While they were seeking to kill him

Good morning. Welcome to August. And can you believe it? Here we are, we're continuing on in our study of the book of Acts of the Apostles, chapter 21, verses 27 through 36, as David just read for us here. And a few questions for you, as we look ahead here.

Have you ever been through an experience where you've been misunderstood? Maybe the consequences of that misunderstanding continued on for some time. Have you ever been through a trial? Maybe you're going through one now that just seems to go on and on. It may change in its form, but it somehow or another just continues again and again. and keeps coming back.

Well, then we're in the right territory. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul is beginning here. There's certainly some differences. He is suffering for Christ. That's one difference. Many times we'll run into different kinds of trials, and it won't be a matter of suffering for Christ, per se, although it could be.

But also, he is an apostle, and the unique thing is we know that he has been shown in advance what these trials will be. So that puts him in a unique place. Here is some insight into this Acts of the Apostles. You can imagine here is the Apostle Paul. He has come along with a group of more than a half dozen other believers. They brought relief funds to the saints there in Judea.

He's come into Jerusalem, which to the heart of the Jew, this is the place of all places on earth. This is the earth's center, the earth's capital. There is no place like it. And he was to come into what is the most holy ground in all of Judaism, a place established by God, and looked upon, this is God's dwelling place on earth.

He's coming with the relief funds with over a half dozen friends to include Dr. Luke and Timothy. And he is also coming, as we'll soon see, to accomplish and do other things as well. The day when he had come in was May 28, 57 AD. He came in addition to sharing these relief funds that he'd brought from the other churches.

He also told the believers that were gathered there in Jerusalem on that day, he told them about all the things that God had done, and he definitely laid it out as these are God's accomplishments in our missionary efforts among the Gentiles, And they glorified God, which even puts the emphasis on where Paul was wanting to direct the emphasis. To God be the glory, and God is the one accomplishing these things. It was also put forth to him that there was a problem, and that is that among the Jews, even in the Jewish Christians, there had been a rumor going about that the Apostle Paul was telling everybody, oh, forget the law, forget the temple, forget Moses, forget Judaism, and the idea is that he was speaking ill of it. So a plan was devised for the Apostle Paul to be a sponsor for four Jews, Jewish Christians, who are under what's called a Nazarite vow. And so they had begun those sacrifices under the Nazarite vow, and they'd gone day after day to the temple to carry those out. And that brings us to the place we are here.

Here is a picture, as you see, on page one of the temple. And let me just comment, if you can't read the small print, that's just fine. It was printed out that way initially. This is from the ESV, the English Standard Version Study Bible. The main reason I wanted to have it there, this is a layout of the temple in kind of an oblique view, as it was in Paul's time. And the one thing I want to point out, this is the perimeter wall that was around the inner temple area. Jews only were to go past this perimeter wall. It was not to have any passage by Gentiles at all. And so we want to bring that out. That's critical to this passage we're looking at.

And secondly, here is the Antonia Fortress. It's at the guard towers at the top where the Roman soldiers would keep a lookout over the temple area and see what's going on. And that is where there would be typically at least 600 cohort, as was mentioned in the passage, 600 Roman soldiers stationed there in the barracks. And there may be additional ones stationed elsewhere, but at least in this area there would be 600 stationed there and a commander over the six centurions with there about a hundred soldiers each under each of their commands.

So here's Acts 21, 27 through 29, which begins this way. When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, that is Paul, this is the Jews from Asia, meaning those from Ephesus and that area, began to stir up all the crowd and laid hands on him.

And verse 28, crying out, Men of Israel, come to our aid. This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere. So this is overstatement, but This is for marketing purposes, you understand, right? This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people, that is, the Jews, and the law, the law of Moses, and this place, this holy temple.

And besides, he has even brought Greeks into the temple, so this is something that they passed around, unsubstantiated and not true, and has defiled this holy place, not true. For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. So had Paul been with Trophimus? Yes. He was listed in Acts chapter 20 verse 4 as one of the group of over a half dozen that included Timothy and later Dr. Luke that had gone around Jerusalem, but He had not brought him into the temple, but nonetheless that was the rumor that was going around. People were presuming that that was the case.

So as we have this picture here before, as you can imagine, Paul and his friends are coming into this temple area. Only the Jews are allowed to go inside that outer perimeter wall. So the assumption had been made that Paul had brought in not just the four Jews who were with him, but also this Trophimus, the Ephesian.

Now, at the signs around the wall, and there were at least three of them near the gates, there was a sign that looked like this. This is a replica with the lettering kind of emphasized and underscored. And it translates like this, the sign said, no man of another nation is to enter within the fence and enclosure around the temple for whoever is caught will have himself to blame that his death ensues. So these warnings were put around the temple in this perimeter wall And basically a warning, don't go any further if you're not a Jew, because if you go past here, death will follow. The Jews were allowed to carry out capital punishment against anyone who broke this, even if they had a Roman citizenship. They were allowed to carry it out, and they were not under the same restrictions. It had to be true, as we'll see, and also they had to carry it out properly. So Paul, of course, he's going to avert this whole thing by being this covert Hebrew ninja, right? He goes into motion and he's ready to stop them all, right? Or he's the master of mixed matzo arts. So anyway, he could...

No, that's not what happens either, right? Here's Paul, they grab him, and instead of coming in... I mean, think of it. Could Jesus, when Jesus was arrested, have come in and said, you know, hey you guys, you guys are all toast, and ended it all right there? Yes. Could Paul have called upon the Lord to reverse all this? Could be. That's not what he did. So let's look at what Paul actually said here.

What Paul actually had said all this time, leading up to this time, was that Jesus was the Messiah that had been promised long, long ago in what we call the Old Testament. Did they call it the Old Testament? No, not really. We have the idea of the Old and New Testament. But to them, that was the Holy Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament.

But he certainly did not speak against the Jews, nor did he speak against the law of Moses. Paul did say that the law of Moses would not make a person justified, that is declared righteous before God, but that a person believing in Christ would be justified. He did say that, but what he had actually said had gotten misrepresented. He did also tell the Gentile believers to abide by the things that were similar to what the Jews required of the God-fearing Gentiles. He talked about abstaining from strangled things and from fornication, things of that sort.

And this had already been decided upon and agreed by the Apostles and the elders in Jerusalem, as recorded back in Acts 15.29. Paul had carried that letter to the church at Antioch and to the churches in Galatia. What Paul actually did, as we mentioned in Acts 20 verse 4, named seven men from the churches in various areas, Derbe, Thessalonica, Asia, Berea, the men who had come with the gift for the believers in Judea. They accompanied Paul, and indeed many of them were Gentiles.

It also included Dr. Luke, and on that list, however, was Timothy, who was not a Gentile, but was rather verifiable Jew and circumcised properly as well. The only ones that Paul had brought into the temple area, the only ones he would have been allowed to, were the four Jews that had made a vow and were allowed to go in the temple area, and in fact he for several days had already brought them in and had been carrying out his funding of their fulfillment of the vow.

The intent was to go on for seven days. That didn't exactly happen. The Jews went wild. So here it is, Acts 21, 30-31. Then all the city was provoked. And by the way, that was intentional. And the people rushed together and taking hold of Paul, they dragged him out of the temple and immediately the doors were shut. While they were seeking to kill him, a report came up to the commander of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. All right, so now we run into a problem. The problem is this. The Jews who had come from Ephesus, in Asia and that area, they had come from Ephesus now here to Jerusalem. They had seen Paul with this Gentile named Trophimus. Had they seen him? Yes, they had. They assumed that Paul had also brought him into the temple. That was an assumption. He had not actually done so and it wasn't verified.

But rather than saying, OK, now we've got a court case, They immediately went into mob and riot mode, right? So rather than keeping matters in order, they went around purposely stirring up the Jews all over the city of Jerusalem. Their intent was to do exactly that. It was also a strategic mistake on their part. As soon as they got all the Jews stirred up, even though immediately they probably got the temple guard involved in getting Paul out of the temple area and shutting the gates so that nobody could go in or out. The problem was they'd gotten everybody in the whole city stirred up. That was a problem.

So the Jews were allowed to keep the temple rules even to the point of capital punishment and they could do it against a Roman citizen like Paul. But it was the Romans, that is the Roman soldiers responsibility under the commander to keep order in the city of Jerusalem overall. So by stirring up all the Jews all over the place, the Jews created a problem for themselves. The soldiers on duty at the towers, that's the towers you see at the top there, the Fortress Antonia over in one corner, the soldiers on the towers would see, hey, there's mob action and mayhem happening, and they would report it to the commander. And the commander says, we got to do something about this. He can't leave it. As a matter of fact, that commander who did not do something about it would be in big trouble.

Acts 21, 32-33, at once he took along some soldiers and some Turians, ran down to them, and they saw the commander and the soldiers, and they stopped beating Paul. So Paul was just fine after that, right? Everything was okay? Not so much. Then the commander came up and took hold of him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He began asking who he was and what he had done. Now, what we see here in these words Here's the commander and he came and took hold of Paul. That's code for he arrested him.

This arrest at this day on these verses began five years approximately of being under Roman arrest. When's this hassle going to be over? Imagine he's under Roman arrest from this point on for the next five years. And he's further on not only going to be a prisoner, he's going to be in a Roman prison for two of those years at least.

So the commander then is asking, what has this guy done? What's going on? What's happening? It's important to keep in mind that your tension was ramping up. Tension between the Jews and the Romans was getting more and more intense. In just nine years, the Jews would revolt against the Romans, and you know what they would do? Contrary to what we see happening on this day, the Jews would go into Fortress Antonia, where all the Romans were kept, and they would kill every single Roman soldier and officer. Nine years later, that would begin the Jewish revolt there in Jerusalem and would carry on for four years of disaster for the Jews, ending in 70 AD, towards the end of the summer. The tension was ramping up, but the Jews knew that while the tension was ramping up, and the Romans knew it too, The Jews knew this was not the time to rebel. The Romans are still in control. We're not ready to rebel.

In truth, they never were. Until then, the Romans ruled with deadly force. The Romans did not come in and use pepper spray. The Romans didn't come in with their tasers. Our son, Ed, is a prison guard in Nevada, has been for some years. And he says, you know, the officers, a lot of them will come up and they'll actually, in some cases, multiple guys using tasers on the prisoners to try to get them settled down. These Roman officers and soldiers did not use tasers. They did not use pepper spray. They came in with their spears, pilum, and their short swords, and they used those, and they didn't use them to tickle people.

We find out later that this Roman commander's name is Claudius Lacius. We're going to see that later on in the book of Acts, find out who he is and get more information about him. That's it for now, though. We see him as the commander in this passage.

Acts 21-34, but among the crowd some were shouting one thing and some another, and when he could not find out the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. Sounds like a A political action to me. But anyway, can't find out the facts because of the uproar.

So what is he doing? He goes out in the midst of this mob and mayhem. He asks, what are the facts? And what are people doing? They're passing along. And basically all anybody has is pure rumor. He can't get the straight story from anybody. It's all been rumors handed along from one to the next. And in the bottom line, it's not true.

So, no wonder he kind of throws up his hands, so to speak, and orders them, take him into the barracks, okay? This man's under arrest, and you know how on the TV shows what they'll do, real commonly, because it makes for more tension, is they'll have a jurisdictional dispute, okay? This is a jurisdictional non-dispute. The Romans coming in, they're saying, we're taking jurisdiction, that's it, okay? Last word.

The Jews had just a few really big problems. They were allowed to execute someone who violated this border wall. Even if they were Roman citizens, they were allowed to execute someone. It had to be an official action. Mob activity didn't cut it. It had to be an official action. You've got to get the Sanhedrin together. You have to listen to witness and evidence. This was mob action. This was not going to do it.

Moses said in Deuteronomy 17, verses 2 through 7, they must inquire thoroughly with two or three witnesses. Two or three witnesses had to be consistent. One witness was not enough. And you needed to have the two or three witnesses have a consistent testimony. Did they have that? Did they have a trial where they listened? None of that happened. All it was was a bunch of rumor and then mob activity. It wasn't legal then. It wouldn't be legal now.

Numbers 15 verses 35 and 36 says that capital punishment must be carried out outside the camp. Of course, Jerusalem is a lot more than a camp, but what does that mean? You've got to take them outside if you're going to do this. So killing them inside the temple area was illegal, even according to Jewish law. So the Jews were breaking their own laws left and right. They were breaking the law of Moses in order to try to carry out something against Paul. So the Jews had really big problems. Here's Acts 21, 35 and 36. So when he got to the stairs, he was carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob. For the multitude of the people kept following them, shouting, Away with him! So you can imagine, here's the picture. Here's the Apostle Paul.

The Roman soldiers have him. Of course, they got a Roman soldier chained to each arm. So there's a Roman soldier on each arm. So two chains. That's what that would be about. And then at this point now they're picking him up and carrying him. So that's what you see the depiction here in the dramatic picture on the screen.

Here is the Apostle Paul is being carried by six Roman soldiers. They're going to take him away. And then you have a Roman soldier essentially in perimeter area. And there may have been even others around to keep Paul from being attacked by this mob.

But the multitude of people, not a few, But the multitude of people, the crowd is shouting away with him, away with him. And one point we want to make. This was getting really serious. The Jews had begun trying to kill Paul against the law of Moses, of course. So they started to do that.

This was now the sixth incident reported in the book of Acts. of public mayhem and reaction to the ministry for Christ. So was that all? Probably not, or at least possibly not. But this is now the sixth time that the Apostle Paul is in the middle of some sort of a public ruckus. So we're told that Paul was warned about how this time in Jerusalem would end up, and this is it. This is what he was warned about, right?

So a soldier chained to each one of his hands, the soldiers carried Paul towards the barracks. This barracks would be the Antonia Fortress that you see in the pictures and you see in your diagram on the first page there off on the corner. There were stairs that led up to that barracks up to the Antonia Fortress from the temple courtyard. So they'd go from there into the courtyard, and as soon as they got him on the stairs, he would be rather safe from the crowd and would be isolated to just Roman soldiers.

The away with him does not just mean take him to another place. Examples, John 1915 and Luke 23 18 has something similar. This is when Jesus had been arrested, and so the crowd shouted out, Away with Him! Away with Him! And then the next words after that, Crucify Him! So this wasn't just, Take Him somewhere else! Right? This was, Away with Him, means we want Him dead.

Next in Acts 9.23, this is at the event in Acts chapter 9 where Paul had just become a believer and he turned around from being a persecutor of the church to being one of them and speaking in favor of Christ as the Messiah. It says there, when many days had elapsed of Paul proclaiming Christ as the Messiah, The Jews plotted together to what? To do away with him. And finally, we see it here in Acts 21-36, and we're going to see it again, Acts 22-22, right?

For the multitude of the people kept following them, shouting, away with him, away with him. This is not just take him to another place. This is, we want him dead, we want him dead, right? And this isn't going to stop either, as we're soon going to see. So what we're going to find as we proceed through here, here is the Apostle Paul. Before long, he's going to be taken into the barracks. They're going to peel his clothes off and get ready to beat him.

At that point, he's going to say, oh, you guys beat Romans? And then they're going, whoa, they're backing way off. Why? Because beating a Roman soldier without a trial could bring the death penalty to whoever did it and whoever commanded it Okay, so the commander on down to the one who carried out the punishment could be killed the Apostle Paul This is June 2nd 57 AD by the next night Jesus personally is going to stand by his side and give him assurance you will go to Rome and you will go to Rome.

But he will be under Roman arrest for the next approximately five years. Talk about a trial that goes on and on. For five years this goes on. Imagine the Apostle Paul. He says, oh, but I need to go to different churches. I need to go places. I need to at least be able to write letters. No, that's not happening. At least not for a while. Imagine, here is God's designated apostle to the Gentiles. And what is he going to do? He's going to have God's designated apostle to the Gentiles be under Roman house arrest. And I have no idea what that AMD installer just popped up for.

So, let's get rid of that. There we go. So, what's Paul supposed to do in this? Is he supposed to say, Oh no! Ah! This isn't what I had in mind. God, why did you mess up so bad? Right? God, isn't it your job to make sure everything is cool and smooth and we have everything just hunky-dory all the way? I should be on a highway to heaven. with no pull-outs. I shouldn't even have to pull out my spare tire kit. I shouldn't even have to fix the chariot I'm in. But here it is. So guess what?

Here's the Apostle Paul. Is he stewing and wondering what God's going to do? No. So we would point out here all the things that Paul written and that Christ had said before, when the going gets tough, God's man is called to continue abiding in Christ. Christ said to his disciples hours before he was crucified, abide in me and I in you.

He is to continue fellowshipping with him, this first Corinthians 1.9, Paul himself had written earlier on this third missionary journey were called into fellowship with his son. He wrote to the Corinthians in his second letter to behold Christ the Lord. Paul himself is called and God's man is called to walk in the Spirit individually.

This is Galatians 5.16. When I've gone over to Africa each time, I've had an opportunity to teach in the church service there, which is changing every time I go over there.

But every time I've gone over there, I've taught Galatians 5.16-18. And it starts with walk in the Spirit. And that first walk is to walk individually. The next walk in Galatians 5 is to walk alongside others in unison. There's a development to it. Walk in the Spirit alongside others who are walking in the Spirit too. God's man is called to be filled with Christ by means of the Spirit. This is a lesson that the Ephesians elective will be getting to. And in that passage in Ephesians 5, God's man is to learn Christ. Not just learn about Him.

Oh, there's lots of data. There are people that you can get degrees in learning about Christ. You know, take tests and write a doctoral dissertation and all that. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about learning Christ, learning Him personally. learning him.

In our own culture we're impressed by the talents and determination of individuals. And I put on the screen here some athletic accomplishment. In reality, we could put all sorts of things. Musical accomplishment and accomplishment in the arts and other great accomplishments and talents that people have and have been expressed.

And while those are certainly admirable things, and many of them are awesome, God is not looking for self-dependence. but Christ dependence and Christian interdependence. So God is not trying to carry out self-dependence in each one of us. Nor does he want that for all of us together in the church body. Christ calls us to a life of dependence upon him and intimacy with him.

And one of the things that I would say is these trials that we get brought into, God's not messing up. There isn't a single trial or struggle or difficulty that we go through where God is going, ah, that happened, I didn't think of that. God is not going, oh no, Fern, look what you did. God's not doing that. There is nothing that surprises God. There is nothing that catches God off guard. Every single thing that He's brought into my life and yours is purposeful. It's purposeful. Christ calls us to walk together with Him, and I show a picture of, here's Christ at least in character with His arm around somebody. That's okay, but it's not close enough. Why is that not close enough?

Does Christ just simply walk alongside us? No. Christ says, abide in me and I in you. There is a greater degree of intimacy than just walking alongside will convey. Also, He is made to be in us and we in Him. That's closer than just walking by our side. That is an intimacy and a closeness and that. is exactly what He means when we talk about walking alongside Him or looking at walking in fellowship with Him.

It is He in us and us in Him. God did what it took. He already accomplished it in every believer for Christ to be in us and us to be in Him. in every respect, and that dependence and that intimacy is not a Christ alongside. It's Christ within, personally, intimately, with each one of us. It is us in Christ, personally and intimately, every single step of the way, for every single day, until the day we see Him face to face.

Let's pray. Lord, what a wonderful and marvelous thing it is that You have made us to be in You, and You in us, and that walking with You is not just walking alongside, but it's You within, and we in You. You have made that intimacy to be reality, spiritually speaking. And you desire and want in each of us for that intimacy, that dependence, to be personal and with you every moment of every single day. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.