The Bible Study Hour

Dr. James Boice: The disobedience of many of the great figures of the Bible is well documented, and it led to some serious consequences. Moses spent 40 years in the desert. Jonah was thrown overboard. David and Peter suffered in their relationship to the Lord. Did the Apostle Paul's refusal to heed the warnings of his friends regarding his journey to Jerusalem fall into that same category?

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. The Holy Spirit spoke through Paul's fellow laborers to warn him, and a prophet gave a visual demonstration of what awaited the Apostle if he were to persist in his journey. Join Dr. Boice as he examines the motives and the outcome of Paul's seemingly obstinate decision to follow his own will against the advice and warnings of the Spirit through his brothers in Christ.

Dr. James Boice: Our study of the book of Acts resumes with chapter 21, and I invite you to turn to that as we consider a period in the life of the Apostle Paul which is not as encouraging as other things we have looked at in the earlier chapters of the book. Chapter 21 begins a new section as the missionary journeys are now complete. Paul is on his way to Jerusalem for the last time and arrives there in the chapter. There he is arrested and, so far as we know from the story of the book of Acts, never again finds freedom.

There is an argument in biblical theology, perhaps a valid one, that there was a period at which Paul was released later and perhaps even traveled on to Spain, but so far as we know from Acts or from any direct testimony in the New Testament, that wasn't so. So what we have here in a certain sense is the beginning of the last and final episode in Paul's life and witness.

When I was looking for a title for this message, my mind ran to a book that was written by Erwin Lutzer, the pastor of Chicago's great Moody Church. The book was entitled *When a Good Man Falls*, and it contains, as you might expect knowing the author and the title, the story, biblical studies on the stories of those men in the Bible who experienced some great period of disobedience or sin in their lives and the consequences of that.

The book contains the stories of Moses, for example. Moses, who got it into his head that he was to be the deliverer of his people, and as a result of that began a liberation by killing an Egyptian. And he had to flee the country, he ran away, and he spent 40 years as a refugee on the far side of the desert before God appeared to him once more to call him and send him to Egypt with the instruction, "Let my people go."

It contains the story of Samson, who was so bewitched by Delilah and her charms that he gave away the secret of his strength. And so his locks were shorn, and he lost his ability to defend himself from the Philistines. He was captured, his eyesight was taken away, and it was only at the end in his death that he managed to destroy the many thousands of Philistines who were there in the great Temple of Dagon.

There is the story of Jonah, who ran away from God. There is the story of David, who committed adultery and tried to cover it up by murder. There is the story of Peter, who denied his Lord, and many other stories. The reason I thought of the title of that book is that, in my opinion, we come to an incident now, a period in the life of the Apostle Paul, which is similar.

I say similar because, as I hope to show in the context of the study, what Paul did, though it seems to me it was wrong, was nevertheless undoubtedly done with high motives. At the same time, as I think we will see, it was wrong and it had unfortunate consequences for him and perhaps for other people as well.

The basis for what I want to say is found in the fact that apparently, as we gather from a careful reading of these chapters, God through the Holy Spirit was warning Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Paul himself acknowledges that if you look back to the 20th chapter, which we've already studied, verse 23. Paul, when he was speaking to the Ephesian elders, says, "I know that in every city," that is all the cities he'd been visiting, "the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me." That is if I go on to Jerusalem.

It is true, of course, that that verse does not say in categorical language, "Paul, do not go to Jerusalem." But nevertheless, it's a warning and it carries weight because what Paul says is not simply that in every city my friends warn me not to go to Jerusalem, but rather the Holy Spirit has been speaking. Paul doesn't say how the Holy Spirit did speak in every city, perhaps through his friends, but perhaps also in a personal way. At any rate, Paul disregarded the warning and was determined to go.

I mention that as background, but with an emphasis not upon chapter 20, but rather upon chapter 21, which we're studying, because twice over in this chapter, in verses 4 and 11, we find Paul being warned again not to go. So if we count those original warnings in every city as one warning, here you have warnings two and three.

In verse 4 we find one warning: through the Spirit they, that is the disciples in Tyre whom they were visiting, urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. Now you see that's just a bit stronger than what was said in chapter 20. In chapter 20 Paul confesses that in every city the Holy Spirit warned him that imprisonment awaited him if he went.

But of course that's not a categorical statement not to go. Here it's become a bit different, it's stronger. Now the disciples, speaking, and I quote, "through the Spirit," that is not just on their own, not just saying, "Paul, we know the situation there is bad and we're afraid for you if you go," but rather through the Holy Spirit they urged him not to go. So you have that in verse 4.

And then in verse 11 and the verses surrounding that, there's this incident that involves the prophet Agabus. He had come down to the coast from Judea, perhaps from Jerusalem itself, and now added a visual demonstration to the warning which had already been given twice over. He took Paul's girdle, we're told, that is a cloth belt that he had used, as they did in those days, to bind up the garments around his waist.

This man Agabus tied his own hands and feet with it in a very dramatic way, and then he said this, and I quote, "The Holy Spirit says: In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles." And yet in spite of this, you see, Paul was determined to go.

I'm going to put one other bit of data together with this, though I acknowledge at the start that it's ambiguous. If you turn a chapter further on to chapter 22, you find an account of Paul's speech before the crowd in Jerusalem, and in the context of that you find him speaking of a special revelation that God had given him when he was in Jerusalem.

Verse 17: "When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking. 'Quick!' He said to me. 'Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about Me.'" Now I say that's ambiguous, and for this reason: in the context, Paul is speaking about his conversion on the Damascus Road, and the verses immediately before this say how Ananias, God's servant in Damascus, came and was instrumental in the power and leading of God in restoring Paul's sight.

It's after this that he says, "When I returned to Jerusalem." Now we do know that after Paul had been in Damascus, there was a brief visit when he went to Jerusalem that was before this. And in the flow of events, it may well be that this is what he's speaking of. In other words, something years before. He said, "I was in Damascus, I was converted there, I came to Jerusalem, and while I was in Jerusalem the Holy Spirit said," the Lord Himself spoke, I had a vision, and said leave Jerusalem quickly and go to the Gentiles.

That may be. On the other hand, when we look back to the account of that that we find in Acts, we don't find anything that suggests that. And it is possible that what Paul is acknowledging here is that on this visit to Jerusalem, when he had been there, the Lord had spoken to him to tell him to go. I say again that is ambiguous, but whether or not this incident refers to something that happened in Jerusalem on this occasion, it does set a pattern for the things that are occurring now.

If not now, at least earlier, the Lord Himself had told Paul not to linger in Jerusalem, but rather to go to the Gentiles because that was the mission field to which God had called him. And yet it would seem in spite of this, Paul continued to have this yearning for Jerusalem. He wanted to go back, and here at the end in spite of the many warnings that he's receiving, he is determined to go up and do the things that we will see as we continue the study.

I think this is a case of Paul being out of the will of God, determined to do what he wants to do in opposition to God's leading. Now I do want to say several things in defense of Paul, because this is something that should not be gotten out of proportion. First of all, if this is what Paul is doing, then in the most pejorative sense, it is at worst simply an exercise of a very strong, obstinate, and determined personality.

We use those words as if that's extremely bad today, but we have to remember that if Paul had not had that kind of a personality, he wouldn't have been the kind of missionary he was. It takes more than Casper Milquetoast to go out and evangelize the Roman world. Paul was a great man, a man of great courage and determination.

And when things got tough, he did just what our little saying says: the tough get going. And that is what he did. And so he persevered for many, many long years in spite of the kind of opposition, persecution, and even physical abuse that he relates in writing his letters to the Christians at Corinth. If Paul had not had this kind of personality, Paul would not have achieved what he achieved, and the very fact that he did this, he did it in the power of what God had given him, and God had certainly given him the personality. So we have to say at least that in Paul's defense.

Secondly, we have to acknowledge that he certainly had a love of his people. If you doubt that, you should turn to the ninth chapter of Romans, where Paul is writing of that great heaviness of heart that he has for his people. He was a missionary to the Gentiles, God had called him to do that, but he was after all a Jew. And he had a great heart for the Jewish people.

He says in that great ninth chapter of Romans, "I could wish myself accursed from Christ for the sake of my brethren." I don't know that I would say that. I doubt if there are many Christians living today who would say that and actually mean it, that they would be willing to be cut off from Christ—let's put it bluntly, be willing to be sent to hell for the sake of their people.

And yet that's what Paul says, and he says it not in an offhanded manner speaking humanly only, but he says it in the context of Holy Writ. This is something Paul certainly meant. He loved his people, he was concerned for them, and if he had not been, he would not have gone. So when we're talking about his failures at this point, if indeed they are failures, certainly they are failures that grew out of this strong personality and this concern for those who are lost.

I then thirdly can say this in his defense: Paul had a great plan, and this was a part of it. Paul knew that there was a growing rupture between the Jewish and the Gentile church. I suppose it was inevitable, but whether it was inevitable or not, he saw it and he wanted to do everything he could to overcome it.

One way he tried to do this was by collecting an offering from all the Gentile churches, which he was determined to bring up to Jerusalem as a demonstration of the solidarity of the people of God throughout the entire world. Now it's interesting that in the context of the book of Acts, Luke says very little about the offering. As a matter of fact, it is really not mentioned save in the 24th chapter in the context of a speech that Paul is giving before Felix.

There in the 17th verse he mentions his intention. "After an absence of several years," he said, "I came to Jerusalem to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings." We don't learn much about this offering from the book of Acts. When we begin to read Paul's letters, especially first and second Corinthians, we soon find that this was not an incidental matter with Paul.

This was a part of his great strategy for welding the church together. In first Corinthians the 16th chapter, the opening verses of that chapter, he gives instructions as to how this offering is to be collected. And in second Corinthians, written later because apparently the offering wasn't going real well, at least in the Church of Corinth, he reiterates what it is that he has in mind. And he goes on there at some length, not only throughout the eighth chapter, interrupting it a little bit, but throughout chapter 9 as well.

I suspect just a bit as I read that, that the matter may have been getting a little bit out of hand. Certainly Paul gives a lot of valuable instruction about how we're to give of our substance to the Lord's work, and I've often referred to these verses in stewardship sermons, but one wonders as you read it whether or not the tone is right.

Isn't Paul being just a little peremptory as he addresses these Christians? Isn't he ordering them about in something which should by all definition be voluntary? I don't know, maybe reading a bit into it, but I even suspect that the silence Luke the historian exercises as he writes about this in Acts may give testimony to the fact that in Luke's opinion the thing had perhaps gotten a little bit out of proportion.

At any rate, Paul's intention was good. He wanted to bring up this great gift of money from the Gentile churches to say to the Jews at Jerusalem, "Look how much the Gentiles love you." And yet as we're going to see, that had very little bearing on what happened.

Let me say one other thing: when they're warning Paul in chapter 21 that he shouldn't go, Paul says verse 13, "Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." I think we need to say when we're speaking in Paul's defense that this was true. Paul literally was willing to be bound and even to die for the sake of Christ. And indeed he did, in the end he was martyred, killed in Rome as we know from tradition.

But you see, I ask the question: is that the point? True enough, Paul was willing to die for Jesus, but is that the issue in the matter of this journey to Jerusalem? Was Jesus asking Paul to die for Him, or was He in fact instructing him not to go to Jerusalem? You see, sometimes we can cover up disobedience in our lives or willfulness by taking a high spiritual road. We can say, and we do it sometimes don't we, "Well you know, I'm willing to do anything for Jesus." And sometimes what we mean by that is, "But I want to do what I want to do."

At any rate, as I read the story it seems to me that this is what's happening. Now someone probably will say at that point, "Now what's the big deal? What difference does it make after all that Paul should go up to Jerusalem, even if he is out of the will of God? Certainly many of us do similar things. What does it matter? Why didn't God just say well all right, let him do it and then we'll get back on track later?" We find out why as we read on in the story.

We find that Paul's journey to Jerusalem on this occasion led to a great problem, and the problem I'm referring to is not the problem of his arrest and imprisonment, from which he wasn't released again at least in the context of this book, but to something that was almost a terrible compromise of the Christian gospel.

To understand it, we have to understand something about the nature of this church in Jerusalem. It was composed largely of Jews, and these were Jews that had come out of Judaism with all of the traditions of their fathers. They wanted to maintain all of their Jewishness while at the same time being Christians.

Now there's a sense in which that can be done. This wasn't what they were trying to do, however. What they were trying to do was to maintain all of the ceremonial purifications and all of the outward observances of the Mosaic law. Not the moral law, which is binding upon all men flowing from the very character of God, but the ceremonial law as well, which is obviously we know fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Now when Paul went and established Gentile churches, this immediately became a problem because as Paul understood and presented the gospel to the Gentiles, no one is saved by keeping that old ceremonial law or even for that matter trying to keep the moral law. People are saved through Christ.

And when the matter of keeping the law became an issue in the church, the Apostle Paul, the great defender of the freedom of the Gentiles, argued again forcefully and rightly that Christians are not to be brought under the power of the law. That is something that the Jews themselves could not keep, and Christians are delivered from that in Christ. Not saying, of course, that Christians are not to keep the moral law—we are—but not that ceremonial law.

The kind of law that was expressed in the rite of circumcision, that was the issue of the day, but in all of the purifications and the feast days and all of that as well. Now this church in Jerusalem was in a difficult position. It was composed of Jews, it was living in a Jewish culture, and yet it was supposed to be Christian. What they were trying to do, as we read it, is live on a tightrope with one foot as it were in both camps.

When Paul was in Galatia and he had trouble there with the Judaizers, it was from Jerusalem, from the Jerusalem church that the Judaizers came. Paul had to fight them down. When this issue came to a head in the church, Paul with Timothy and Titus had to journey to Jerusalem and there took place on that occasion the great council recorded in Acts 15 in which the battle was fought out and the battle was won for the cause of Gentile liberty. And yet the problem wasn't solved in the Jerusalem church. Here the law was still important, and anybody who suggested even for a moment that it was not necessary or even proper to keep the ceremonial law was suspect.

Now Paul was coming to this city and meeting with the leaders of this church, and it was in this context, a situation which had become increasingly volatile over the years, that this great compromise was put forward. What we read is that the leaders of this church came to him and said something like this, "Paul, we know that you're right. You are the man who has stood above all others for the cause of Gentile liberty. But you have to understand that we live in a difficult situation here. We live in the midst of a Jewish culture, and furthermore there are many, many people in the church, many Christian people, who just do not see it your way. They think that you're trying to destroy the traditions of their fathers. We'd like to dispel that image. And what we suggest is this: we have here four men that have taken a Levite vow, and we would like you to join them. They're poor people, they're not able to pay for the final sacrifice that is part of this rite, and we'd like you to take on the cost of that. Go through the days of purification and then at the end of it join with them as this sacrificial offering for sin is made in the temple area."

This was what we would call ecclesiastical politics. Quite simply, it was a compromise. On an earlier occasion if something like this had been suggested to Paul, we would have expected Paul to react indignantly, as he did in Antioch when Peter came and compromised by moving away from the Gentiles at mealtimes in order to sit only with the Jews and eat kosher food. And yet this was far, far worse. Peter was caught in a hypocritical position. This was worse than hypocrisy, though it was that too. This was a compromise of the very gospel.

The Apostle Paul, the great writer of the New Testament books, who had said you must believe that Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law and our salvation is in Him, was now about to go up to the Jewish Temple in the presence of the very priests who had crucified the Lord and there participate with others in a sacrifice of an animal that was meant to take away sin. That is turning his back on the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ.

Oh, I know as Paul made his way up to Jerusalem on this last journey that he wasn't thinking of these things. Paul didn't know that when he got there this compromise was going to be suggested to him. That's why God had been warning him not to go, for that reason primarily. But you see, he was persistent in his own way, and so when the great test came, he wasn't really able to stand against it.

It's always that way when we're out of the will of God and going our own way. We hear the temptation and we don't even understand it as a temptation. We say, "Well, there's something to be said for that. Maybe that's what I should do." And so the stand that we should take is undermined and the gospel that we should defend is eroded.

It's interesting, you know, to see how God dealt with this. If you read this carefully, you find that there were these seven days of purification and that it was at the end of the days of purification that the offering, that is a sacrifice, was to be made. And then you read verse 27: "When the seven days were nearly over." The Jews who had come from Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the crowd, there was a riot, and Paul was arrested.

God is the God of circumstance, and so God was certainly active in these circumstances, and it was God's way of saying, "This is the point beyond which I will not let my disobedient servant go." Paul may have been willing to compromise, but God was not going to allow Paul to go up to the temple and have a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice, an animal made for him and for his sins when Jesus was the one who had taken away his sin and Paul was saved by that faith.

So the riot came, Paul was arrested, placed in the authority of the Romans, and eventually transported to the capital. Well, that's what happened. Yet I do want to say this, you know: in spite of the fact that this is what we would at least have to call a low point in the life of the Apostle Paul, one that is reflected quite often in our own lives too, it nevertheless did not end Paul's usefulness.

Some people have pointed out, and I think quite rightly, that if Paul had not been arrested, he would not have had the opportunities that he did have to testify to the grace of Jesus Christ. From this point on, from the point of his arrest, we find Paul testifying in one exalted setting after another. First in chapter 23 to the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin wouldn't have heard him unless he had been in this situation, but they did. He gave a testimony before these leaders of his nation.

Secondly before Felix the king in chapter 24. Thirdly before King Festus in chapter 25. Fourth before King Agrippa in chapter 26. And finally, the very end of the letter, after chapter 27 that describes the ship journey to Rome and the wreck, we find Paul in the care of the Roman guard, the Imperial Guard in the capital, and there he's testifying to these soldiers which, as we know from his writing to the Philippians, eventually caused the gospel to spread throughout the entire palace in those days. Some of the royal family actually came to know Christ and become Christians.

So there was great opportunity, and there was this too: if you look at the 23rd chapter, verse 11, you find that in spite of all that's happened, there was another vision one night in which the Lord Himself stood near Paul and said, and I quote, "Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome."

I love that because, in spite of the disobedience of Paul and his willfulness, the Lord is not bringing this up to his face to flaunt it at him here on this occasion. Rather the Lord appears to him, not in condemnation, but in encouragement saying, "Cheer up, Paul. Take courage, because I have many things for you to do yet. The time is coming when you'll testify for me even in Rome."

And that takes me back to those other biblical characters I mentioned at the start of the message, that are dealt with in the book from which I got the title. Those characters like Moses and Samson, Jonah, David, Peter, and many, many others. It is an interesting thing that when you read their stories you find that in spite of their sin and failures, in some cases—indeed in all of those cases—sins and failures that were far greater and much more extensive than those of the Apostle Paul, the fact that they sinned did not end their usefulness, but rather God worked in them once again to bless not only them but those to whom they ministered.

Moses certainly paid a price for his mistake: he spent 40 years in the desert as an alien. But the time came when God sent him back, and he became the great leader of the people and the one through whom He gave the law. Samson, yes, he sinned, but the end of his story is a note of triumph. We're told, as we read that in the book of the Judges, he killed more of the enemies of Israel in his death than he had killed even in his lifetime.

Jonah, Jonah ran away from the Lord, but the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time and said to him, "Go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach the message that I bid thee." And Jonah went, and revival followed. And so with David. David repented, and he had many more useful years. And Peter, though he denied the Lord, became in the power of the Holy Spirit, led by Christ, a great, great witness, indeed the Apostle to the Jews even as Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles.

I say that because you and I fall, we sin, we're willful, as all these biblical characters seem to have been. And we should take encouragement from their stories. The fact that we have sinned doesn't mean that we have eliminated our chance for usefulness in Christ's service. Rather, it gives an opportunity for Him to display His great grace. And where we deal with others who have been entrapped in sin or who have failed for one reason or another, we're to approach them not in a spirit of superiority—because we're not superior, not in any way—but in a spirit of humility and helpfulness in order to strengthen them.

The Apostle Paul himself wrote about that to the Galatians at the very beginning of chapter 6. He said, "When a brother is overtaken in a sin, it should be your duty to restore such a one, not condemn him, but restore him, considering yourself," says Paul, "lest you also be tempted."

All that really says is that in this business of living the Christian life, we need one another. There are times when one is strong and another is weak, when one is off the path but another is on it. That's when we need each other because as the Holy Spirit works through us each one, we are built up as the body of Christ to be more like Him and to serve Him increasingly well. I trust that God will do that with us and might bless us now and in the days ahead as He blessed Paul. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank You even for these stories which tell, as they do quite frankly, of the failures of Your people. We thank You because, though they fail, You fail not with us. Although we are faithless, You are faithful and You keep us and lead us and are able abundantly to forgive and restore.

And so Father, grant that we might learn from that and become men and women who operate that way with one another. Build us up. Grant that we might have a sense of our need for one another, so that as we live the Christian life and above all as we serve in the life and fellowship of a church such as this, we might again and again goad one another on to good works and so increasingly please the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen and amen.

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