God Will Restore Your Wasted Years In Ways You Never Imagined | Rc Sproul Teaching Series

Well, let's continue our study of the book of Acts. Our text this morning is from Acts 5:17-42.

And then the high priest rose up and all who were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with indignation, and they laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, "Go stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life." And when they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught.

The high priest and those with him came and called the council together with all of the elders of the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they returned and reported saying, "Indeed, we found the prison shut securely and the guard standing outside before the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside."

Now when the high priest, the captain of the temple, and the chief priests heard these things, they wondered what the outcome would be. So one came and told them, saying, "Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people." Then the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should be stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council.

And the high priest asked them, saying, "Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood on us." But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, "We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses to these things and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him."

Now when they heard this they were furious and plotted to kill them. And one in the council stood up, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in respect by all the people, and commanded them to put the apostles outside for a little while. And he said to them, "Men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men. For some time ago, Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about 400, joined him. He was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing. After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away many people after him. And he also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. Now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing. But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God." And they agreed with him.

And when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And so they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear it. This is probably the longest text I've read for you upon which to preach in the last three years and the shortest time in which to give an exposition of it. I even jumped across a portion beginning at verse 12 where we read that following the former release from the Sanhedrin after they had been told not to preach in the name of Jesus, they continued preaching daily and marvelous things began to happen. So much so that people from outside of Jerusalem, from the other villages, came into Jerusalem, flocking not only to hear the teaching and preaching of the apostles, but to manifest the power of healing that they were giving. So the people even sought to just walk in the shadow of Peter, hoping that if his shadow fell on them, that they would be healed. It reminds us of the woman who touched the hem of Christ's garment. That's all she wanted, just to touch him, and she was healed. And so the amazing, miraculous power that God had endued the apostles with in the first century was bringing multitudes and multitudes from outside into the church. And the church was growing daily.

But the more the growth came, the more indignant and furious the religious officials became. They were outraged that this group of men who were followers of the Jesus whom they had killed were still continuing to preach and teach, despite the ban that they had placed upon them, where they had forbidden the disciples to preach any further in Jesus' name. They ignored that and continued being faithful to the mission of Christ. So this time they were rounded up and taken again and thrown into prison. And as we read the text this morning, we see that in the night, while the guards were still posted at the door, God sent his angel to free the apostles from prison. The probably the same angel that he had sent to that sealed tomb outside of Jerusalem in which the body of our Lord had been buried. But the doors were open, and the apostles walked out into the night, free, with the instruction from the angel to go back to work. You're out of jail now. Go and continue in the temple preaching and teaching.

So in the morning, they go back to the temple and they continued their preaching and teaching. And what happens? The members of the Sanhedrin, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, they come together in council, and they don't know what happened during the night, and they're ready to have another session of interrogation and trial for these maverick apostles of Jesus. So they dispatched a messenger, a guard, to go to the prison and to bring the prisoners back to the council to continue the trial. You read what happened this morning. They got to the prison. The prison door was sealed. The guards were in place. They opened the door and they looked in, and voila, the disciples and apostles were gone. Nobody's there. So now they come back and they tell the Sanhedrin, "Hey, we went like you told us, but they're gone. They vanished. Can't find them." Somebody else comes in and said, "We know where they are. They're back in the temple. They're still back in their preaching and teaching, and they just won't let this alone." So, back we go again, as the saga continues. The guards go and arrest the apostles once more.

Now, we notice in the text something I find a little bit fascinating. And they said, "The captain went with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should be stoned." Now, we want to be clear about this, because the grammar is a little bit ambiguous, but what they're afraid of is not that somebody's going to throw stones at the people. And they weren't afraid that if they roughed up the apostles that the crowd would be stirred up to anger and the crowd would pick up rocks and kill the apostles. No, they wanted to make sure that they were very ginger in how they handled the apostles, because by now the whole town is on the side of the apostles. And if the police come now and use brutality to arrest them, they're afraid that they're going to be stoned by the people. This is the representatives of the court who would be the ones who would make the decision for somebody to be stoned. They're afraid that their own punishment is going to fall upon themselves. So, they're very careful how they handle the apostles with kid gloves and bring them back to the council.

And they said, they set them before the council, and the high priest said, "Hey, didn't we just strictly command you not to preach or to teach in this man's name? And you went out and you did it again. You've stirred up the whole city, and we told you to cut it out, and you haven't listened." Let me stop there for a second and ask the simple question: What is wrong with these guys? The greatest work in world history wrought by almighty God was worked right in their midst. They were the leading clergy of their society. They had been set apart and consecrated by sacred ordination to devote themselves to the work of God. And now they are the biggest enemies of the work of God. Doesn't that strike you as strange? Why? I think it's easy to understand why. One of the most powerful forces on this planet, ladies and gentlemen, is jealousy. Jealousy is the root of more wars, more conflicts, more theft than any other human emotion there is. Before the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, those people who held the highest rung on the social stratification of Jerusalem were the priests and the scribes and the Pharisees. But what happens is that they were counterfeits. They were hypocrites. And nothing exposes the counterfeit faster than the appearance of the genuine. And when the real incarnation of God came in their midst, they were exposed, and they hated it.

You know, a question I get all the time from people is, "I heard a minister the other day say that he doesn't believe in the resurrection, or that he doesn't believe in the virgin birth, or he doesn't believe this or he doesn't believe that." And they say, "How can that person be a minister and say such things?" And I try to answer that question patiently and politely, but I want to grab them by the throat and say, "Where have you been? Don't you know anything about biblical history? Don't you know anything about church history?" That throughout the ages, the most violent enemies of God have been the clergy. It was the false prophets of Israel. It was the corrupt priests of Israel that desired the people and were strangers to the covenant. It was the clergy who were most hostile towards Jesus in the first century. Yesterday in the Sentinel, I read an article about a woman professor up at Princeton, and she's extolling the virtue of The Da Vinci Code because she studies second and third century Gnostic texts. We thought the church was done with Gnosticism at the end of the third century, but it's still alive. It's still here. And we still have clergy and seminary professors expounding the worst of all possible heresies. There's nothing new about that. It happens in every generation.

I'll tell you one of the reasons I'm going to California this week, because I was invited over a year ago by John MacArthur to speak at his Shepherd's Conference, which is, you know, one of the largest ministerial pastors' conferences in America. And John almost every year comes to Orlando and speaks for us at the Orlando Conference, and he's come at times when it was very difficult for him to come. He heard about my illness and he called me up and he said, "Hey, it's okay if you can't come, we'll understand." And I said, "Lord willing, I'm coming." And one of the reasons is that not just for the pastors, but for my friend John, because John MacArthur will stand like these apostles stood in the first century on the word of God. And there are so few men like that in this country. Anytime I have an opportunity to give a lending hand, I'm going.

"Didn't we not strictly command you not to teach in this man? You fill Jerusalem with your doctrine." See, they didn't like Jesus. They didn't like the apostles. But what they didn't like the most was their doctrine. Tomorrow, it'll be on the lips of at least 50,000 people in America who claim to be Christians. People will say, "I'm a Christian, but I'm not interested in doctrine because doctrine doesn't matter." At least 50,000 people will say that tomorrow. Perhaps 500,000. God forbid that it should ever be any of you. Because what this is all about is doctrine. The doctrine of Christ, who he is. He's not just a friend. He's not just a religious symbol. There is a content to our faith. That he is the Son of the living God. That he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. That his death was not just the result of an angry mob heaping all kinds of unspeakable torture on him. His death was an atonement by which he satisfied the wrath and the justice of a perfect and holy God. That's doctrine, ladies and gentlemen. And that God raised him from the dead. That's doctrine. Does that matter? It certainly mattered to these people in the first century. So don't let anyone ever say doctrine doesn't matter, because if you do, you're saying truth doesn't matter. You're saying Christ doesn't matter. You're saying God doesn't matter. And you don't want to do that.

Well, in the midst of all of this, Peter [clears throat] gives it right back. He says, "I'm saying it again. You missed it the other day. I told you we have to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers has raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him, God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior to give repentance to Israel, forgiveness of sins. We're his witnesses, and so is the Holy Ghost." This is bold preaching.

Couple of weeks ago, I got a first copy, a cut of a CD that was made by Max McLean. Many of you know who Max is. He does the Bible recitations programs and the Christian theater of the performing arts and so on. He'll be at the Ligonier Conference. But Max decided to venture out away from biblical text and he said, "I'd like to do a rendition of the most famous sermon ever preached in America." A sermon preached in Enfield, Connecticut in the 18th century by the Puritan Divine Jonathan Edwards. The sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." And Max asked me to do an introduction for it. And I did. And he asked me, as he ran through some of the rehearsal for it, he asked me, "How do you think this goes?" "I think that guy's thinking great. Just go do it." So he did it, and he sent it to me. And I've probably listened to it 10 times since then. And every time I hear it, I want to fall on my face and repent before God for how much of a coward I have been in my preaching. I wouldn't dare preach a sermon like Jonathan Edwards preached back in Enfield. And yet that sermon is filled with nothing but the text of scripture over and over and over again. And I thought to myself, I wish that every member of St. Andrews and every Christian in America would get that CD and listen to that sermon. It's a sermon from another age, but it's a sermon from the word of God that we all need to hear. I know I needed to hear it.

Well, here's Peter with that kind of boldness to these authorities. And while this is all going on, suddenly Gamaliel, the most respected rabbi of his generation, stands up. He's the great scholar. He was the master tutor of his most famous student, Saul of Tarsus, who at this time is still seeing Christianity as hostile to Judaism. But Gamaliel steps up in the council and excuses the disciples for a few moments. The apostles said they go into executive session, and he says, "Guys, I think we need to be careful here, and there may be more to this than what we're aware of." And he gave a little bit of history. He said, "Consider this. Just think of your history for the last few years. There was this Theudas fellow who came along, thought he was somebody, got people to follow him. He was killed, and instantly his movement fell apart. And Judas, remember, he claimed to be the Messiah. He got some following. He died, and that was the end of that." And he said, "Here's my advice. If this thing is not of God, it'll fail. And if it is of God, nothing we can do is going to stop it. And indeed, we don't want to be working against God."

Now, that was pretty good advice. It wasn't perfect advice. I can think of better things he could have said to that council than what he said. Because beloved, it's not true that if something is not of God, it fails. It fails ultimately. But how long has Islam been around? A lot longer than Theudas and Judas. It's been around for centuries. And I guarantee you, it's not of God. There are all kinds of heretical movements that continue to persist in history that are not of God. I can remember, you'll remember this, Dr. Bill White, back in Ligonier when we were working there at our study center, Ligonier Ministries, and we were suffering financial difficulties, and we were trying to be as stewardlike as we could and do good management and be efficient and all of that stuff. And I remember one of my colleagues came up to me one day. He says, "You know, we've become so efficient here that I'm afraid that we could be successful without God." Remember that? I said, "Wow, it's true. We can be successful while we're being disobedient at the very time." So, be careful about the wisdom of Gamaliel. The other part of it was sound. If it's of God, nothing is going to stop it. That's what we've sung about this morning. That's what we've embraced in our fellowship, in the sacraments, in the confession that we read this morning, is the guarantee that God has given to his people that his church will never perish from this world. Individual churches, denominations, and institutions will come and go, but the true invisible church of Jesus Christ is here to stay, and nothing is going to overthrow it. That's why we sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." That's why Philip Melanchthon said after the death of Luther, whenever the guys would get depressed and say, "Fellas, it's time to sing the 46th." That's the 46th Psalm put to music, because it talks about the rage of Satan, we tremble not for him, you know, and the eternal security of the word of God, his kingdom is forever and ever.

So, having had this executive session, they brought the apostles back in, told them again to stop preaching. This time, they beat them up and threatened that if they continued, they would be put to death. [snorts] So, we read then that when they were released, they left the place, not one bit intimidated. Instead, they left the presence of the council rejoicing that God had considered them worthy to suffer for the sake of Jesus. You know, that's about all we are worthy to do. The only glory we have is the glory of the cross. And so it was their great joy to be able to participate with the shame and the humiliation of the crucified Christ. May that be the spirit that is in our hearts today. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the promise that you give to your church, the power that you give to us, and the forbearing and forgiving grace that you heap upon us day after day. Father, thank you for the witness of the early church by which we have been instructed even now. Amen.

When we began our study of repentance, I made the observation that as far as I know, the only cure for guilt is forgiveness, and the only necessity for forgiveness is repentance. And so there is this inseparable relationship among these three qualities of guilt, repentance, and forgiveness. And anyone who has gone through the pain of genuine repentance, I am sure has also experienced the unspeakable joy of forgiveness. And that's why I don't want to conclude our series on repentance without looking to the end of repentance, or the goal of repentance, which is the restoration of the soul to fellowship with God and to the experience of that unspeakable joy of forgiveness.

In Psalm 32, the author of Psalm 51, David, gives us his feelings of forgiveness where he says in verse one, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, and blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit." These powerful words of benediction are quoted in the New Testament as the Apostle Paul, for example, sets forth the gospel in his epistle to the Romans. He appeals to these words from Psalm 32.

We remember that one of the devices that the prophets used in the Old Testament to communicate the word of God to the people was the use of the oracle. And there were two kinds of oracles. There were oracles of doom by which the prophet would be God's spokesman to announce the impending judgment that he would bring upon the nation. And there was also the oracle of weal. We also judgment was prefaced by the term "cursed be," and the good news that was announced in terms of the divine benediction was prefaced by the word "blessed." That's why in the Beatitudes, when Jesus speaks there, he uses this oracular form when he goes through the Beatitudes. "Blessed are those who do this," and "blessed are those who do that." Well, now David is pronouncing an oracle of weal that has direct implications for himself. I've often spoken about how the oracle of the curse or judgment, which is pronounced with the use of the term "woe," is used by Isaiah in chapter 6, where he pronounces the curse upon himself. "Woe is me, for I am an unclean man." Now David is giving the contrast to the woe, which is the blessedness. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven." I can't think of anything more foundational to the Christian life than that, because every Christian is a person whose sins have been forgiven. And to enter into that reconciled relationship with God by which our sins are forgiven is to enter into a state of blessedness. We are blessed not because we are righteous, but we are blessed because we are forgiven. And so David begins this psalm with that word, with that announcement. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."

Now remember when we looked at Psalm 51, I said that the two chief metaphors for redemption in the Bible are the blotting out of transgressions, the removing of transgressions, or the covering of one's guilt by the righteousness of Christ. And so he said, "Not only are we blessed by forgiveness, but we're blessed because our sin has been hidden from God. Our sin has been covered." And the first covering was the clothes that God condescended to make for Adam and Eve when they were ashamed of their nakedness and were hiding and seeking to conceal themselves from the gaze of God. But then we see the covering on the mercy seat in the on the day of atonement with the blood of the sacrifice. Then supremely, we see the covering of our nakedness by the righteous garments of Christ. That is the blessing of forgiveness. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit."

At the heart of the gospel is this concept of imputation, which means a legal transfer of accounts, a reckoning or a transfer. On the one hand, in the cross, in the drama of the cross, we see our sins transferred to Christ, who is our substitute. That is, our sins are imputed to him legally, so that when God looks down from heaven at his Son on the cross, he sees one who is covered with our guilt, covered with our iniquity by way of imputation. And then the other part of the gospel is the reverse transfer, where God then imputes his righteousness, his merit, to our account. Now, the way David is speaking of it here is negatively. He doesn't say, "Blessed is the man who receives the imputation of the righteousness of Christ." Of course, he would believe that, and we understand that that's true. But he states it in the opposite way by saying, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity." Because that's our standing before God, is that rather than imputing to us the real guilt that we bear and therefore receiving the punishment that we deserve, instead, the Lord does not count our sins against us. And not only does he not count our sins against us, but he counts Christ's righteousness for us. It just doesn't get any better than that. And these are the consequences of true repentance.

Then in verse three, he said, "When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me, and my vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I have not hidden. And I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin."

Throughout church history, we have seen the great saints of the ages reflect and muse upon the experience that they describe as the dark night of the soul, when the soul senses the withdrawal of God, the withdrawal of his blessing from our lives, where he seems to have abandoned us, that he seems to have fled from our presence. And another thing that we notice in reading the lives of the great saints is that the older they get, the more acutely conscious they became of their own unworthiness before God. I mean, the more we progress in sanctification, the more aware we become of how much more there is left to be done before we have been completely free of sin. And so what we have here is David's description of what he had gone through in his dark night of the soul, which he uses the expression here not of the darkness of the evening, but of the dryness of the summer in the midst of drought. Now, remember, this is a man speaking from a semiarid environment, from a desert region of the Middle East. And if you've ever been through Palestine, you will see the phenomenon of what is called the Wadi (W.A.D.I.), which we call in the southwestern United States dry gulches or arroyos, where you see in the midst of the desert these pathways that are like creek beds, but no water is flowing in them. But they are made when the storm does come and you have flash flooding and the runoff from the mountains and so on, create these crevices in the hard surface of the desert, and they are the way in which the water is washed away. However, during drought in the desert time, the earth becomes parched, and the land becomes cracked, and these riverbeds, these wadies are dry. And this is what David is recalling here, during that time where I was experiencing guilt without relief, and the hand of the Lord was heavy upon me, and I felt oppressed by my burden of guilt. My soul was dry as a parched land. I was like the drought in summer. And that's the language he uses, which everyone in Palestine was aware of. And he says, "My vitality was turned into the drought of summer." Earlier, when I kept silent, when I was not confessing my sin before God, "my bones grew old." Isn't that an interesting metaphor? That I could hardly stand the weight of the bones in my body as they were getting older and older, and I was becoming calcified, and I was groaning all the day long. "For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was turned into the drought of summer, and I acknowledged my sin to you. And he said, 'And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.'"

This is the prayer of David, a prayer of thanksgiving, an expression of gratitude for having received the complete forgiveness and pardon of God. But beloved, this is the prayer of every Christian. Every Christian who has stood at the foot of the cross and who has confessed their sins and who has experienced the pardon and the remission of those sins from the hand of God.

Then he goes on to say, "For this cause, everyone who is godly shall pray to you in a time that you may be found." Remember the phrase, "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him when he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, for he will have mercy upon him and abundantly pardon." When I was a little boy and I had to go to church on a regular basis, not because I enjoyed it, but because my parents made me go, one of the things that I was forced to do was to join the children's choir. And they had outfits that made me look like little Lord Fauntleroy, where I had the black cassock and the white surplice, and then the stiff white big collar, and the great big black bow at my throat. And you can imagine looking a little R.C. Sproul looking like this angel in the choir loft. And we had to sing, and occasionally we would be joined by the adult choir. And my favorite anthem as a child, even though I didn't know anything about the things of God, was when we would sing with the adult choir, and the lead tenor of the adult choir would sing the solo from that anthem, "Seek Ye the Lord." And I can still hear him. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him when he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." And he would go on, "and return unto the Lord. And return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy." And then he would say, "He will have mercy." And then they would go on through the refrain. "He will have mercy. He will have mercy and abundantly pardon." That was the refrain that still reverberates in my mind from my childhood. "He will have mercy and abundantly pardon." That was the grace of God before my conversion that I was exposed frequently to the words of that anthem, which were taken directly from scripture, because it is the fundamental truth of the Christian faith that not only does he have mercy, and not only does he pardon, but his pardon is abundant for those who seek him.

"For this cause, everyone who is godly shall pray to you in a time when you may be found. And surely in a flood of great waters, they shall not come near him, for you are my hiding place. You shall preserve me from trouble, and you shall surround me with songs of deliverance." I just mentioned a few moments ago David's allusion to the drought in the desert, and I mentioned that these great wadies were there, and they were caused by the flash floods that rained twice a year in the desert, and when it would rain, the water would come pouring off the mountainsides, and you would have these flash floods. So now David expresses the opposite metaphor from the drought, and that is the metaphor of the flood. If you've ever been to Masada and you see how the Jewish people lived up on top of that mountain with its sheer cliffs, where they were besieged by the Romans and their ramparts and so on, and how they were able to survive up there on the top of that mountain because they had cut these huge cisterns out of the rock to store their water supply at the top. And at the base of Masada, down by the floor of the desert, they also had these huge cisterns cut out of the rock and connected to these wadies, so that when the days of of flooding came and the water would be rushing through them, then that water supply would be captured in these massive cavernous hollowed-out rocks. And then when it was captured at the base of the mountain, the workers would go down there one at a time with buckets, and they would hoist those buckets up to the top and keep them into the supply in the cisterns up there. But again, the whole defense structure of Masada was tied to these annual phenomena of drought and flood. And so David is saying that after a person experiences the forgiveness of God, they have now come to a safe hiding place, a safe place where in the midst of the flood of the great waters, no harm will befall them. "You shall preserve me from trouble, and you shall surround me," he says, "with songs of deliverance."

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye." And I, of course, he's not instructing God, but God is instructing him. "Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you." God is now speaking to David and to all who are in that position. "Don't be like a mule. Don't be like a horse that requires a bit in their teeth attached to a bridle, so that in order to get your attention, I have to yank on these reins and pull you around to myself. Don't be like that." And yet that is how we are. That is how we tend to be, even as Christians, that when we fall into sin, God has to jerk the reins to get our attention, because we are as stubborn as the proverbial mule. And we need to be reined in by the strong right hand of God. And God is saying, "Don't be like that." But rather, we should be people who have the understanding to come near to the Lord when we need his forgiveness.

And then David finishes this psalm by saying, "Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall surround him." Boy, I love that image. It's not that we will just be touched lightly or tapped on the shoulder by mercy, but the mercy of God will surround us, be all around us, will be engulfed by the mercy of God. That's the Christian life. That's what is true for everyone who places their trust in the Lord. "Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart."

Now here is a man who shouted before, who shouted in anger when Nathan told him the parable of the wealthy man who stole the lamb from the poor man. And David shouted in anger against this person who would perpetrate such a crime in his kingdom. And then he shouted with groanings of pain when Nathan revealed his sin to him, saying, "Thou art the man." And David was groaning and crying out in his misery in Psalm 51, pleading with God for his mercy. "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions." And that's where we are. When we feel the weight of the pain of repentance, we cry out. Elsewhere, David speaks of his pillow being soaked and saturated with his tears from crying before the Lord day and night. But once he receives the forgiveness of God, once he experiences the pardon of God and enters into the blessedness of the forgiven, then his voice shouts with joy, because the bones which the Lord had broken are once again rejoicing. And God, indeed, the God of his salvation, restores to David the joy of his salvation.

This morning we're going to start on chapter 7 of the Gospel according to St. Luke. I'll be reading from verse 1 through verse 10. "Now when he concluded all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die. So when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him, pleading with him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they begged him earnestly, saying that the one for whom he should do this was deserving, for he loves our nation and has built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went with him. And when he was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, 'Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy that you should enter my roof. Therefore, I did not even think myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, "Go," and he goes, and to another, "Come," and he comes. And to my servant, "Do this," and he does it.' When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him and turned around and said to the crowd that followed him, 'I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel.' And those who were sent, returning to the house, found the servant well, who had been sick."

This is a remarkable incident during the earthly ministry of Jesus, and Luke's record of it comes to us under the inspiration of God, the Holy Spirit, again carrying the full weight of God's authority and his truth. And so I urge you to receive it as such. Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, again we come to your holy word this morning. And we who hear it are not holy, save for that consecration that you have made of us by your Spirit. And so we ask that the full power of this word may dwell in us richly in this hour. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

I really like this fellow, this centurion, who sent his servants to Christ, pleading that Jesus would come and heal his servant who was sick to the very point of death. The man was a centurion, a man of some status in the nation of Rome, being a commander of a hundred or more troops, and he was loved by the Jews, as we read here, because he had been very generous. He was obviously a man of wealth, and he had spent his money to build a synagogue for the Jewish people there in Capernaum. And so the Jews come to Jesus and they say, "Help this man, because he is worthy." Now, there are a couple of things I want us to look at in the time that we have this morning.

The first thing is the remarkable concern and care that this powerful and wealthy man had for a slave, for a servant who had no social standing in the community. And yet this man was so exercised about the well-being of his slave that he sent the message to Jesus, pleading and begging for Jesus to come and to heal his servant. Back in the days where I ministered in Western Pennsylvania, I was involved in an organization that was called the Value of the Person, that ministered in the arena of labor and management relationships. And one of the things that we were concerned with in organizations that hired many people was how they were treated by their bosses, how they were treated by management. And you know, one of the problems that the management of any organization faces inevitably is the necessity from time to time to terminate employees, and that's never a happy occasion. Sometimes employees must be terminated because of immorality or illegal activities. Sometimes they need to be terminated simply because they are not able to meet the responsibilities that they have in a competent manner. Many times terminations come because of economic downturns that require that the organizations trim their staff, and so people are laid off, not for any fault of their own. But there is one type of termination that is often missed, and yet is very important, one that I learned working closely with people in that arena of labor and management, and it was this: that in every organization, inevitably, there will be managers who are kind and considerate and upright to their bosses, but are cruel, cruel, and uncaring to their subordinates. I'm sure that all of you have been in situations where that goes on, and I've tried to urge people in management in various organizations to make sure that if you have managers in those positions that are tyrannizing their subordinates, they must be removed. When the wolf comes into the sheepfold, it is the duty of the shepherd to protect the sheep. But this was not such an employer. This man cared deeply about those who were under his command, all the way down to the slave that was working for him in his house. And to demonstrate and manifest that concern, he sent the message to Jesus, begging for Jesus' help.

And we read the story that Jesus went with these messengers. And when he was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof." This is the second thing I love about this centurion. Everybody else was telling Jesus, "You've got to go and help this man. You've got to heal his servant, because here's a man who deserves your help. Here's a man who is eminently worthy. He's been kind to us as Jews. In fact, he's even built for us a synagogue. And we don't expect that from Roman centurions. So Jesus, however busy you may be, whatever else is on your agenda, you've got to make an exception and come and help this man." But the man sends a completely different message. As much as he wants Jesus' help, he says to him through the messengers, "You don't have to come to my house. I'm not worthy that you would come under my roof." Maybe these excited Jewish friends of mine have exaggerated my worth to you. But I'm not asking you to come to me because I deserve it. I'm not asking you to come to me because I'm worthy. This man understood grace. He understood it in a way that very few people in Israel understood it. He understood grace in a manner that very few people understand it even in the church today. And listen to what he says. You see, you don't have to come. Just say the word. That's remarkable.

So I'm left with this question this morning, as we read at the end of the story that the servant was healed. And obviously, all Jesus had to do to heal him was to say the word. And there are two things I want to consider about that. How was it possible for Jesus to heal somebody simply by word? Well, we're talking here about the one who is God incarnate. The one who had the authority over heaven and earth. And the centurion recognized that. He says, "I understand authority. I'm a man who's under authority. I'm a man who has authority over others. I say go, they go. Come, they come. Do this, and they do it. And I understand, Christ, that you have authority. You have authority over life. You have authority over death. You don't have to be here. Just say the word." Now, do you see the difference between that attitude and the attitude of Mary and Martha when their brother died, Lazarus, and when Jesus came four days too late to keep him from dying, and they were distressed, and they said, "Lord, had you been here, our brother would not have died." They didn't understand Jesus didn't have to be there to save Lazarus. He could have done it from a distance. And when he did come, how did he raise Lazarus from the dead? He stands before the tomb and he opens his mouth and utters a command, saying, "Lazarus, come out of there." And the one who had been dead for four days began to breathe. His heart began to beat. Brain waves were rushing through his head, and he emerged from his tomb alive and well by the power of the word of Christ.

May have told this story before, but when I was in college, I started out as a history major and then changed to a Bible major. And in my sophomore year, I was required to take a social science, and I elected to take a course in philosophy, which I soon regretted immensely. The professor was dry as dust, and he lectured the first day on David Hume. I didn't know what in the world he was talking about, and then on Immanuel Kant, and all these philosophers. And I was so bored that I sat in the back row of the classroom with my notebook open, concealing the printed sermons of Billy Graham that I was reading instead of listening to these dry lectures in philosophy. And then shortly into the term, the professor gave a lecture on St. Augustine and on Augustine's concept of the creation of the universe, and I started to listen, put down my notebook, and I heard him tell how Augustine said that the Lord God Almighty created the whole universe ex nihilo, out of nothing. He didn't just shape and form some pre-existent matter, but out of nothing, he creates the entire universe. And how does he do it? The professor says, but through what he called the divine fiat. Fiat? I thought that was a little Italian car. Instead, it was the imperative form of the verb "to be." He said, "God called the universe into being by the power of his voice, giving a divine imperative, saying, 'Let there be light,' and the lights came on." And I couldn't believe it. It was like I had a second conversion, a conversion to God the Father, to his transcendent majesty and power. I left the classroom that day, and I

went downstairs to the register's office and I changed my major to philosophy, which some people profoundly regret. But I don't because my eyes were opened to the power of God who could create the whole world by the sound of his voice. And that's all it took for Jesus, who was God incarnate, to heal this centurion's servant. He didn't have to be there. He just had to say the word and by his word the man was healed.

Now when we look at Christ and the mystery of the incarnation we see the perfect union of the divine and the human. And in the mystery of the incarnation, we understand that when God took upon himself a human nature and united himself with the human Jesus, that the divine nature didn't stop being divine. Nor did the human nature stop being human. There was not a composite being that was a deified humanity or a humanized deity. Two distinct natures, divine and human.

And you notice that when they went to Jesus, they said, "Please come here." And throughout the New Testament, we see Jesus moving from place to place. We read here at the very beginning of the text that after he finished his sermon on the mount, he went to Capernium. Now, of course, the Bible here is discussing Jesus in his human nature because the divine nature was already in Capernium. When Jesus went from Capernium to Jerusalem, the human nature had to make the trip. He had to travel the distance between those two points. But when Jesus, touching his humanity, was leaving Capernium on the way to Jerusalem, the divine nature was already there. How do we know that? Because in the incarnation, all of the divine being retained its divine attributes. One of which was omnipresence or what we call the attribute of ubiquity. Not iniquity, but ubiquity. And that word comes from the Latin ubie, which means where, and equa, which means equal. And so equal awareness. Where is God? He's there. He's there. He's there. He's equally here. He's equally there. He's equally over there.

Now again, when we understand the incarnation, when the divine nature united with the human nature, the divine nature was not contained within the human nature. Again, we have a grand theological principle. You've all heard it before and you'll never forget it again. Finitum non capiet infinitum. The finite cannot contain the infinite. Some of you think this is diet coke. It's really single malt scotch, but [laughter] I just lied. But this glass has a finite volume and I can fill it to the top. But if I keep filling it and keep pouring, the excess is just going to go over the side and on the floor and spoil everything around it.

Now when God indwelt the human nature of Jesus Christ, it wasn't that he poured his divine nature into this human and that now the divine nature was contained within the human dimensions of Jesus. No, the divine nature was still omnipresent. Human nature wasn't. That human nature could only be at one place at the same time. Couldn't be in Capernium and Jerusalem at the same time. But touching the divine nature, he could be everywhere. That's why we say in our confessions and in our creeds, touching his human nature, Jesus is no longer with us. As he told his disciples, he was going away and he would come again. Touching his human nature, he's in heaven at the right hand of God. But yet touching his divine nature, he's never absent from us. And wherever the divine nature is, he is the person is. And though the human nature be here, the human nature is united with the divine nature that can be here, here, and here. And why is that important? Because he's here, not his human nature. But we commune with the human nature even when the human nature isn't here. What the human nature's is in heaven. The human nature is still united to the divine nature. And when Christ is present here with us, he is really and truly present in his personhood. And when I commune with him, I don't just commune with the divine nature. I commune with the whole Christ. In a sense, he lifts our souls to heaven. Not because his body's in Pittsburgh, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York at the same time. No, but his person is really and truly. And this one who healed the centurion's servant by his word heals us through the power of his word. Through the power of his word and through his sacraments. And today the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is ours to commune with him who is here to meet us and to heal us.

I ask that we turn our attention to Mark 11, verses 1 through 11. And I'll ask the congregation, please, to stand for the reading of the word of God.

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples. And he said to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and as soon as you have entered it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has sat. Loose it and bring it." And if anyone says to you, "Why are you doing this?" Say, 'The Lord has need of it, and immediately he will send it here.'" So they went their way and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street, and they loosed it. But some of those who stood there said to them, "What are you doing loosing the colt?" And they spoke to them just as Jesus had commanded. So they let them go. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their clothes on the road. And others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then those who went before, and those who followed cried out, saying, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest." And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when he had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12.

We're grateful this Christmas Eve morning to be able to hear a word that comes to us from God himself. Please be seated. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, give us understanding hearts to the significance of this moment in the life of our Lord and also what it means for us today. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

At the beginning of chapter 11, we start virtually the last one-third of the gospel of Mark. And one of the interesting points to me, at least, of this division in the text is that this third of the entire gospel focuses attention on the last seven days, presumably of Jesus' life. And like manner in John's gospel, if you recall when we preached through it from start to finish, that fully half of that gospel focuses on the last week or so of Jesus' life. Because the gospel writers understood that what happens from the time Jesus arrives in Jerusalem till the time he dies, is raised, and ascends into heaven, all of the energy of God's promise of redemption is focused in that short period of time.

Now it's Christmas Eve morning and traditionally on this day we have some way of celebrating what we call the advent of Jesus. That is the arrival or the coming of Jesus to this world. But when he came into this world as a baby, he was born to be a king. That's why we talk about the marvelous gifts that were spread at the feet of the Christ child and the greetings that came from on high from the angelic announcements that a king was being born, the king of the Jews that frightened Herod so deeply. Well, now after 30 years or so, we have the advent of that king into David's royal city. And do you see the connection then between his advent into the world and his advent into Jerusalem for the purpose of fulfilling the kingly prophecies of the Christ child?

So let's look at this text. When they drew near Jerusalem to Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives. One technical point here is that it mentions first Bethphage, which means house of unripe figs, and Bethany, which means a house of sorrow. That it seems as though in their journey to Jerusalem they first go through Bethphage and then to Bethany. And critical scholars look at the intersections of the roads today that come from the north into Jerusalem. They say the order is just reversed. First you have to go through Bethany, then you go through Bethphage before you can go to Jerusalem. Ah, but what these critics overlook was Jesus wasn't traveling on modern highways. He was traveling on a Roman road. And we know now that the Roman road went just as Mark said that it did. But that's just an aside for those of you who like those little points of dispute.

In any case, they came to the Mount of Olives and he sent two of his disciples and said to them, "Go into the village opposite and when you enter it, you will find a colt tied there on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it." And so you hear the instructions that Jesus gives to his disciples at this point. Go to the next village, which probably was Bethphage, and the house of unripe figs. And he said, "You walk into that village and you're gonna find a colt that's tied up that has never been ridden and you untie it and you bring it to me." Now, that sounds strange, doesn't it? And it's almost as if Jesus is telling his disciples to go and steal a donkey for him. But that's not what's going on at all. What he is consciously doing is fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament where on more than one occasion the Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah said that the Messiah would enter the city riding on a donkey. We remember how the other gospel writers give a much more expansive report of what happens on Palm Sunday. This is the most brief account that we have in Mark, typically of Mark's fashion of hurrying through things. But we think, for example, of Zechariah 9 where it says, "Rejoice Jerusalem, your king comes unto you lowly and riding on a donkey." And so that prophecy was well known among the people who were waiting for their coming king. Most kings in the ancient world rode on great steeds, magnificent horses like Alexander the Great, but not so the king of the Jews. He was going to come riding on a donkey. And that prophecy that we find in Zechariah really has its roots much earlier in the Old Testament. And let me just take a second to refer back to that.

So this morning I'm going to be a bit of a flipper. I hear sometimes people say, "Oh, I listened to that preacher last week and he's a flipper." A flipper is one that keeps flipping between different chapters in the Bible and gets everybody confused. But let's look for a second in chapter 49 of Genesis. What we have there is the record of the patriarchal blessing that Jacob pronounced upon his sons. And you remember that the firstborn son was Reuben, but he was denied the patriarchal blessing because of his sin. And then Simeon and Levi were likewise denied. And when he comes then to the great patriarchal blessing in chapter 49, in verse 8, listen to what he said. "Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies, and your father's children shall bow down before you. For Judah is a lion's whelp. From that day forward, throughout the rest of sacred scripture, the coming Messiah would be called the Lion of Judah. It goes on, Judah is a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down. He lies as a lion. And as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter, that is the sign of royalty, shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of the people, binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the choice vine. He washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes."

So you see that deeply rooted in the Jewish consciousness of the Old Testament was this future hope of the king who would enter Mount Zion riding on a donkey as their coming Messiah. And so now Mark tells us that this is happening and Jesus instructs his disciples, "Go and get that colt that is tied there and untie it and bring it to me." Now in the ancient world, including Israel, they had a concept of eminent domain that was much more limited than we have in our country. But one of the prerogatives of the king was to commandeer a beast of burden whenever he needed it. And so Jesus, as the king, exercises that right here and commands his disciple to go get that colt.

Now, something else is in view here, that it was a colt that had never been ridden. Now, I don't know if they have rodeos in Israel where they ride bucking donkeys to see how good you are, but the donkeys, just like the horses, had to be broken in order to become functional beasts of burden. And the whole principle again in Jewish history was that no one was ever allowed to ride on the king's horse or to ride on the king's donkey. Only the king was allowed to ride on. That's why Jesus specifies here, "You get me a colt that has never been ridden," because he's the colt now prepared for the kingdom. And he says, "If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' Say, 'The Lord has need of it, and immediately he will send it here.'"

Now there's a certain ambiguity here. When Jesus said, "If anybody asks you what you're doing, you just say the Lord needs it." Now that word can mean simply sir, or it can mean master, or it can have the more exalted significance of the supreme ruler and sovereign over the people. It's rare that Mark uses that term with respect to Jesus, but here Jesus uses it for himself. And my guess, and it's not a wild guess, is that he's not simply saying, "Tell them the master needs it," but he's saying, "Tell them that the sovereign one, the King of the Jews, requires that donkey, and immediately he will send it here."

And so they went their way and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street. And they loosed it. But some of those who stood there said to them, "What are you doing loosing the colt?" And so they spoke to them just as Jesus had commanded, and they let them go. And then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and he sat on it. Now again, this is the tale that when they brought the donkey to Jesus, his disciples took their garments and put the garments on the back of the donkey as a saddle, as it were, for Jesus. And then we are told in the other gospels as well that the people, when Jesus began his procession, took off their outer garments and threw them on the pathway of the donkey. So that on Palm Sunday, when Jesus makes his triumphal entry into the city, the donkey is walking over a red carpet, as it were, created by the clothes of the people. Now, that also has its roots in the Old Testament.

If I were to say to you, who was the worst king in the Old Testament? Would we have to debate it? Would you hesitate? Isn't there one name that stands above or below the name of every other king? King Ahab.

This morning, we'll continue to study the book of the Acts of the Apostles. As we look once more at the ongoing trials and tribulations of the Apostle Paul, we realize that since the last chapter, through the rest of the book of Acts, that Paul will no more experience freedom, but will be as a prisoner for the rest of his life, to the extent that we know it of these times. And so we need to continue our careful examination of his afflictions, his trials, and tribulations as they're recorded under the supervision of God the Holy Spirit. This morning I'll be reading from Acts 22, beginning at verse 22, through chapter 23, verse 10.

"And they listened to him until this word. And then they raised their voices and said, 'Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live.' And then as they cried out and tore off their clothes and threw dust into the air, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks and said that he should be examined under scourging, so that he might know why they shouted so against him. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, 'Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?' When the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander, saying, 'Take care what you do, for this man is a Roman.' Then the commander came and said to him, 'Tell me, are you a Roman?' He said, 'Yes.' The commander answered, 'With a large sum I obtained this citizenship.' And Paul said, 'But I was born a citizen.' Then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him, and the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was a Roman and because he had bound him.

The next day, because he wanted to know for certain why he was accused by the Jews, he released him from his bonds and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear and brought Paul down and set him before them. Then Paul, looking earnestly at the council, said, 'Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.' And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. And Paul said to him, 'God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! For you to sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law?' Those who stood by said, 'Do you revile God's high priest?' Then Paul said, 'I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest. For it is written, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.' But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out into the council, 'Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am being judged.' When he said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit. But the Pharisees confess both. Then there arose a loud outcry, and the scribes of the Pharisees' party arose and protested, saying, 'We find no evil in this man. But if a spirit or an angel had spoken to him, let us not fight against God.' Now when there arose a great dissension, the commander, fearing lest Paul might be pulled to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him to the barracks."

He who has ears to hear the inspired, infallible word of God, let them hear it. Let us pray. Father, again, as through this scripture we have the opportunity to eavesdrop, as it were, upon this moment in Paul's life and trial, we pray that the same spirit that enabled him to speak with such boldness may make the truth of this text clear for us and for its application. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Just as it was the case in the trial of Jesus, he was brought before the Jews, before the Romans, and back and forth as they were trying to pass the buck, as it were. So we see now in these recent paragraphs that we've been reading in the book of Acts that Paul has had to defend himself before the Jews, now before the Romans, and then again before the Jews, and then again before the Romans. It's as though it's musical chairs with the life of the Apostle Paul. But last week, after we listened to his defense where he recounted the occurrences of his conversion on the Damascus road and how later on, in a trance, Christ had appeared to him and spoken to him and verified his call as the apostle to the Gentiles, at the end of that defense, which was supposed to calm the crowd down, instead, it incited them to even more hostility. And they began to scream, tear their garments, throw dust in the air like a bull ready to go on a rampage, saying, "Away with this man. We can't stand to let him live."

Now when the Roman commander saw all of this, he still was puzzled as to the cause of the depth of the hostility that had been manifested against Paul. So listen to what he commands his centurions and so to do. The commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks and said that he should be examined under scourging, so that he might know why they were so opposed to him. No longer was the commander satisfied simply to interrogate Paul, inquire of him what all the fuss was about. He said, "I want to get to the bottom of this. Prepare the scourge, tie him to the post, bare his back, and we'll ask him the questions we need to ask him under the whip."

Now, you recall that we've seen already the manifold trials that Paul has had to endure with beatings and stoning and imprisonment and the rest, and how he had been beaten by the Jews on more than one occasion. But if you notice closely here, that at no time up till now was Paul ever subjected to the Roman form of scourging. Jesus had been scourged during his trial and immediately prior to his execution on the cross. The Roman scourging made use of the flagellum, which were leather thongs attached to the ends of which were metal pieces that when a victim was beat with this type of scourge, many times they died. And even if they didn't die on every occasion, they were left with scars on their body for the rest of their lives. So it's that kind of torture, that kind of beating, that now the commander is suggesting to be administered to Paul in order to get to the truth of the matter.

And so as they prepare him for this whipping, Paul just mentions to the centurion who's there, "Is it lawful to do this to a Roman who has not been convicted of a crime?" We'll see what happens. When the centurion heard that, he went right away and told the commander, saying, "Wait a minute. Be careful. Take care of what you do. This fellow's a Roman." The commander thinking, "Oh, no. [laughter] I've got trouble." So, he comes to Paul himself and he says, "Tell me, are you a Roman?" And Paul said, "Yes." And now the commander said, "With a large sum, I obtained this citizenship." Paul said, "But I was born a citizen."

Now, what's going on here? In the modern day, if you're born within the geographical boundaries of a particular nation, usually it carries with it the automatic status of citizenship. That was not the case in Rome. To be a citizen of the city of Rome was to be numbered among the elite. It was a high privilege accorded for the most part only to the patricians of the society. There were two ways basically that you could gain this citizenship if you didn't have it in a previous manner. One was if you had achieved some high level of service to the Roman Empire, or if you purchased it with a large sum of money.

Now we have to ask, you know, that since Paul was born a Roman citizen, this means obviously that his father or grandfather had previously gained citizenship, perhaps without ever setting foot in Rome, through one of those two means: either by offering some tremendous service or achievement for the Romans by which he was awarded this honor of citizenship, or by purchase, that would indicate that Paul's father or grandfather had been extremely wealthy. There are other reasons to believe that Paul did come from a wealthy family, not the least of which was his ability to come to Jerusalem and study at the feet of Gamaliel, as we've already indicated. But we don't know for sure when the practice of purchasing citizenship began in the Roman Empire. We do know that under the reign of the emperor Claudius, when Claudius was needing to fill the general coffers of which Julius Caesar had spoken or had accomplished according to his funeral oration, we know that Claudius, in an attempt to raise money, sold citizenships to various wealthy individuals or whoever could gather enough money together to get that privilege. And here the commander said, "Hey, I paid a large sum of money to get my citizenship papers." Now, we don't know when he did it, but his name, if you'll see later on, his first name is Claudius, which gives us a hint to speculate that perhaps he purchased his recently under the reign of Claudius and took the name Claudius in gratitude for this citizenship and in order to honor the emperor of that day. Again, that's speculation. We don't know that for sure.

But in any case, this man is impressed that Paul is a Roman citizen. Now, there are two things at stake here. On the one hand, if you punish a Roman citizen without due process, according to Roman jurisprudence, those who mete out such punishment expose themselves to the death penalty. So had Claudius scourged Paul without a trial, he could have himself been executed. Secondly, if a prisoner at his trial claims to be a Roman citizen and is not a Roman citizen and shown to be not a Roman citizen, then that person can be put to death. This is how highly Roman citizenship was prized in this time of history. So the issue now of Paul's credentials as a Roman is very much at the fore in the discussion.

But let's see what happens immediately. Those who were about to examine him withdrew. And the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was a Roman and because he had bound him. He hadn't scourged him, but he'd already tied him up and hindered him to this degree, not knowing he was a Roman, he could get in trouble just for that. So Paul loosed him as fast as he could and said, "Now, let's go back to the Jews. Let's bring the Jewish council here, the high priests and so on, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and let's get to the bottom of it." And so he commanded that Paul have his bonds taken away and to appear before the council of the Jews.

So again, Paul addresses the council and he says, "Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day." I don't know about you, but when I read that, I do a double take. I say, "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Paul, aren't you the fellow who called yourself the chief of sinners? Aren't you the man who stood there holding the clothes of the people that killed Stephen? Aren't you the one who went from house to house dragging men and women from their homes and putting them in prison and having them executed? And you have the audacity to say that all of your days you have lived with a good conscience before God."

Well, maybe there's some shorthand here. Maybe it's implied that Paul was speaking here in the context of his former address. And what he is simply meaning to suggest is, since my conversion, since I became a Christian, since Christ appeared to me, then ever since that day on the road to Damascus, I've already confessed to you what a vile man I was before that. But since that time, I have obeyed my conscience before God. Maybe that's all there is to it. I don't think so. Because remember when Paul stood by at the execution of Stephen, and when Paul carried on his crusade to stamp out the Christians, his conscience was convinced that he was doing the right thing. Doesn't that remind us of Luther at the Diet of Worms when he was commanded to say "revocant" and he addressed the Emperor Charles and the delegation from Rome, he said, "Unless I'm convinced by sacred scripture or by evident reason, I cannot recant." Then what did he say? "For my conscience is held captive by the word of God. And to act against conscience," Luther said, "is neither right nor safe."

I don't know whether you agree with the reformer at that point, but I agree on all the things he said. I believe his conscience was held captive by the word of God. And I agree with the principle that he expressed, that to act against conscience is not right. Certainly not safe. The Bible tells us that that which is not of faith is sin. We know that there are people who, because of the customs they have experienced, have been taught that X, Y, and Z are wrong and sinful, even though the Bible leaves you free at that point. And even though the act itself may not be a sin, if you think it's a sin, if your conscience is persuaded that it's evil and you go ahead and do it, then you've sinned by doing something you were convinced was evil. That's a sin.

On the other hand, we might say, "Well, I did a sin, but I was convinced it was right." Doesn't that excuse me? If I am totally convinced that a certain kind of activity is appropriate and just and virtuous, even though in God's sight it's a sin, my conscience has convinced me that it's not a sin. Doesn't the fact that I acted according to conscience exonerate me? No. Not if your conscience has been dulled and distorted and calloused by repetitive sin and by a slothful neglect of the word of God, which is what is supposed to capture our consciences.

I don't know everybody in this room, but I know this, that everybody in this room has had their conscience influenced by things apart from God, for better or for worse. And we have a tendency in our culture to live not by the mandates of scripture, but by the theology of what I call Jiminy Cricket theology, that says, "Let your conscience be your guide." Well, if you commit sin in good conscience, it's still sin.

When I started taking violin lessons from the master or mistress of the violin, Olga, and I would come to my lesson and she'd say, "Did you practice this week?" I'd say, "Oh, yes, teacher." But she wouldn't take my word for it. She'd take my hand and she'd run her fingers across the tips of my fingers to see if they were calloused. If they were calloused, then she said, "Okay, you were practicing." If they weren't calloused, she said, "You're not telling me the truth." But you see, we get calloused from repeated practice. [snorts] First time we commit a sin, we may uphold ourselves. We may be stricken with a guilty conscience. We do it again, and the conscience is less strident. We do it again and again and again and again until we can do it with feeling no remorse at all. And we live in a culture that has lost its conscience. We are like the people that Jeremiah described who had the forehead of the harlot, who had lost her capacity to blush. We live in a culture that practices sin day after day after day, and nobody says anything about it. So, we better be careful that if and when we follow our consciences, we're following consciences that have been informed by the word of God.

And Paul said this, the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. So, they strike Paul in the mouth. And Paul responds. He says, "God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall?" Not a very Christian response, is it? [laughter] Sounds like Jesus talking to the Pharisees. They were whitewashed tombs. On the outside, beautiful, clean, pure. On the inside, filled with dead men's bones. So Paul rebukes the high priest for his hypocrisy. You have me on trial here for disobeying the law. You who are the guardians of the law, and you're slapping me without a trial. Haven't you read Leviticus? And you've just violated, you just violated Roman law across the street. Now you're violating Jewish law.

Somebody heard Paul say that. He said, "Hey, hey, do you know who you're talking to? You can't revile the high priest like that. That's God's high priest." Now again, Paul says something very puzzling. He says, "I didn't know, brethren, that he was the high priest. For it is written, you shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people." He said, "I know it's wrong to speak evil about our spiritual leaders." And that's a principle, by the way, folks, that hasn't ever been abrogated. So be careful what you say at me at dinner today. Paul said, "I didn't know he was the high priest."

Well, how do we understand that? How could he not know who it was that said that? Again, you go through church history and you can't believe the gymnastics that scholars have gone through to try to get Paul out of this pickle for speaking so harshly against the high priest and then saying he didn't know it was the high priest. One excuse is that because Paul was troubled with his vision, apparently, as he said later on, he writes with such large letters and so on, that maybe because of his myopia, he saw this group in front of him, but he couldn't distinguish between those who were speaking to him. And when he spoke out against the one who had just talked, he didn't realize that he was lashing out against the high priest. That's possible.

Others exonerate Paul by saying, "Well, he'd been away from Jerusalem for 20 years and he came back. He'd heard about Ananias, but didn't recognize him. Never seen him before." Others argue that according to Josephus, it wasn't even Ananias who was the high priest at this time. And so, there was some confusion in the crowd there about who this Ananias really was. And another option, which is somewhat imaginative, is that Paul is speaking ironically, really sticking the knife into Ananias. "Oh, you're the high priest? [gasps] How was I to know? Never thought the high priest would order a prisoner to be slapped without due process." And so he's saying, "I didn't really recognize the truth of the claim to high priesthood." Maybe that's what I don't know. I'll let you figure it out.

But when Paul perceived that part of the group were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, and he knew that these two parties of the Jews were at war with each other all the time, doctrinally, theologically. It's almost like today, if you're a Christian, we see that liberals, neo-orthodox people can get along with each other because they don't care about truth. And as much as they debate with each other over other things, they'll close ranks if anybody orthodox stands up, because one thing we know for sure, everybody hates orthodoxy. And that's kind of what was going on here. You have the two parties of the Jews, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who were traditional adversaries, but they come together in a common bond to stop the ministry of the Apostle Paul.

Paul was nobody's fool. He knew the most ancient stratagem there was in warfare. You divide and conquer. He says, "You maybe started this meeting because you thought I took somebody into the temple or the other charges." He said, "But really, what's behind all of this is that I am a witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Paul understood that the foundation of everything he taught was based on the resurrection. As he said to the Corinthians, "If Christ is not raised, our faith is in vain. We're wasting our time. We're no different than the Mohammads." You know, Muhammad who's dead, and Buddha who's dead, and Confucius who's dead, and Moses who's dead. The whole truth claim of Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection. And really, what's gotten me in trouble with you folks is that I'm preaching the resurrection of Christ because I'm a Pharisee, son of a Pharisee. I believe in life after death. All of a sudden, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Sadducees didn't believe in resurrection. Didn't believe in life after death. The Pharisees did. And so, all of a sudden, instead of being on Paul, they're at each other's throats. And one of the Pharisees says, "Hey, this man hasn't done anything wrong. He's on our side. Maybe he has talked to a spirit. Maybe he is anointed by God." And so the dissension now becomes so riotous that the Romans said, "Hey, I've had enough of this. Bring Paul back to the barracks and we'll deal with the matter." And so again, Paul has been faithful to the resurrection of Christ.