation.”

And if this be the right explanation of the psalmist prayer, it is not only justifiable, but there is something wrong in our meditations on nature if we are not disposed to join in with these thoughts. When you go outside and look at the fields, you should desire that those black spots of wicked men be removed from the context of the visible manifestation of nature. And when you consider the visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ, you must agree with the psalmist and with God that we want the black spots removed from the church of Jesus Christ.

Paul said division and judgment must come upon Israel so that the true church might be manifested, and that true church is composed of maybe half the synagogues along with the Christian church coming together. We don’t know how many, but that is what must occur, and that’s what we pray for in a prayer of malediction. As powerful a witness for the truth—that sin is hateful to God and deserving of his wrath and everlasting curse. This is a truth which the world would fain forget. The imprecatory Psalms must be accounted worthy of their place in the divine manual of praise. So wrote a man in a current book on the imprecatory Psalms.

That’s what Paul sought to do. That’s what we’re going to talk about now. And I want to very quickly—I know I’ve run late—but I want to very quickly remind us of some things. I think this is extremely important. The stuff we talked about last year to remind that yes, we must pray these things. Yes, we must involve ourselves in the prophetic ministry that Isaiah and the Apostle Paul, that the Lord Jesus Christ did. We must indeed speak those words of gospel threatenings. And we must make declarations and seek and pray to God that his judgments might come upon a church that is divided, to manifest those divisions, and to judge the false church so that the true church might be manifested in this land.

That’s a long process. You know, Paul had 40 years—was the time after the work of Christ to the time of the judgment of Jerusalem. Long time. It happened. Pharaoh and Egypt had 80 years that God gave them between the death of the children of God in the river Nile and that river Nile then flung with blood, 80 years later. We don’t know how long we have to do these services. I remember growing up in the context of the Vietnam War. I never—I thought it’d never be over. I mean, I thought it would never be over, but it ended. And it seems like abortion will never be over, but it will end. Okay? And our job is to consistently pray for that end.

Let me just remind you of a few truths here. First, the basic doctrine here is that the people of God ought by earnest and fervent prayer to be seeking to him for the overthrow and destruction of his and his church’s enemies. That’s the bottom line. Implication of judgment on the wicked enemies of God and his church is one part of our prayers as Christians. It must be. We sang a prayer as it were in the Psalms that has that very truth to it. It is a proper and fitting expression of zeal against sin and error. And if we hate sin and we hate error and we love the purity of God, we want to see that manifested—that the righteous might know that indeed judgment is in the context of the earth. It is but a meet expression of love to the church and members of Christ in the world to seek the overthrow of the church’s enemies.

Lastly, the glory of God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is greatly consulted in such prayers. Ultimately, our goal is the glory of God, not the well-being of the church even.

And then some caveats here—warnings. We must be sure that we do not simply consider these that we pray against as God’s enemies. Excuse me. We must be sure that we do not simply consider these that we pray against as God’s enemies and not our own. And there must be no private grudges. Now, people may have hurt us. That doesn’t mean you can’t pray against them, but you pray against them ultimately because they’re God’s enemies, not as a result of exercising your flesh in private grudges against people.

Secondly, we must therefore be sure that we can prove them to be so—who are really the enemies of God—before we venture to pray against them. We must put restraint upon hasty zeal in this and every other endeavor.

Third, we must be sure that this has nothing of personal opposition, contests, affronts, wrongs, either given or received. Be sparing, suspicious, and lay restraint upon thyself whenever you think to pray maledictorily. Be very, very careful that it’s not an exercise of the flesh on your part.

Fourth, we must be sure that it be not from the spirit of cruelty. You know, our fallen nature, the habits that we form prior to our conversion—we like cruelty. Watch any little boy with bugs. And you know that the fallen man likes cruelty. And that can be the motivating factor for us as we pray God’s prayers of malediction. And it must not be so with us. Root it out. We must be sure it’s not from the spirit of cruelty nor from any want of charity and compassion, nor from a delight in the griefs and ruin of any of our fellow creatures—rather, that implicates judgment on them.

We must be forced to it essentially—is what this recommendation brings with it. That must be for their conversion and contrition rather than their destruction. What we want in the first place is that Israel might be saved. And Paul wants to persuade them. And part of his persuasion is these stern words of malediction and warning. But his desire is that they might come to be saved.

Now, secondarily, those who God has not called—he desires their destruction. We don’t seek first the destruction. We want conversion.

Fifth—or sixth rather—vengeance must not—absolutely must not—rather absolutely imprecate on any. You know, we can’t pronounce final sentence on anybody because we don’t know what God’s going to do. We may see people that are under the great curses of God, but we cannot absolutely imprecate them. We must see this again: that God always, or frequently, brings people back to the very brink of destruction to salvation.

Then finally, we must preserve a perfect submission to the will of God and the good pleasure of God. It is his decision ultimately what he decides to do and how he brings about his considerations.

There’s one final point I want to make in terms of this service of malediction. I said before that in Antioch Pisidia, in chapter 13, verses 43-46, Paul does the same thing by giving them a warning. He’s talking to the visible church when he goes to the synagogues. And it’s interesting—I didn’t notice this until last night, and I remember I preached on that text long time ago—but you know, Paul when he’s talking about the Old Testament and Jesus, he says, well, you know, “For 400, for a number of years our people were in Egypt, and God brought them out with a mighty hand. Then for 40 years they rebelled against him in the wilderness.”

Then he says, you know, “For about 450 years God ruled us with judges, and then he gave us 40 years of Saul, and then he brought forth David.” Paul lays out the beginnings of a picture here of a time sequence with 450 years, roughly give or take a number of years. He doesn’t call it deliberately those figures, but that’s about how long they were in Egypt—430 years or so. God delivers them because they begin good, go bad, delivers them. But after their deliverance for 40 years they still rebel. Then he brings them into the full deliverance. The judges start good and end bad, and God brings them out of that. But for 40 years the first king they get is a result to their sin—like the sin in the wilderness.

There’s a correlation Paul draws for us. But then God brings David, and for about the same amount of time the people have been brought back in restoration to the land after the exile, and God brings Jesus. And they kill Jesus. And for 40 years again they’re sinning, many of them rebelling. And he’s saying at the end of this 40 years, this is going to be all over. It’s going to be going into Canaan. It’s going to be David. It’s going to be the destruction of the false church and the revelation of the true church.

So Paul puts a time sequence on this. And I think it’s important for us to see that what he’s saying to people is: yeah, you’re in the visible church. But you know, God brings us through various things, and there’s this time [sequence]…