Mark, too, how blindly men fulfil G.o.d"s purposes. The two bitter antagonists, Jew and Roman, seem to themselves to be working in direct opposition; but G.o.d is using them both to carry out His design. Paul has to be got to Rome, and these two forces are combined by a wisdom beyond their ken, to carry him thither. Two cogged wheels turning in opposite directions fit into each other, and grind out a resultant motion, different from either of theirs. These soldiers and that mob were like p.a.w.ns on a chessboard, ignorant of the intentions of the hand which moves them.
IV. Note the calm courage of Paul. He too had kept his head, and though bruised and hustled, and having but a minute or two beforehand looked death in the face, he is ready to seize the opportunity to speak a word for his Master. Observe the quiet courtesy of his address, and his calm remembrance of the tribune"s right to prevent his speaking. There is nothing more striking in Paul"s character than his self-command and composure in all circ.u.mstances. This ship could rise to any wave, and ride in any storm. It was not by virtue of happy temperament but of a fixed faith that his heart and mind were kept in perfect peace. It is not easy to disturb a man who counts not his life dear if only he may complete his course. So these two men front each other, and it is hard to tell which has the quieter pulse and the steadier hand. The same sources of tranquil self-control and calm superiority to fortune which stood Paul in such good stead are open to us. If G.o.d is our rock and our high tower we shall not be moved.
The tribune had for some unknown reason settled in his mind that the Apostle was a well-known "Egyptian," who had headed a band of "Sicarii"
or "dagger-men," of whose b.l.o.o.d.y doings Josephus tells us. How the Jews should have been trying to murder such a man Lysias does not seem to have considered. But when he heard the courteous, respectful Greek speech of the Apostle he saw at once that he had got no uncultured ruffian to deal with, and in answer to Paul"s request and explanation gave him leave to speak. That has been thought an improbability. But strong men recognise each other, and the brave Roman was struck with something in the tone and bearing of the brave Jew which made him instinctively sure that no harm would come of the permission. There ought to be that in the demeanour of a Christian which is as a testimonial of character for him, and sways observers to favourable constructions.
PAUL ON HIS OWN CONVERSION
"And it came to pa.s.s, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. 7. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why perseoutest thou Me? 8. And I answered, Who art Thou, Lord? And He said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. 9. And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of Him that spake to me.
10. And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do. 11. And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus. 12. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, 13. Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him. 14. And he said, The G.o.d of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of His mouth. 15. For thou shalt be His witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. 16. And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord."--ACTS xxii.
6-16.
We follow Paul"s example when we put Jesus" appearance to him from heaven in a line with His appearances to the disciples on earth. "Last of all, He appeared to me also." But it does not follow that the appearances are all of the same kind, or that Paul thought that they were. They were all equally real, equally "objective," equally valid proofs of Jesus" risen life. On two critical occasions Paul told the story of Jesus" appearance as his best "Apologia." "I saw and heard Him, and that revolutionised my life, and made me what I am." The two accounts are varied, as the hearers were, but the differences are easily reconciled, and the broad facts are the same in both versions, and in Luke"s rendering in chapter ix.
A favourite theory in some quarters is that Paul"s conversion was not sudden, but that misgivings had been working in him ever since Stephen"s death. Surely that view is clean against facts. Persecuting its adherents to the death is a strange result of dawning belief in "this way." Paul may be supposed to have known his state of mind as well as a critic nineteen centuries off does, and he had no doubt that he set out from Jerusalem a bitter hater of the convicted impostor Jesus, and stumbled into Damascus a convinced disciple because he had seen and heard Him. That is his account of the matter, which would not have been meddled with if the meddlers had not taken offence at "the supernatural element." We note the emphasis which Paul puts on the suddenness of the appearance, implying that the light burst all in a moment. A little bit of personal reminiscence comes up in his specifying the time as "about noon," the brightest hour. He remembers how the light outblazed even the blinding brilliance of a Syrian noontide. He insists too on the fact that his senses were addressed, both eye and ear. He saw the glory of that light, and heard the voice.
He does not say here that he saw Jesus, but that he did so is clear from Ananias" words, "to see the Righteous One" (ver. 14), and from I Corinthians xv. 8. Further, he makes it very emphatic that the vision was certified as no morbid fancy of his own, but yet was marked as meant for him only, by the double fact that his companions did share in it, but only in part. They did see the light, but not "the Righteous One"; they did hear the sound of the voice, but not so as to know what it said. The difference between merely hearing a noise and discerning the sense of the words is probably marked by the construction in the Greek, and is certainly to be understood.
The blaze struck all the company to the ground (Acts xxvi. 14). p.r.o.ne on the earth, and probably with closed eyes, their leader heard his own name twice sounded, with appeal, authority, and love in the tones. The startling question which followed not only pierced conscience, and called for a reasonable vindication of his action, but flashed a new light on it as being persecution which struck at this unknown heavenly speaker. So the first thought in Saul"s mind is not about himself or his doings but about the ident.i.ty of that Speaker. Awe, if not actual worship, is expressed in addressing Him as Lord. Wonder, with perhaps some foreboding of what the answer would be, is audible in the question, "Who art Thou?" Who can imagine the shock of the answer to Saul"s mind? Then the man whom he had thought of as a vile apostate, justly crucified and not risen as his dupes dreamed, lived in heaven, knew him, Saul, and all that he had been doing, was "apparelled in celestial light," and yet in heavenly glory was so closely identified with these poor people whom he had been hunting to death that to strike them was to hurt Him! A bombsh.e.l.l had burst, shattering the foundation of his fortifications. A deluge had swept away the ground on which he had stood. His whole life was revolutionised. Its most solid elements were dissolved into vapour, and what he had thought misty nonsense was now the solid thing. To find a "why" for his persecuting was impossible, unless he had said (what in effect he did say), "I did it ignorantly." When a man has a glimpse of Jesus exalted to heaven, and is summoned by Him to give a reason for his life of alienation, that life looks very different from what it did, when seen by dimmer light.
Clothes are pa.s.sable by candle-light that look very shabby in sunshine.
When Jesus comes to us, His first work is to set us to judge our past, and no man can muster up respectable answers to His question, "Why?"
for all sin is unreasonable, and nothing but obedience to Him can vindicate itself in His sight.
Saul threw down his arms at once. His characteristic impetuosity and eagerness to carry out his convictions impelled him to a surrender as complete as his opposition. The test of true belief in the ascended Jesus is to submit the will to Him, to be chiefly desirous of knowing His will, and ready to do it. "Who art Thou, Lord?" should be followed by "What shall I do, Lord?"
Blind Saul, led by the hand into the city which he had expected to enter so differently, saw better than ever before. "The glory of that light" blinds us to things seen, but makes us able to see afar off the only realities, the things unseen. Speaking to Jews, as here, Paul described Ananias as a devout adherent of the law, in order to conciliate them and to suggest his great principle that a Christian was not an apostate but a complete Jew. To Agrippa he drops all reference to Ananias as irrelevant, and throws together the words on the road and the commission received through Ananias as equally Christ"s voice. Here he lays stress on his agency in restoring sight, and on his message as including two points--that it was "the G.o.d of our fathers" who had "appointed" the vision, and that the purpose of the vision was to make Saul a witness to all men. The bearing of this on the conciliatory aim of the discourse is plain. We note also the precedence given in the statement of the particulars of the vision to "knowing his will"--that was the end for which the light and the voice were given. Observe too how the twofold evidence of sense is signalised, both in the reference to seeing the Righteous One and to hearing His voice and in the commission to witness what Saul had seen and heard. The personal knowledge of Jesus, however attained, const.i.tutes the qualification and the obligation to be His witness. And the convincing testimony is when we can say, as we all can say if we are Christ"s, "That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that ... declare we unto you."
ROME PROTECTS PAUL
"And it came to pa.s.s, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the Temple, I was in a trance; 18. And saw Him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning Me. 19. And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on Thee: 20. And when the blood of Thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. 21. And He said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. 22. And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. 23. And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, 24. The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. 25.
And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? 26. When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman. 27. Then the chief captain came, and said, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. 28. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. 29.
Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. 30. On the morrow, because he would have known the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his bands, and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down, and set him before them."--ACTS xxii. 17-30.
The threatened storm soon burst on Paul in Jerusalem. On the third day after his arrival he began the ceremonial recommended by the elders to prove his adherence to the law. Before the seven days during which it lasted were over the riot broke out, and he was saved from death only by the military tribune hurrying down to the Temple and dragging him from the mob.
The tribune"s only care was to stamp out a riot, and whether the victim was "that Egyptian" or not, to prevent his being murdered. He knew nothing, and cared as little, about the grounds of the tumult, but he was not going to let a crowd of turbulent Jews take the law into their own hands, and flout the majesty of Roman justice. So he lets the nearly murdered man say his say and keeps the mob off him. It was a strange scene--below, the howling zealots; above, on the stairs, the Christian apologists guarded from his countrymen by a detachment of legionaries; and the a.s.sembly presided over by a Roman tribune.
It is very characteristic of Paul that he thought that his own conversion was the best argument that he could use with his fellow-Israelites. So he tells his story, and this section strikes into his speech at the point where he is coming to very thin ice indeed, and is about to vindicate his work among the Gentiles by declaring that it was done in obedience to a command from heaven. We need not discuss the date of the trance, whether it was in his first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion or, as Ramsay strongly argues, is to be put at the visit mentioned in Acts xi. 30 and xii. 25.
We note the delicate, conciliatory skill with which he brings out that his conversion had not made him less a devout worshipper in the Temple, by specifying it as the scene of the trance, and prayer as his occupation then. The mention of the Temple also invested the vision with sanct.i.ty.
Very noticeable too is the avoidance of the name of Jesus, which would have stirred pa.s.sion in the crowd. We may also observe that the first words of our Lord, as given by Paul, did not tell him whither he was to go, but simply bade him leave Jerusalem. The full announcement of the mission to the Gentiles was delayed both by Jesus to Paul and by Paul to his brethren. He was to "get quickly out of Jerusalem"; that was tragic enough. He was to give up working for his own people, whom he loved so well. And the reason was their rooted incredulity and their hatred of him. Other preachers might do something with them, but Paul could not. "They will not receive testimony of _thee_."
But the Apostle"s heart clung to his nation, and not even his Lord"s command was accepted without remonstrance. His patriotism led him to the verge of disobedience, and encouraged him to put in his "But, Lord," with boldness that was all but presumption. He ventures to suggest a reason why the Jews _would_, as he thinks, receive his testimony. They knew what he had been, and they must bethink themselves that there must be something real and mighty in the power which had turned his whole way of thinking and living right round, and made him love all that he had hated, and count all that he had prized "but dung." The remonstrance is like Moses", like Jeremiah"s, like that of many a Christian set to work that goes against the grain, and called to relinquish what he would fain do, and do what he would rather leave undone.
But Jesus does not take His servants" remonstrances amiss, if only they will make them frankly to Him, and not keep muttering them under their breath to themselves. Let us say all that is in our hearts. He will listen, and clear away hesitations, and show us our path, and make us willing to walk in it. Jesus did not discuss the matter with Paul, but reiterated the command, and made it more pointed and clear; and then Paul stopped objecting and yielded his will, as we should do. "When he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done." The Apostle had kept from the obnoxious word as long as he could, but it had to come, and he tells the enraged listeners at last, without circ.u.mlocution, that he is the Apostle of the Gentiles, that Jesus has made him so against his will, and that therefore he must do the work appointed him, though his heart-strings crack with seeming to be cold to Israel.
The burst of fury, expressed in gestures which anybody who has ever seen two Easterns quarrelling can understand, looks fitter for a madhouse than an audience of men in their senses. They yelled and tore their garments (and their beards, no doubt), and clutched handfuls of dust and tossed it in the air, like Shimei cursing David. What a picture of frenzied hate! And what was it all for? Because Gentiles were to be allowed to share in Israel"s privileges. And what were the privileges which they thus jealously monopolised? The favour and protection of the G.o.d who, as their own prophets had taught them, was the G.o.d of the whole earth, and revealed Him to Israel that Israel might reveal Him to the world.
The less they entered into the true possession of their heritage, the more savagely they resented sharing it with the nations. The more their prerogative became a mere outward thing, the more they snarled at any one who proposed to partic.i.p.ate in it. To seek to keep religious blessings to one"s self is a conclusive proof that they are not really possessed. If we have them we shall long to impart them. Formal religionists always dislike missionary enterprise.
The tribune no doubt had been standing silently watching, in his strong, contemptuous Roman way, the paroxysm of rage sweeping over his troublesome charge. Of course he did not understand a word that the culprit had been saying, and could not make out what had produced the outburst. He felt that there was something here that he had not fathomed, and that he must get to the bottom of. It was useless to lay hold of any of these shrieking maniacs and try to get a reasonable word out of them. So he determined to see what he could make of the orator, who had already astonished him by traces of superior education, and was evidently no mere vulgar firebrand or sedition-monger. He might have tried gentler means of extracting the truth than scourging, but that process of "examination," as it is flatteringly called, was common, and has not been antiquated for so many centuries that we need wonder at this Roman officer using it.
Paul submitted, and was already tied up to some whipping-post, in an att.i.tude which would expose his back to the lash, when he quietly dropped, to the inferior officer detailed to superintend the flogging, the question which fell like a bombsh.e.l.l. Possibly the Apostle had not known what the soldiers were ordered to do with him till he was tied up. We cannot tell why he did not plead his citizenship sooner. But we may remember that at Philippi he did not plead it at all till after the scourging. Why he delayed so long in the present instance, and why he at last spoke the magic words, "I am a Roman citizen," we cannot say.
But we may gather the two lessons that Christ"s servants are often wise in submitting silently to wrongs, and that they are within their rights in availing themselves of legal defences against illegal treatment.
Whether silence or protest is the more expedient must be determined in each case by conscience, guided by the sought-for guidance of the enlightening Spirit. The determining consideration should be, Which course will best glorify my Master?
The information brought the tribune in haste to the place where the Apostle was still tied up. The tables were turned indeed. His brief answer, "Yea," was accepted at once, for to claim the sacred name of Roman falsely would have been too dangerous, and no doubt Paul"s bearing impressed the tribune with a conviction of his truthfulness. A hint of contempt and doubt lies in his remark that he had paid dearly for the franchise, which remark implies, "Where did a poor man like you get the money then?" A shameful trade in selling citizens" rights was carried on in the degraded days of the Empire by underlings at court, and no doubt the tribune had procured his citizenship in that way.
Paul"s answer explains that he was born free, and so was above his questioner.
That discovery put an end to all thought of scourging. Paul was at once liberated, and the tribune, terrified that he might be reported, seeks to repair his error and changes his tactics, retaining Paul for safety in the castle, and summoning the Sanhedrim, to try to find out more of this strange affair through them. The great council of the nation had sunk low indeed when it had to obey the call of a Roman soldier.
Thus once more, as so continually in the Acts, Rome is friendly to the Christian teachers and saves them from Jewish fury. To point out that early protection and benevolent sufferance is one purpose of the whole book. The days of Roman persecution had not yet come. The Empire was favourable to Christianity, not only because its officials were too proud to take interest in petty squabbles between two sects of Jews about their absurd superst.i.tions, but reasons of political wisdom combined with supercilious indifference to bring about this att.i.tude.
The strong hand of Rome, too, if it crushed national independence, also suppressed violence, kept men from flying at each other"s throats, spread peace over wide lands, and made the journeyings of Paul and the planting of the early Christian Churches possible. It was a G.o.d-appointed, though an imperfect, and in some aspects, mischievous unity, and prepared the way for that higher form of unity realised in the Church which finally shattered the coa.r.s.er Empire which had at first sheltered it. The Caesars were doing G.o.d"s work when they were following their own l.u.s.t of empire. They were yoked to Christ"s chariot, though unwitting and unwilling. To them, as truly as to Cyrus, might the divine voice have said, "I girded thee, though thou hast not known Me."
CHRIST"S WITNESSES
"And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome."--ACTS xxiii. 11.
It had long been Paul"s ambition to "preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also." His settled policy, as shown by this Book of the Acts, was to fly at the head, to attack the great centres of population. We trace him from Antioch to Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus; and of course Rome was the goal, where a blow struck at the heart might reverberate through the empire. So he had planned for it, and prayed about it, and thought about it, and spoken about it. But his wish was accomplished, as our prayers and purposes so often are, in a manner very strange to him. A popular riot in Jerusalem, a half-friendly arrest by the contemptuous impartiality of a Roman officer, a final rejection by the Sanhedrim, a prison in Caesarea, an appeal to Caesar, a weary voyage, a shipwreck: this was the chain of circ.u.mstances which fulfilled his desire, and brought him to the imperial city.
My text comes at the crisis of his fate. He has just been rejected by his people, and for the moment is in safety in the castle under the charge of the Roman garrison. One can fancy how, as he lay there in the barrack that night, he felt that he had come to a turning-point; and the thoughts were busy in his mind, "Is this for life or for death? Am I to do any more work for Christ, or am I silenced for ever?"--"And the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul!" The divine message a.s.sured him that he should live; it testified of Christ"s approbation of his past, and promised him that, in recompense for that past, he should have wider work to do. So he pa.s.sed to the unknown future quietly; and went on his way with the Master by his side.
Now, dear friends, it seems to me that in these great words there lie lessons applying to all Christian people as truly, though in different fashion, as they did to the Apostle, and having an especial bearing on that great enterprise of Christian missions, with which I would connect them in this sermon. I desire, then, to draw out the lessons which seem to me to lie under the surface of this great promise.
I. To live ought to be, for a Christian, to witness.
The promise in form is a promise of continued testimony-bearing; in its substance, one might say, it is a promise of continued life. Paul is cheered, not by being told that the wrath of the enemy will launch itself at his head in vain, and that he will bear a charmed life through it all, but by being told that there is work for him to do yet.
That is the shape in which the promise of life is held out to him. So it always ought to be; a Christian man"s life ought to be one continuous witnessing for that Lord Christ who stood by the Apostle in the castle at Jerusalem.
Let me just urge this upon you for a few moments. It seems to me that to raise up witnesses for Himself is, in one aspect, the very purpose of all Christ"s work. You and I, dear brethren, if we have any living hold of that Lord, have received Him into our hearts, not only in order that for ourselves we may rejoice in Him, but in order that, for ourselves rejoicing in Him, we may "show forth the virtues of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light." There is no creature so great as that he is not regarded as a means to a further end; and there is no creature so small but that he has the right to claim happiness and blessing from the Hand that made him. Jesus Christ has drawn us to Himself, that we may know the sweetness of His presence, the cleansing of His blood, the stirring and impulse of His indwelling life in us for our own joy and our own completion, but also that we may be His witnesses and weapons, according to that great word: "This people have I formed for Myself. They shall shew forth My praise."
G.o.d has "shined into our hearts in order that we may give," reflecting the beams that fall upon them, "the light of the knowledge of the glory of G.o.d, in the face of Jesus Christ." Brother and sister, if you have the Christian life in your souls, one purpose of your possessing it is that you may bear witness for Him.
Again, such witness-bearing is the result of all true, deep, Christian life. All life longs to manifest itself in action. Every conviction that a man has seeks for utterance; especially so do the beliefs that go deepest and touch the moral and spiritual nature and relationships of a man. He that perceives them is thereby impelled to desire to utter them. There can be no real, deep possession of that great truth of the Gospel which we profess to be the foundation of our personal lives, unless we have felt the impulse to spread the name and to declare the sweetness of the Lord. The very same impulse that makes the loving heart carve the beloved name on the smooth rind of the tree makes it sweet to one who is in real touch and living fellowship with Jesus Christ to speak about Him. O brother! _there_ is a very sharp test for us. I know that there are hundreds of professing Christians--decent, respectable sort of people, with a tepid, average amount of Christian faith and principle in them--who never felt that overmastering desire, "I _must_ let this thing out through my lips." Why? Why do they not feel it? Because their own possession of Christ is so superficial and partial. Jeremiah"s experience will be repeated where there is vigorous Christian life: "Thy word shut up in my bones was like a fire"--that burned itself through all the ma.s.s that was laid upon it, and ate its way victoriously into the light--"and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay." Christian men and women, do you know anything of that o"er-mastering impulse? If you do not, look to the depth and reality of your Christian profession.
Again, this witnessing is the condition of all strong life. If you keep nipping the buds off a plant you will kill it. If you never say a word to a human soul about your Christianity, your Christianity will tend to evaporate. Action confirms and strengthens convictions; speech deepens conviction; and although it is possible for any one--and some of us ministers are in great danger of making the possibility a reality--to talk away his religion, for one of us who loses it by speaking too much about it, there are twenty that damage it by speaking too little. Shut it up, and it will be like some wild creature put into a cellar, fast locked and unventilated; when you open the door it will be dead. Shut it up, as so many of our average Christian professors and members of our congregations and churches do, and when you come to take it out, it will be like some volatile perfume that has been put into a vial and locked away in a drawer and forgotten; there will be nothing left but an empty bottle, and a rotten cork. Speak your faith if you would have your faith strengthened. Muzzle it, and you go a long way to kill it.
You are witnesses, and you cannot blink the obligation nor shirk the duties without damaging that in yourselves to which you are to witness.
Further, this task of witnessing for Christ can be done by all kinds of life. I do not need to dwell upon the distinction between the two great methods which open themselves out before every one of us. They do so; for direct work in speaking the name of Jesus Christ is possible for every Christian, whoever he or she is, however weak, ignorant, uninfluential, with howsoever narrow a circle. There is always somebody that G.o.d means to be the audience of His servant whenever that servant speaks of Christ. Do you not know that there are people in this world, as wives, children, parents, friends of different sorts, who would listen to you more readily than they would listen to any one else speaking about Jesus Christ? Friend, have you utilised these relationships in the interests of that great Name, and in the highest interests of the persons that sustain them to you, and of yourselves who sustain these to them?
And then there is indirect work that we can all do in various ways, I do not mean only by giving money, though of course that is important, but I mean all the manifold ways in which Christian people can show their sympathy with, and their interest in, the various forms in which adventurous, chivalrous, enterprising Christian benevolence expresses itself. It was an old law in Israel that "as his part was that went down into the battle, so should his part be that tarried by the stuff."
When victory was won and the spoil came to be shared, the men who had stopped behind and looked after the base of operations and kept open the communications received the same portion as the man that, in the front rank of the battle, had rushed upon the spears of the Amalekites.