Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Acts 24:25

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Acts 24:25. As he reasoned of righteousness — δικαιοσυνης; The principles and requisitions of justice and right, between God and man; and between man and his fellows, in all relations and connections of life.

Temperance — εγκρατειας, Chastity; self-government or moderation with regard to a man's appetites, passions, and propensities of all kinds.

And judgment to come — κριματος του μελλοντος; The day of retribution, in which the unjust, intemperate, and incontinent, must give account of all the deeds done in the body. This discourse of St. Paul was most solemnly and pointedly adapted to the state of the person to whom it was addressed. Felix was tyrannous and oppressive in his government; lived under the power of avarice and unbridled appetites; and his incontinence, intemperance, and injustice, appear fully in depriving the king of Emesa of his wife, and in his conduct towards St. Paul, and the motives by which that conduct was regulated. And as to Drusilla, who had forsaken the husband of her youth, and forgotten the covenant of her God, and become the willing companion of this bad man, she was worthy of the strongest reprehension; and Paul's reasoning on righteousness, temperance, and judgment, was not less applicable to her than to her unprincipled paramour.

Felix trembled — "The reason of Felix's fear," says Bp. Pearce, "seems to have been, lest Drusilla, who was a Jewess, and knew that what she had done was against the law of Moses, might be influenced by Paul's discourse, and Felix's happiness with her disturbed. What is said of Felix, Acts 24:26, seems to show that he had no remorse of conscience for what he had done." On the head of Drusilla's scruples, he had little to fear; the king of Emesa, her husband, had been dead about three years before this; and as to Jewish scruples, she could be little affected by them: she had already acted in opposition to the Jewish law, and she is said to have turned heathen for the sake of Felix. We may therefore hope that Felix felt regret for the iniquities of his life; and that his conscience was neither so scared nor so hardened, as not to receive and retain some gracious impressions from such a discourse, delivered by the authority, and accompanied with the influence, of the Spirit of God. His frequently sending for the apostle, to speak with him in private, is a proof that he wished to receive farther instructions in a matter in which he was so deeply interested; though he certainly was not without motives of a baser kind; for he hoped to get money for the liberation of the apostle.

Go thy way for this time — His conscience had received as much terror and alarm as it was capable of bearing; and probably he wished to hide, by privacy, the confusion and dismay which, by this time, were fully evident in his countenance.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

24:1-28:31 PAUL FAREWELLS THE EAST; GOES TO ROME

Imprisoned in Caesarea two years (24:1-27)

In the trial before Felix, the Jews used a professional lawyer to present their case (24:1-4). They made three accusations against Paul. Firstly, he created uprisings among the Jews, the suggestion being that he was stirring up rebellion against Rome. Secondly, he was a leader of the Nazarenes, a religious group that operated without government permission and therefore was probably rebellious against Rome. Thirdly, he had defiled the temple in Jerusalem (5-9).
Paul began his defence by denying that he had stirred up the people in Jerusalem. No one could prove such a claim (10-13). Secondly, he admitted that he was a follower of ‘the Way’, but this was the true continuation and completion of the ancient Israelite religion. It was not a new sect, neither was it false. Paul believed in the resurrection of the dead, as did most Jews, and he worshipped the same God as they did (14-16). Finally, he had not defiled the temple; in fact, he had carried out a ceremony of purification. In addition he had brought gifts to help his fellow Jews in their need. The Sanhedrin’s only accusation against him concerned his belief in the resurrection, and even that was supported by only one section of it (17-21).
Felix knew the Jews well and plainly saw that Paul was not guilty, but out of fear of the Jews he would not release him. So Paul spent the next two years in prison, though he was allowed to receive visits from friends (22-23; see v. 27). Felix wanted to find out more about Paul’s Christian beliefs, but he became uncomfortable when Paul spoke of the need for right behaviour and the certainty of coming judgment. Paul could have been released had he been willing to pay the bribe Felix was seeking, but he refused. Felix therefore left him in prison till the arrival of the next governor, who could handle the case as he wished (24-27).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

And as he reasoned of righteousness, and self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was terrified, and answered, Go thy way for this time; and when I have a convenient season, I will call thee unto me.

Such subjects as Paul discussed with Felix were calculated to inspire terror in any man who fully comprehends their meaning. God is righteous and the imperishable enemy of all wickedness. The entire book of Romans is given over to a discussion of this theme; and what is indicated here is but a summary of all that Paul said before Felix.

Self-control … is a quality of character demanded of all who hope to be saved; and the persons who composed Paul's audience on this occasion were notoriously deficient in it.

Judgment to come … This is one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity (Hebrews 6:2). Briefly stated, it means that Jesus Christ will summon all the dead and living of the entire world to the judgment of the Great Day, and that every man shall receive the reward of the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. The Christian concept of a universal judgment day is essential to all sanity in this present life. Without faith in the judgment, it must ever appear that the righteous are frustrated; but in this conception of what will finally occur, there lies the conviction that "even a cup of cold water" given in the name of the Lord shall not lose its reward. See more on "The Judgment" in my Commentary on Matthew under Matthew 12:41 ff; Matthew 25:31 ff., in my Commentary on John, under Luke 5:29 and in my Commentary on Hebrews under Hebrews 6:2. One may only grieve for the fact that widespread preaching on the subject of eternal judgment has subsided or disappeared altogether in many churches; but right here is the power that convicted sinners like those who heard Paul here; and if modern churches would have any convicting power, let them preach the word of God on such subjects as this.

A convenient season … Nothing that we know of either Felix or Drusilla leads us to suppose that a "convenient day" ever came for them. "Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2). Satan will see to it that no man finds it "convenient," either to surrender himself to Jesus or to forsake the pursuits of the flesh which are antecedent to it.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

And as he reasoned - Greek: “And he discoursing” - διαλεγομένου δὲ αὐτοῦ dialegomenou de autou. No argument should be drawn from the word that is used here to prove that Paul particularly appealed to reason, or that his discourse was argumentative. That it was so is, indeed, not improbable, from all that we know of the man, and from the topics on which he discoursed. But the word used here means simply as he discoursed, and is applied usually to making a public address, to preaching, etc., in whatever way it is done, Acts 17:2; Acts 18:4, Acts 18:19; Acts 19:8-9; Acts 24:12. Felix and Drusilla intended this as a matter of entertainment or amusement. Paul readily obeyed their summons, since it gave him an opportunity to preach the gospel to them; and as they desired his sentiments in regard to the faith in Christ, he selected those topics which were adapted to their condition, and stated those principles of the Christian religion which were suited to arrest their attention, and to lead them to repentance. Paul seized every opportunity of making known the gos pel; and whether a prisoner or at liberty; whether before princes, governors, kings, or common people, he was equally prepared to defend the pure and holy doctrines of the cross. His boldness in this instance is the more remarkable, as he was dependent on Felix for his release. A time-server or an impostor would have chosen such topics as would have conciliated the favor of the judge, and procured his discharge from custody. He would have flattered his vanity or palliated his vices. But such an idea never seems to have occurred to Paul. His aim was to defend the truth, and to save, if possible, the souls of Drusilla and of Felix.

Of righteousness - περὶ δικαιοσύνης peri dikaiosunēs. Of justice. Not of the justice of God particularly, but of the nature and requirements of justice in the relations of life the relations which we sustain to God and to man. This was a proper topic with which to introduce his discourse, as it was the office of Felix to dispense justice between man and man, and as his administration was not remarkable for the exercise of that virtue. It is evident that he could be influenced by a bribe Acts 24:26, and it was proper for Paul to dwell on this, as designed to show him the guilt of his life, and his danger of meeting the justice of a Being who cannot be bribed, but who will dispense equal justice alike to the great and the mean. That Paul dwelt also on the justice of God, as the moral governor of the world, may also be presumed. The apprehension of that justice, and the remembrance of his own guilty life, tended to produce the alarm of Felix, and to make him tremble.

Temperance - ἐγκρατείας egkrateias. The word “temperance” we now use commonly to denote “moderation or restraint” in regard to eating and drinking, particularly to abstinence from the use of ardent spirits. But this is not its meaning here. There is no reason to suppose that Felix was intemperate in the use of intoxicating liquors. The original word here denotes a restraint of all the passions and evil inclinations, and may be applied to prudence, chastity, and moderation in general. The particular thing in the life of Felix which Paul had probably in view was the indulgence of licentious desires, or incontinence. He was living in adultery with Drusilla, and for this Paul wished doubtless to bring him to repentance.

And judgment to come - The universal judgment that was to come on all transgressors. On this topic Paul also dwelt when he preached on Mars’ Hill at Athens, Acts 17:31. These topics were admirably adapted to excite the alarm of both Felix and Drusilla. It evinced great boldness and faithfulness in Paul to select them, and the result showed that he correctly judged of the kind of truth which was adapted to alarm the fears of his guilty auditor.

Felix trembled - In view of his past sins, and in the apprehension of the judgment to come. The Greek ἔμφοβος emphobos does not denote that his body was agitated or shaken, but only that he was alarmed or terrified. That such fear usually shakes the frame, we know; but it is not certain that the body of Felix was thus agitated. He was alarmed and terrified, and looked with deep apprehension to the coming judgment. This was a remarkable instance of the effect of truth on the mind of a man unaccustomed to such alarms, and unused to hear such truth. It shows the power of conscience when thus, under the preaching of a prisoner, the judge is thrown into violent alarm.

And answered, Go thy way ... - How different is this answer from that of the jailor of Philippi when alarmed in a similar manner! He asked, “What must I do to be saved?” and was directed to him in whom he found peace from a troubled conscience, Acts 16:30-31. Felix was troubled; but instead of asking what he should do, he sent the messenger of God away. He was evidently not prepared to break off his sins and turn to God. He sought peace by sending away his reprover, and manifestly intended then to banish the subject from his mind. Yet, like others, he did not intend to banish it altogether. He looked forward to a time when he would be more at leisure; when the cares of office would press less heavily on his attention; or when he would be more disposed to attend to it. Thus, multitudes, when they are alarmed, and see their guilt and danger, resolve to defer it to a more convenient time.

One man is engaged in a career of pleasure, and it is not now a convenient time to attend to his soul’s salvation. Another is pressed with business; with the cares of life; with a plan of gain; with the labors of office or of a profession, and it is not now a convenient time for him to attend to religion. Another supposes that his time of life is not the most convenient. His youth he desires to spend in pleasure, and waits for a more convenient time in middle age. His middle life he spends in business, and this is not a convenient time. Such a period he expects then to find in old age. But as age advances he finds an increasing disposition to defer it; he is still indisposed to attend to it; still in love with the world. Even old age is seldom found to be a convenient time to prepare for heaven; and it is deferred from one period of life to another, until death closes the scene. It has been commonly supposed and said that Felix never found that more convenient time to call for Paul. That he did not embrace the Christian religion, and forsake his sins, is probable, nay, almost certain. But it is not true that he did not take an opportunity of hearing Paul further on the subject; for it is said that he sent for him often, and communed with him. But, though Felix found this opportunity, yet:

(1) We have no reason to suppose that the main thing - the salvation of his soul - ever again occupied his attention. There is no evidence that he was again alarmed or awakened, or that he had any further solicitude on the subject of his sins. He had passed forever the favorable time - the golden moments when he might have secured the salvation of his soul.

(2) Others have no right to suppose that their lives will be lengthened out that they may have any further opportunity to attend to the subject of religion.

(3) When a sinner is awakened, and sees his past sins, if he rejects the appeal to his conscience then, and defers it to a more convenient opportunity, he has no reason to expect that his attention will ever be again called with deep interest to the subject. He may live, but he may live without the strivings of the Holy Spirit. When a man has once deliberately rejected the offers of mercy; when he has trifled with the influences of the Spirit of God, he has no right or reason to expect that that Spirit will ever strive with him again. Such, we have too much reason to fear, was the case with Felix. Though he often saw Paul again, and “communed with him,” yet there is no statement that he was again alarmed or awakened. And thus sinners often attend on the means of grace after they have grieved the Holy Spirit; they listen to the doctrines of the gospel, they hear its appeals and its warnings, but they have no feeling, no interest, and die in their sins.

A convenient season - Greek: “taking time.” I will take a time for this.

I will call for thee - To hear thee further on this subject. This he did, Acts 24:26. It is remarkable that Drusilla was not alarmed. She was as much involved in guilt as Felix; but she, being a Jewess, had been accustomed to hear of a future judgment until it caused in her mind no alarm. Perhaps also she depended on the rites and ceremonies of her religion as a sufficient expiation for her sins. She might have been resting on those false dependencies which go to free the conscience from a sense of guilt, and which thus beguile and destroy the soul.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

−

25.And as he disputed. Felix hoped that he should take some delight in Paul’s sermon; as men who are desirous of new things do willingly feed their ears with subtle disputations; also he meant to satisfy his wife’s desire without his own trouble; now, he is enforced to feel that force of the Word of God, whereof he never thought, which driveth away all his delights. Paul, out of bonds, disputeth of the judgment of God; he which had power to put him to death, or to save his life, is afraid and quaketh as if he stood before his own judge; neither doth he find any other comfort, but to send him away out of his sight. Let us first learn by this, what great force of the Spirit of God there was both in the heart and also in the tongue of Paul, because he seeth that he must speak in the name of Christ, he doth not behave himself like an underling; − ⁽⁵⁹³⁾ but he declareth the embassage which was enjoined him, with a grace, as from on high, and having forgotten that he was in bonds, he denounceth the heavenly judgment in the person of Christ. And now seeing Felix’ heart is so pricked with the voice of a prisoner, the majesty of the Spirit doth show itself in that also, which Christ extolleth; when the Spirit shall come he shall judge the world, etc., and that force of prophesying, which the same Paul setteth forth elsewhere ( 1 Corinthians 14:24). Also, that is fulfilled which he saith in another place, that the word of God was not bound with him; which he did not only stoutly maintain and affirm to be true, but which did effectually pierce into the hearts of men, (and that of such as were proud of their greatness) as if it did lighten from heaven. −

Again, we must note, that although the reprobate be stricken with the judgment of God, yet are they not renewed unto repentance by that terror alone. Felix is touched indeed, when he heareth that God shall be the Judge of the world; yet he fleeth therewithal from his judgment-seat, (whereof he is afraid) so that this is feigned sorrow, which doth not work salvation. Therefore, repentance requireth such fear as may both engender a voluntary hatred of sin, and may also present a man before God, that he may willingly suffer himself to be judged by his word. And this is a token of true profiting when the sinner seeketh for medicine there, from whence he received his wound. Furthermore, this place doth teach that men are then examined and tried to the quick, when their vices, wherewith they are infected, are brought to light, and their consciences are called back unto the judgment to come. For when Paul disputeth of righteousness and temperance, he did rub Felix sore upon the gall; forasmuch as he was both a man given to filthy pleasure, and also to dissolute riot, and given over unto iniquity. −

(593) −

“ Non submisse agit,” he does not act crouchingly.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn now to chapter twenty-four in the book of Acts.

Paul had been seen in the temple worshipping God by some of the Jews that were from Asia who were familiar with Paul's ministry among the Gentiles. They immediately began to cry out against his being there in the temple, stirring up the Jews who grabbed hold of Paul and were in the process of beating him to death when Paul was rescued by those Roman soldiers, the guards who were dispatched from Antonial fortress to free him from this angry mob there on the temple mount.

Paul attempted to talk to the people from the steps of the Antonio fortress recounting for them his conversion. But when he made mention of the Gentiles, it just created a riot. The next day, the Roman captain Lysias wanted to find out just what the raucous was all about, so he called for the Sanhedrin and had Paul appear before them that they might make their charges. Paul, in giving his defense, knowing that they were divided between the Sadducees and Pharisees, said, "I am a Pharisee, the son of the Pharisee, and because I believe in the resurrection from the dead, I'm here before you" ( Acts 23:6 ). And the Pharisees immediately took his part, the Sadducees took out against him. They had such a rabble between themselves. The captain thought they were going to tear Paul to pieces, so the second time he rescued them from the Jewish people.

And then Paul's nephew heard that forty men had taken a vow not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. And so they went to the high priest, exposed their vow and their plot, and they said, "Now you call for Paul tomorrow afternoon like you want to ask him some questions, and while they're bringing him to you, we're going to jump him and kill him." So the nephew came in and told Paul. Paul sent his nephew to the captain, who then commanded that in the middle of the night some two hundred spearmen, seventy cavalrymen and two hundred foot soldiers accompany Paul from Jerusalem to take him to Caesarea under the protective custody of the Roman government. And now Paul has come down to Caesarea, and the elders of Israel are invited to come down and prefer their charges against Paul there.

So that brings us to the beginning of chapter twenty-four.

After five days Ananias the high priest descended with the elders, and with a certain orator named Tertullus, who informed the governor against Paul ( Acts 24:1 ).

Now we have this fellow Tertullus, the orator, who is so flattering to this wicked man Felix that it is nauseating.

And when he was called forth, Tertullus began to accuse Paul, saying [first of all to Felix], Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very worthy deeds are done unto this nation by thy providence, we accept it always, and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness. Notwithstanding, that I be not further tedious unto thee, I pray thee that thou wouldest hear us of thy clemency a few words. For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes ( Acts 24:2-5 ):

These are very serious charges that Tertullus is pressing against Paul, because one thing that the Roman government did not tolerate and that was an uprising in the provinces against Rome. The Jews had a history of rebellion that the Roman Empire had to already put down in the past, and they knew that there were those who were constantly inciting the people to riot against the Roman rule. And so the charges of a pestilent fellow, one who stirs up sedition among the Jews--the idea is that he is stirring up sedition against the Roman rule and he is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

There were many religious uprisings in Israel, many men who would gather together groups of men around them and who would then in their religious fanaticism inspire them to rebel against Rome. So he is saying, "You've got a fellow here who is the ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes and as such, he is apt to stir them into a religious fervor to rebel against Rome."

Who also hath gone about to profane the temple: whom we took, and would have judged according to our law ( Acts 24:6 ).

It sounds from Tertullus that they arrested Paul and were going to bring him to trial. Far from the truth. Paul was caught by a mob and it was a lynching mob. They were going to lynch him. And so he is certainly misrepresenting the truth to Felix.

But the chief captain Lysias came upon us, and with great violence took him away out of our hands ( Acts 24:7 ),

In reality, Lysias rescued Paul from being beaten to death by the mob.

And then he commanded his accusers to come unto thee: and by examining of whom thyself mayest take knowledge of all of the things, whereof we accuse him. And all of the Jews that had come with him were assenting, saying that these things were so ( Acts 24:8-9 ).

Notice that all of the charges were without substantial witnesses. Everything that they were declaring was hearsay. None of them could give actual testimony against Paul in these things.

So Paul [speaking in his own defense], after the governor had beckoned unto him to speak, he answered, Forasmuch as I know that you have been of many years a judge unto this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself: because that you may understand, that there are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem to worship ( Acts 24:10-11 ).

It was just twelve days earlier Paul had gone to Jerusalem from Caesarea, or actually it was just twelve days that he had been in Jerusalem, he had five and fifteen days from Caesarea to Jerusalem, and "it was just twelve days that I was in Jerusalem. I had gone to worship the Lord."

And they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man, neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogues, nor in the city ( Acts 24:12 ):

They didn't find me doing any of these things.

Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me ( Acts 24:13 ).

Paul is denying the charges that are made against him, declaring that they are not able to prove any of them. "They have not found me doing these things that they declare so that their declarations would only be hearsay."

This I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers ( Acts 24:14 ),

The term "the way" was the term used in the early church to describe themselves. They were living a new way of life with Jesus at the center of their life. Jesus had said to His disciples, "I am the way: no man comes to the Father but by me" ( John 14:6 ). And so they picked up this term "the way" and they used it to describe the Christian fellowship in the early years of the church. At least six times this term "the way" is used to describe the believers in the book of Acts.

The term "Christian" was not at all a common term nor really a biblical term for Christianity in the beginning. It became a term used ultimately because Peter in writing his epistle said, "If any of you suffer as a Christian" ( 1 Peter 4:16 ). But that is the only time the term "Christian" was used by Christians in the New Testament; whereas the term "the way" was used many different times and was a far more common name for the followers of Jesus Christ than the name "Christian." The name "Christian" is used only three times in all of the New Testament, where it mentions in Antioch that there the disciples were first called Christians.

Next week in the twenty-sixth chapter of Acts, as Agrippa challenges Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to become a Christian" ( Acts 26:28 ). So that there it was used not by the Christians themselves, but by others who were referring to those who were believers in Jesus Christ. But "the way"--the way to God through Christ. And so, "after the way which they call heresy, I worship the God of my fathers." Or, he had come to worship God through Jesus Christ recognizing that Jesus is the only way by which a man can approach God.

The second thing Paul confessed:

I believe all the things which are written in the law and in the prophets ( Acts 24:14 ):

In making this declaration, he is declaring his belief in all of those prophecies concerning the Messiah and then his belief that Jesus was the Messiah.

The Old Testament is full of prophecies all relating to the Messiah, prophecies that Jesus literally fulfilled. And if you will just take the chance factors of one man fulfilling these prophecies, you will find that it becomes solid proof that Jesus indeed was the Messiah. Could not have fulfilled these unless He was indeed the Messiah. His place of birth, "And thou, Bethlehem, though thou be little among the provinces of Judah, yet out of thee shall come He who is to rule my people whose going forth is from old, from everlasting"( Micah 5:2 ). There's only one chance in 250,000 for a person to be born in Bethlehem. A little village, and yet, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And right on down the line you can take prediction after prediction and find out that Jesus literally fulfilled them.

Paul said, "I believe the prophets and the law." All of the things which are written in the law and in the prophets. That's more than what you can say for a lot of ministers today who have sought to eliminate much of the law and the prophets, as well as much of the New Testament. Paul declared himself to be a believer in all of these things.

Paul the apostle, when he would go into a new community, would usually go into the synagogue and just take their scriptures and teach them concerning the Messiah out of their own scriptures, and then he would go about to show that Jesus was the Messiah. That can be done very easily with the scriptures of the Old Testament.

Jesus said, "You do search the scriptures because in them you think you have life, but actually they testify of Me" ( John 5:39 ). And again, "I have come as it is written of Me in the volume of the book to do Thy will, O Lord" ( Hebrews 10:7 ). And as you go through the Old Testament with the anointing and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, you find that Jesus is there in every page.

You remember how the Ethiopian eunuch was on his way back, and there in the Gaza strip when Philip met him, he was reading the scriptures and Philip began at that place and preached Christ unto him. That would be possible in just about any place in the Old Testament; you could begin at that verse and preach Christ. The volume of the book is written of Him.

Paul just declares, "I believe in those prophecies." And even in the law there were so many prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah. And then Paul confessed:

And I have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust ( Acts 24:15 ).

So Paul's belief in the resurrection, both of the just and the unjust. Of course, in the book of Revelation we find out that there will be actually two resurrections--one of the just and the second of the unjust. And there will be approximately a thousand years intervening between the two resurrections. "The rest of the dead live not until the thousand years were expired. Blessed is he who taketh part in the first resurrection; over him the second death has no power" ( Revelation 20:5-6 ).

I believe that the first resurrection takes place over a period of time. That Jesus was indeed the firstfruits of those who rise from the dead and as He said, "He who lives and believes in Me shall never die" ( John 11:26 ). And that for the child of God, death is an immediate transition from this old tent into the new house, and that Revelation chapter nineteen is in fact the account of the first resurrection. That is, the completion of it. The final ones to enter into that first resurrection are those martyred saints during the tribulation period, and they complete the first resurrection.

But I believe that the minute a person's spirit has moved out of this body that it moves in to the new building of God, not made with hands. Paul the apostle, writing his Corinthian epistle, the second one, said that, "We know that when this earthly tabernacle or this earthly tent, our earthly body, this tabernacle, is dissolved" (that is, when my body goes back to dust), "that we have a building of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So then we who are in these bodies do often groan earnestly desiring to be delivered or earnestly desiring to move out of them, not that I would become unclothed, or not that I would be an unembodied spirit (my earnest desire isn't to be some ether essence in the atmosphere, unembodied spirit), but I desire to be clothed upon with a body which is from heaven or I desire to move into my new house, the building of God not made with hands; so then we who are in this body do often groan earnestly desiring to be delivered, not that we would be unclothed but to be clothed upon with a body which is from heaven. For we know that as long as we are living in these bodies, at home in these bodies, we are absent from the Lord but we would choose rather to be absent from these bodies and be present with the Lord" ( 2 Corinthians 5:1-6 ).

Someday when you read in the paper, "Chuck Smith died," don't believe that. Jesus said, "If I live and believe in Him, I'll never die.". So call the reporters and say, "That's poor reporting. Chuck Smith moved, out of an old worn out tent and into a beautiful new house." Building of God not made with hands.

The Bible teaches that man basically is spirit, not body. We relate to each other through our bodies and we've come to associate each other with our bodies, but the real me is spirit. The body is just the instrument by which my spirit can express itself. But the body isn't me, and one day I'm going to leave this body and I'm going to move in to a new house. This is an old tent; it's wearing out. But I'm going to move into the building of God.

Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions" ( John 14:2 ). People, I am sure, have a wrong concept of that, as you think of some beautiful estate on ten acres with beautiful gardens and a ten-bedroom mansion. Big columns in the front, and you each have your green mansion. I really believe that Jesus was referring to the building of God not made with hands, that new body that He has for me. He said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'm going to come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also" ( John 14:2-3 ).

In my new body I'm not going to need a bathroom. Or a bedroom. So He's talking about the building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Notice the contrast: a tent is always considered as transient, temporal; the building of God, eternal in the heavens. The tent to the building of God.

Paul in writing his first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter fifteen, uses nature to illustrate the principle of resurrection. How that the persons were asking, "How are the dead raised and with what body will they come?" And that is a question that people often ask. What kind of a body am I going to have and when this body is changed? A lot of people seem to be quite attached to these bodies, in their minds at least, and they want to somehow hold on to this body. I've held on to mine long enough. I'm ready to discard it for the new building of God not made with hands.

Paul said, "Don't you realize that when you plant a seed into the ground, the seed does not come forth into new life until it first of all dies? And then the body that comes out of the ground is not the body that you planted. Take special note of that. The body that comes out of the ground is not the body that you planted. For all you planted was a bare grain and now God has given to it a body that pleases Him; and so is the resurrection from the dead. You are planted in weakness but you'll be raised in power. You are planted in corruption; you'll be raised in incorruption. You're planted in dishonor; you'll be raised in glory. You're planted as a natural body; you'll be raised in a spiritual body" ( 1 Corinthians 15:36 , 1 Corinthians 15:38 , 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 ).

For there is a natural body and a spiritual body and the difference between the celestial and the terrestrial. So that "even as we have borne the image of the earthen and have been earthy, so shall we bear the image of the heavens" ( 1 Corinthians 15:49 ). When God made this body for me, He made it and adapted it for the environmental conditions of the earth. My body withstands fourteen pounds of pressure per square inch. My body takes the oxygen out of the seventy-nine/twenty nitrogen-oxygen balance of the atmosphere. God designed the body for the earth. He didn't design it for heaven.

If man takes his body out of the earth's environmental conditions, he can only do it by taking artificial environment with him. Now God could give you a pressurized space suit, and He could give you nitrogen and oxygen tanks and He could revive this old body if He so desired. And you could go clomping around heaven with your weighted shoes to hold you down in the clumsy, awkward spacesuit with the tanks on your back. But I would just as soon have that new building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. A new body designed for the heavenly conditions.

God wants me to be with Him in His kingdom. And so in order that I might transfer from the environment of the earth into the heavenly kingdom, I need this change of body, which shall take place at death when the earthly tent is dissolved and I move into the building of God not made with hands. Man says he died, the Bible says I moved.

So Paul said, "I believe in the resurrection, both of the just and the unjust." We will have part in the first resurrection. "Blessed is he for over him the second death has no power".

This concept immediately puts to silence the ridicule of the atheist and the unbeliever who foresee horrible problems in the resurrection day when the bodies are trying to assemble themselves together again. Those that have been cremated and their ashes spread, or those that have been buried and their bodies decomposed and become a part of the soil, and the nutrients from their bodies feeding the roots of the grass that the cows eat to produce the milk, that you drink which assimilates and becomes a part of your body. So actually in your body are possibly chemicals from someone else's body of some previous age. Now in the resurrection, where do these chemicals go? Or more recently in the case of kidney transplants and heart transplants, who gets it? And so they foresee all kinds of problems with the resurrection. There would be if this body were to be the instrument in which I live. But thank God it isn't. I have a building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Paul said to the Philippians, "I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better. Nevertheless, for your sakes, I need to stick around a while longer". But, "I believe," Paul said, "in the resurrection both of the just and the unjust."

The unjust will be resurrected at the end of the thousand-year reign of Christ. "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before the great white throne" ( Revelation 20:11 , Revelation 20:12 ). Death and hell gave up the dead which were in them. The sea gave up the dead which was in it. And they all stood there before the throne of God and the books were opened and they were judged. This is the second resurrection, the resurrection of the unjust unto everlasting shame and contempt. So Paul believes in the resurrection, both of the just and the unjust, even as was declared by Daniel chapter twelve, verse two.

And herein do I exercise myself ( Acts 24:16 ),

Because I believe in the resurrection, because I believe that there is a day of accounting for all men, when every man shall give an account of himself before God, he said, "I exercise myself,"

to always have a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men ( Acts 24:16 ).

That is something that is quite remarkable and, as we were pointing out Thursday night, Paul had to be quite a remarkable person. Surely I cannot with Paul say that I have a conscience void of offense before God and man. Paul, testifying of his life as a Pharisee said, "And concerning the righteousness which is of the law, blameless." No way can I say that. But Paul's strong belief and conviction in the resurrection, knowing that a man is going to have to make an accounting of his life, sought, exercised himself to always have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men.

I believe that the realization that this life is not all but only a preparation for eternity is one of the safeguards to pure living. And where people truly believe in a heaven to gain and a hell to shun, there is a much greater endeavor to live the right kind of life.

But there has been so many dispersions cast at the concept of hell, and even the concept of heaven that people are prone to believe as the naturalist or the humanist that this life is all she wrote. So you live like a hog and die like a dog and that's the end. We see the effect in our society as people are following that concept and living like animals. Getting by with just as much as they possibly can, feeling this is all I've got, I'm going to make the most of it because death is an end. No way--death is just the beginning for the child of God of a more complete, fuller revelation of God's grace and goodness to us. Death is just the beginning. For that one who has rebelled against God, of the fearful certain looking forward to the fiery indignation of God's wrath that will devour His adversaries.

Paul goes on.

Now after many years I came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings ( Acts 24:17 ).

You remember Paul had gone among the Gentile churches and had collected offerings for the poor saints in Jerusalem which he had brought to them from the generosity of the churches in Macedonia and Greece. And so, "after many years I came to bring these alms and offerings to my nation."

Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple ( Acts 24:18 ),

Paul had gone through the rites of purification and he was there worshipping God in the temple.

and I was neither with multitude, nor with tumult ( Acts 24:18 ).

I was minding my own business just worshipping God.

And these men actually should be here before you if they object, or if they have anything against me ( Acts 24:19 ).

You don't have any actual witnesses, Felix. The men that should be here bearing witness if I am a pestilent fellow and a rebel rouser are the men who saw me there worshipping God in the temple. They're the ones that ought to be here making accusations.

Or else let these same ones who are here say, if they have found any evil doing in me, while I stood before the council ( Acts 24:20 ),

I stood before these guys the other day and if I did any evil while I was there, let them go ahead and testify of it now.

Except [the only thing I did] for this one voice, that I cried standing among them, Touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question by you this day ( Acts 24:21 ).

That's all I said, and if they find offense in that, let them speak up.

And when Felix heard these things, having more perfect knowledge of that way ( Acts 24:22 ),

Again, Felix had a knowledge of the Christians. Where he received the knowledge is not known from the Bible. But Felix knew about the way, he knew about Jesus Christ and those who believed in Jesus Christ.

There is in secular history a story that somehow Simon Magus got together with Felix and shared with him his experiences and that they became close friends. It is from him that he got his understanding of Christianity, for they would sit up late hours in the night talking about it. That is from secular history, and whether or not that is the actual source of his knowledge of Christianity, we do not know for certain. But he did have a good understanding of Christianity. And because he had this good understanding,

he deferred them, and said, When Lysias the chief captain shall come down, I will know the complete story ( Acts 24:22 ).

I'll get his side of the story. Lysias was the captain who rescued Paul from the mob. Here we see a weakness in Felix who, before becoming governor, was actually a slave. But his brother Pallus was a close confidant of Nero and through the influence of his brother Pallus, Nero made him the ruler, the governor over the province, which was a unique situation because never before had a slave become a governor in the Roman empire. But Tachitus, the Roman historian, said that he ruled over the people with tyranny and violence as a slave. His weakness, though, was his always deferring an issue, postponing decisions.

There are some people that have that same weakness. Postponing. Procrastinating. There was an interesting article in the Reader's Digest a year or so ago on procrastination. It talks about those people who have difficulty doing something now. They always seem to want to put off the decision or put off the action. And my wife was talking to my daughter about the article and she said, "Did you notice that article in Reader's Digest on procrastination?" My daughter said, "Oh yeah, I intend to read that one day."

He deferred making the decision. He said, "I'll wait until Lysias comes down and then I'll hear the uttermost of the matter from him."

And so he commanded the centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintances to minister or to come unto him ( Acts 24:23 ).

So Paul had sort of a free run. He was in the protective custody of the Roman government, but had freedom. His friends could come any time and minister to him and all.

Now after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess ( Acts 24:24 ),

Drusilla was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I. Herod Agrippa I was the Herod who had beheaded James, the brother of John, and had Peter put in prison intending to bring him forth, but the Lord delivered Peter out of the jail at night. He then went down to Caesarea where he made the great oration and the men of Tyre began to cry, "It's the words of a god and not man." And the angel of the Lord smote him and his body was eaten by worms. That's Herod Agrippa I; Drusilla was his daughter. Drusilla had been married to a King Azisas but through the help of the magician, Felix had enticed her away from her husband and now she had become the wife of this slave-made-governor Felix.

Felix came with his wife Drusilla and,

he sent for Paul, and he heard him concerning the faith in Christ. And as Paul reasoned of righteousness, of temperance, and of judgment to come, Felix trembled ( Acts 24:24-25 ),

Paul began to witness to this man Felix of righteousness, the way that God would have a man to live. Of temperance. Felix was a very intemperate man. And Paul was laying on him, there is a judgment day coming for all men. And as Paul reasoned with him of these things, Felix began to tremble because he had a lot to fear from the coming day of judgment for the things that he had done, for the way that he had lived. He began to tremble, no doubt with the conviction of the Spirit upon his heart.

and he answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a more convenient season, I will call for thee ( Acts 24:25 ).

The man who defers making decisions. The man who postpones. Felix continued to postpone, until finally, there was always a conflict in Caesarea between the Greeks and the Jews as to whose city it was. There broke out, some two years after this incident of Felix's procrastination, a big fight, mob violence, the Jews against the Greeks over the control of the city of Caesarea. The Jews were victorious in the fight, and so Felix ordered the Roman soldiers to side with the Greeks and destroy the Jews. They killed hundreds of Jews, and then he encouraged them to go ahead and sack the houses of the wealthy Jews, going in, killing them and just spoiling their goods.

The Jews reported this to Nero and Felix lost his authority, was stripped of the authority, would have been executed but his brother Pallus interceded for him, and instead he was banished. His more convenient time never came, as is often the case of a person who defers his decision for Jesus Christ. Waiting for some more convenient day. It will never be easier than today.

There is a law of metaphysics concerning repeated action and how it creates pattern responses in our brains. You ever watch a lady knit who had been knitting for years? They don't even look. What has happened is that they've got grooves in their brain so deep, all they have to do is set the pattern in their brain and turn the switch and their hands go, and it's just automatic pattern responses because it's been done so much, they can do it. They can watch TV or they can sit there and talk with you, and yet be doing their knitting because of these patterns that have been established in the brain. The grooves or the patterns are so deeply imbedded that it becomes an automatic action. One that you don't even have to think to do.

Have you ever noticed that many times when you were fighting with your own conscience concerning a wrong deed what a fight and what a struggle it was for you, and after you did it how bad you felt, how guilty you felt? Vowing to yourself, "That's terrible; I'll never do that again." But the next time the issue came up, it wasn't quite so hard to you. You didn't have quite a battle as you did before against the evil. And it continues to create the patterns, until finally a person can do without any pangs of conscience that which one time disturbed him tremendously. Paul calls that a seared conscience with a hot iron. That is, you've destroyed the sensitivity against evil and that's always a sad case to observe.

Any repeated action becomes patterned in the brain so that it becomes harder to break. Relearning is always a more difficult process than learning. That's why if you take up golf, you should spend the first few hours with a pro to get your stroke correct, because if you learn the wrong stroke, it's awfully hard to correct and to get into that groove type swing. Bad habits are hard to break because they've set the pattern in your brain.

Now when you continually are deferring your decision for Jesus Christ, you're setting a pattern, making it more difficult to accept. Each time you say no, it will become harder to say yes. That is why 9/10ths of the decisions made for Jesus Christ are made while in the teenage years. Nine out of ten Christians became Christians while they were teenagers, before they had set these negative brain patterns.

Felix, though he trembled under conviction, passed off the decision.

He also had hoped for bribery, that money should have been given to him from Paul, that he might loose him ( Acts 24:26 ):

He had heard that Paul had brought this offering to the poor saints. Why not for poor Felix? He was looking for a bribe.

wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him ( Acts 24:26 ).

Kept giving Paul an opportunity to bribe him. He was looking for an excuse to release Paul.

But after two years Porcius Festus replaced Felix: and Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound ( Acts 24:27 ).

"

Contending for the Faith

And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.

And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come: Paul’s choice of a subject is calculated to strike terror in the hearts of his unrighteous, intemperate audience. For Felix, this one-time slave who now exercises the power of a king, and for this equally notorious woman who is living in open adultery as Felix’s wife, the concept of righteousness, self-control, and a day of accounting is a foreign and most disagreeable subject.

Paul gives all would-be teachers and preachers of the gospel a very important lesson in the selection of the topics he preaches to Felix and his bride. Paul could have selected a subject that would not have touched on the specific sins of his audience. He could have spoken in such ambiguous terms that no one would have really known what he was talking about or to whom he was speaking. He could have given Felix a little entertaining sermonette on positive thinking. But Paul gives Felix what he needs: an expose of his sins and a warning of impending judgment. Lenski is correct in his analysis of the situation:

From Paul we may learn how to preach so as to convert. Only one blow ever goes home through the sinner’s armor, and that is the blow of the law with the judgment to come delivered at the conscience with full force. Omit this, and conversion will not result (982).

Felix trembled: Albeit Felix is a very hardened, calloused man of the world; when his wicked soul is laid bare by the sharp "two edged" sword of God’s word, he is afraid just like wicked king Belshazzar of Daniel’s day!

Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another (Daniel 5:6).

and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee: This is the wrong answer! Felix should have yielded to his convictions, brought on by God’s word: he should have obeyed the gospel.

The terror which seized him was the beginning necessary to change of life; but lust and ambition smothered the kindling fires of conscience, and he made the common excuse of alarmed but impenitent sinners to get rid of his too faithful monitor (McGarvey, Vol. II 240-241).

We must rely upon history for the final chapter in the lives of Felix and Drusilla. Soon after this event, Felix falls upon political hard times, being eventually demoted and banished to Gaul where he dies. Drusilla perishes in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. The "convenient season" never comes. By a rejection of the gospel, Felix and Drusilla seal their own fate. They destroy themselves.

One of the greatest tools of the devil is the promise of a "convenient season." He whispers into the ears of potential Christians, "Wait, you have plenty of time"; the scriptures admonish "Behold now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Paul’s subsequent ministry to Felix 24:24-27

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Paul’s emphases in his interview with Felix and Drusilla were those things Jesus Christ had promised the Holy Spirit would convict people of to bring them to faith. These things were sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8-11). Felix and Drusilla were notoriously deficient in all three of these areas. It is not surprising that Felix became uneasy. He apparently was willing to discuss theology but not personal morality and responsibility. These subjects terrified him (Gr. emphobos).

Felix’s decision to postpone making a decision about his relationship to God is a common one. Often people put off this most important decision until they cannot make it. This is probably why most people who make decisions for Christ do so when they are young. Older people normally get harder to the gospel. [Note: See McGee, 4:620-21.] We do not know if Felix ever did trust Christ; there is no evidence that he did.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 24

A FLATTERING SPEECH AND A FALSE CHARGE ( Acts 24:1-9 )

24:1-9 Five days afterwards Ananias the high priest came down with some of the elders and with a pleader called Tertullus. They laid information against Paul before the governor. When Paul was called, Tertullus began to accuse him in these terms, "Since through you we enjoy much tranquillity and since through your foresight many reforms have been brought about for this nation in every place and in every way, Felix, your excellency, we welcome it all with gratitude. But not to trouble you any longer, I ask you in your kindness briefly to hear us. When we had found this fellow a pest, a man who fomented disturbances among all the Jews throughout the civilized world, a man who is the ring-leader of the sect of the Nazarenes--and he tried to defile the Temple, too--we arrested him. By examining him yourself, you can learn from him the charges of which we accuse him"; and the Jews agreed with him, alleging that the facts were as stated.

Tertullus ( G5061) began his speech with a passage of almost nauseating flattery, every word of which he and Felix knew was quite untrue. He went on to state things which were equally untrue. He claimed that the Jews had arrested Paul. The scene in the Temple court was far closer to being a lynching than an arrest. The charge he levelled against Paul was subtly inaccurate; it fell under three heads.

(i) Paul was a fomenter of troubles and a pest. That classed Paul with those insurrectionaries who continually inflamed the inflammable populace into rebellion. Tertullus well knew that the one thing that tolerant Rome would not stand was civil disorder, for any spark might become a flame. Tertullus knew it was a lie but it was an effective charge.

(ii) Paul was a leader of the sect of the Nazarenes. That coupled Paul with Messianic movements; and the Romans knew what havoc false Messiahs could cause and how they could whip the people into hysterical risings which were only settled at the cost of blood. Rome could not afford to disregard a charge like that. Again Tertullus knew it was a lie but it was an effective charge.

(iii) Paul was a defiler of the Temple. The priests were Sadducees, the collaborationist party; to defile the Temple was to infringe the rights and laws of the priests; and the Romans, Tertullus hoped, would take the side of the pro-Roman party. The charge was that most dangerous of things--a series of half-truths and of twisted facts.

PAUL'S DEFENCE ( Acts 24:10-21 )

24:10-21 When the governor had given him the sign to speak, Paul answered, "In the knowledge that you for many years have been a judge of this people, I confidently offer my defence of my case, for you can ascertain that it is no more than twelve days since I came up to Jerusalem to worship. Neither in the Temple nor in the synagogues nor throughout the city did they find me arguing with anyone or collecting a crowd; nor can they provide any truth of the accusations which they make against me. This I do admit to you--that, according to The Way, which they call a sect, I worship my ancestral God. At the same time I believe in all things that are written throughout the Law and in the prophets, and I have the same hope towards God as they themselves accept--I mean that there will be a resurrection of the just and the unjust. Because of this, I too train myself that I may always have an unharmed conscience towards God and towards men. After many years I came to bring alms and offerings to my people. In the course of these offerings they found me purified in the Temple, not with a crowd and not the centre of any disturbance. But some Jews from Asia--who ought to be present before you and who ought to be bringing whatever accusation they had against me--or let they themselves say what offence they found in me as I stood before the Sanhedrin, other than in regard to this one expression I used as I stood amongst them--'Concerning the resurrection of the dead I am on trial today before you.'"

Beginning at the passage, "But some Jews from Asia Paul's grammar went wrong. He began to say one thing and in mid-career changed over to another so that the sentence became quite disconnected. But its very disconnection shows vividly the excitement and tension of the scene. Paul's defence is that of a man whose conscience is clear--it is simply to state the facts. The tragedy was that it was when he was bringing the contributions from his churches for the poor of Jerusalem and when he was meticulously observing the Jewish Law that arrest came. One of the greatest things about Paul is that he speaks in his own defence with force and sometimes with a flash of indignation, but never with the self-pity or bitterness that would have been so natural in a man whose finest actions had been so cruelly and deliberately misinterpreted.

PLAIN SPEAKING TO A GUILTY GOVERNOR ( Acts 24:22-27 )

24:22-27 But Felix, who had a very good knowledge of the facts about The Way, put them off, saying, "When Lysias the commander comes down, I will go into your case." He instructed the centurion that Paul was to be held under guard, that he was to be allowed some freedom, and he instructed him not to hinder any of his friends from rendering him service. Some days after, Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess, and sent for Paul and listened to him about the faith in Christ Jesus. While Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and judgment to come Felix was afraid and said, "For the present, go your way. When I have time I will send for you." At the same time he hoped that money would be given him by Paul so he sent for him quite often and used to have conversation with him. At the end of two years Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus; but Felix, wishing to ingratiate himself with the Jews, left Paul a prisoner.

Felix ( G5344) was not unkind to Paul but some of Paul's admonitions struck terror into his heart. His wife Drusilla was the daughter of Herod Agrippa the First. She had been married to Azizus, King of Emesa. But Felix, with the help of a magician called Atomos, had seduced her from Azizus and persuaded her to marry him. It is little wonder that when Paul presented him with the high moral demands of God he was afraid.

For two years Paul was in prison and then Felix went too far once too often and was recalled. There was a longstanding argument as to whether Caesarea was a Jewish or a Greek city and Jews and Greeks were at daggers drawn. There was an outbreak of mob violence in which the Jews came off best. Felix despatched his troops to aid the Gentiles. Thousands of Jews were killed and the troops, with Felix's consent and encouragement, sacked and looted the houses of the wealthiest Jews in the city.

The Jews did what all Roman provincials had a right to do--they reported their governor to Rome. That was why Felix left Paul in prison, even though he was well aware that he should be liberated. He was trying to curry favour with the Jews. It was all to no purpose. He was dismissed from his governorship and only the influence of his brother Pallas saved him from execution.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Acts 24:25

Paul’s discourse: (cf. John 16:8)

1. righteousness -

2. temperance -

3. judgment to come -

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,.... The apostle not only discoursed concerning the doctrine of faith in Christ, but insisted upon the duties of religion: and particularly he reasoned upon righteousness; not justifying righteousness, that is only the righteousness of Christ, and which rather belongs to the doctrine of faith in Christ; but the exercise of justice, or the doing of righteousness between man and man; which was agreeably to the light of nature, to the law of God, and Gospel of Christ, and is a virtue highly necessary in a judge, and was greatly wanting in Felix; who, as the historian says d, was guilty of much cruelty and injustice throughout this government and therefore very appropriately did the apostle fall on this subject: and he might also reason concerning the necessity of a righteousness, in order to justify before God, and to appear before him with acceptance, and to enter into heaven: he might show, that it was the loss of righteousness which was the reason of the first man being removed from his place and state of happiness, in which he was whilst innocent; and that to admit persons into heaven without a righteousness, is contrary to the pure and holy nature of God, who loves righteousness, and hates iniquity; and particularly would not be agreeable to his justice, which requires a perfect righteousness; yea, it would be uncomfortable to holy men themselves, to have ungodly and unrighteous persons with them in heaven: he might also reason upon the want of righteousness, which is in every man; how that the first man having lost his righteousness, all his posterity are destitute of one; and that they are not able to work out one acceptable to God, and which will justify in his sight; that the thing is impracticable and impossible, and that that which men call a righteousness is not one, at least is not a justifying one: he might insist upon the unprofitableness of a man's own works of righteousness for such a purpose, by observing the imperfection of them; and that justification by them is contrary to God's declared way of justifying sinners, is derogatory to his free grace, would make null and void the death of Christ, and encourage boasting in men; and all this he might reason about, in order to convince him of the necessity and suitableness of the righteousness of faith in Christ, he had before been discoursing of: and very pertinently in the next place did he insist on "temperance"; or "continence", and chastity; since Felix had enticed away another man's wife, and now lived in adultery with her: and who was now with him, whilst hearing this discourse; which concluded with an account of "judgment to come"; how that Jesus Christ is appointed the Judge of quick and dead, and that all must appear before him, stand at his bar, and be accountable to him for all their actions, and be judged by him, which will be done in the most righteous manner: he might argue this, not only from the Scriptures of the Old Testament, of which Drusilla might have some knowledge, such as

Psalms 96:13, but from reason, from the relation which men stand in to God, as his creatures, and therefore are accountable to him for their actions; and from the justice of God, which in many instances, in the present state of things, is not manifest: good men are afflicted and suffer much, and bad men flourish and enjoy great prosperity; wherefore there must be another state in which things will have another turn, and justice will take place: he might from hence conclude the certainty of a future judgment; and the universality of it, that it would reach to all men and things, and would proceed according to the strict rules of justice, and in the most awful manner; and that a true and just sentence would be pronounced and strictly executed: upon which account of things,

Felix trembled; his conscience was awakened, accused him of the injustice and incontinence he had been guilty of; and his mind was filled with horror, at the thought of the awful judgment he could not escape, which Paul had described unto him; nor could he bear him to discourse any longer on these subjects:

and answered, go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee; he signifying he was not at leisure now to hear him any longer; when he had a spare hour he would send for him, and hear him out; but this was only an excuse to get rid of him now, and lull his conscience asleep, and make it quiet and easy; which he was afraid would be more and more disturbed, should he suffer Paul to go on preaching in this manner: it is a saying of R. Judah e,

"say not when I am at leisure I will learn, perhaps thou wilt never be at leisure.''

d Tacit. Hist. l. 5. e Pirke Abot, c. 2. sect. 4.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      22 And when Felix heard these things, having more perfect knowledge of that way, he deferred them, and said, When Lysias the chief captain shall come down, I will know the uttermost of your matter.   23 And he commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him.   24 And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.   25 And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.   26 He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him: wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him.   27 But after two years Porcius Festus came into Felix' room: and Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound.

      We have here the result of Paul's trial before Felix, and what was the consequence of it.

      I. Felix adjourned the cause, and took further time to consider of it (Acts 24:22; Acts 24:22): He had a more perfect knowledge of that way which the Jews called heresy than the high priest and the elders thought he had. He understood something of the Christian religion; for, living at Cæsarea, where Cornelius, a Roman centurion, was, who was a Christian, from him and others he had got a notion of Christianity, that it was not such an evil thing as it was represented. He himself knew some of that way to be honest good men, and very conscientious, and therefore he put off the prosecutors with an excuse: "When the chief captain shall come down hither, I will know the uttermost of your matter, or I shall know the truth, whether this Paul did go about to raise sedition or no; you are parties, he is an indifferent person. Either Paul deserves to be punished for raising the tumult, or you do for doing it yourselves and then charging it upon him; and I will hear what he says, and determine accordingly between you." Now, 1. It was a disappointment to the high priest and the elders that Paul was not condemned, or remitted to their judgment, which they wished for and expected. But thus sometimes God restrains the wrath of his people's enemies by the agency, not of their friends, but of such as are strangers to them. And though they be so, if they have but some knowledge of their way, they cannot but appear for their protection. 2. It was an injury to Paul that he was not released. Felix ought to have avenged him of his adversaries, when he so plainly saw there was nothing but malice in the prosecution, and to have delivered him out of the hand of the wicked, according to the duty of a judge, Psalms 82:4. But he was a judge that neither feared God nor regarded man, and what good could be expected from him? It is a wrong not only to deny justice, but to delay it.

      II. He detained the prisoner in custody, and would not take bail for him; else here at Cæsarea Paul had friends enough that would gladly have been his security. Felix thought a man of such a public character as Paul was had many friends, as well as many enemies, and he might have an opportunity of obliging them, or making a hand of them, if he did not presently release him, and yet did show him countenance; and therefore, 1. He continued him a prisoner, commanded a centurion or captain to keep him, Acts 24:23; Acts 24:23. He did not commit him to the common jail, but, being first made an army-prisoner, he shall still be so. 2. Yet he took care he should be a prisoner at large--in libera custodia; his keeper must let him have liberty, not bind him nor lock him up, but make his confinement as easy to him as possible; let him have the liberty of the castle, and, perhaps, he means liberty to take the air, or go abroad upon his parole: and Paul was such an honest man that they might take his word for his return. The high priest and the elders grudged him his life, but Felix generously allows him a sort of liberty; for he had not those prejudices against him and his way that they had. He also gave orders that none of his friends should be hindered from coming to him; the centurion must not forbid any of his acquaintances from ministering to him; and a man's prison is as it were his own house if he has but his friends about him.

      III. He had frequent conversation with him afterwards in private, once particularly, not long after his public trial, Acts 24:24; Acts 24:25. Observe,

      1. With what design Felix sent for Paul. He had a mind to have some talk with him concerning the faith in Christ, the Christian religion; he had some knowledge of that way, but he desired to have an account of it from Paul, who was so celebrated a preacher of that faith, above the rest. Those that would enlarge their knowledge must discourse with men of their own profession, and those that would be acquainted with any profession should consult those that excel in the knowledge of it; and therefore Felix had a mind to talk with Paul more freely than he could in open court, where he observed Paul upon his guard, concerning the faith of Christ; and this only to satisfy his curiosity, or rather the curiosity of his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess, daughter of Herod Agrippa, that was eaten of worms. Being educated in the Jewish religion, she was more inquisitive concerning the Christian religion, which pretended to be the perfection of that, and desired to hear Paul discourse of it. But it was no great matter what religion she was of; for, whatever it was, she was a reproach and scandal to it-a Jewess, but an adulteress; she was another man's wife when Felix took her to be his wife, and she lived with him in whoredom and was noted for an impudent woman, yet she desires to hear concerning the faith of Christ. Many are fond of new notions and speculations in religion, and can hear and speak of them with pleasure, who yet hate to come under the power and influence of religion, can be content to have their judgments informed but not their lives reformed.

      2. What the account was which Paul gave him of the Christian religion; by the idea he had of it, he expected to be amused with a mystical divinity, but, as Paul represents it to him, he is alarmed with a practical divinity. Paul, being asked concerning the faith in Christ, reasoned (for Paul was always a rational preacher) concerning righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. It is probable that he mentioned the peculiar doctrines of Christianity concerning the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and his being the Mediator between God and man; but he hastened to his application, in which he designed to come home to the consciences of his hearers.

      (1.) He discoursed with clearness and warmth of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come; and here he showed, [1.] That the faith in Christ is designed to enforce upon the children of men the great laws of justice and temperance. The grace of God teacheth us to live soberly and righteously,Titus 2:12. Justice and temperance were celebrated virtues among the heathen moralists; if the doctrine Paul preaches, which Felix has heard of as proclaiming liberty, will but free him from an obligation to these, he will readily embrace it: "No," says Paul, "it is so far from doing so that it strengthens the obligations of those sacred laws; it binds all under the highest penalties to be honest in all their dealings, and to render to all their due; to deny themselves, and to keep under the body, and bring it into subjection." The world and the flesh being in our baptism renounced, all our pursuits of the world and all our gratifications of the desires of the body are to be under the regulations of religion. Paul reasoned of righteousness and temperance, to convince Felix of his unrighteousness and intemperance, of which he had been notoriously guilty, that, seeing the odiousness of them, and his obnoxiousness to the wrath of God for them (Ephesians 5:6), he might enquire concerning the faith of Christ, with a resolution to embrace it. [2.] That by the doctrine of Christ is discovered to us the judgment to come, by the sentence of which the everlasting state of all the children of men will be finally and irreversibly determined. Men have their day now, Felix hath his; but God's day is coming, when everyone shall give account of himself to God, the Judge of all. Paul reasoned concerning this; that is, he showed what reason we have to believe that there is a judgment to come, and what reason we have, in consideration thereof, to be religious.

      (2.) From this account of the heads of Paul's discourse we may gather, [1.] That Paul in his preaching had no respect to persons, for the word of God, which he preached, has not: he urged the same convictions and instructions upon the Roman governor that he did upon other people. [2.] That Paul in his preaching aimed at the consciences of men, and came close to them, sought not to please their fancy nor to gratify their curiosity, but led them to a sight of their sins and a sense of their duty and interest. [3.] That Paul preferred the serving of Christ, and the saving of souls, before his own safety. He lay at the mercy of Felix, who had power (as Pilate said) to crucify him (or, which was as bad, to deliver him back to the Jews), and he had power to release him. Now when Paul had his ear, and had him in a good humour, he had a fair opportunity of ingratiating himself with him, and obtaining a release, nay, and of incensing him against his prosecutors: and, on the contrary, if he disobliged him, and put him out of humour, he might do himself a great diskindness by it; but he is wholly negligent of these considerations, and is intent upon doing good, at least discharging his duty. [4.] That Paul was willing to take pains, and run hazards, in his work, even where there was little probability of doing good. Felix and Drusilla were such hardened sinners that it was not at all likely they should be brought to repentance by Paul's preaching, especially under such disadvantages; and yet Paul deals with them as one that did not despair of them. Let the watchman give fair warning, and then they have delivered their own souls, though they should not prevail to deliver the souls they watch for.

      3. What impressions Paul's discourse made upon this great but wicked man: Felix trembled, emphobos genomenos--being put into a fright, or made a terror to himself, a magor-missabib, as Pashur, Jeremiah 20:3; Jeremiah 20:4. Paul never trembled before him, but he was made to tremble before Paul. "If this be so, as Paul says, what will become of me in another world? If the unrighteous and intemperate will be condemned in the judgment to come, I am undone, for ever undone, unless I lead a new course of life." We do not find that Drusilla trembled, though she was equally guilty, for she was a Jewess, and depended upon the ceremonial law, which she adhered to the observance of, to justify her; but Felix for the present could fasten upon nothing to pacify his conscience, and therefore trembled. See here, (1.) The power of the word of God, when it comes with commission; it is searching, it is startling, it can strike a terror into the heart of the most proud and daring sinner, by setting his sins in order before him, and showing him the terrors of the Lord. (2.) The workings of natural conscience; when it is startled and awakened, it fills the soul with horror and amazement at its own deformity and danger. Those that are themselves the terror of the mighty in the land of the living have hereby been made a terror to themselves. A prospect of the judgment to come is enough to make the stoutest heart to tremble, as when it comes indeed it will make the mighty men and the chief captains to call in vain to rocks and mountains to shelter them.

      4. How Felix struggled to get clear of these impressions, and to shake off the terror of his convictions; he did by them as he did by Paul's prosecutors (Acts 24:25; Acts 24:25), he deferred them; he said, Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season I will call for thee. (1.) He trembled and that was all. Paul's trembling (Acts 9:6; Acts 9:6), and the jailer's (Acts 16:29; Acts 16:29), ended in their conversion, but this of Felix did not. Many are startled by the word of God who are not effectually changed by it. Many are in fear of the consequences of sin, and yet continue in love and league with sin. (2.) He did not fight against his convictions, nor fly in the face of the word or of the preacher of it, to be revenged on them for making his conscience fly in his face; he did not say to Paul, as Amaziah to the prophet, Forbear, why shouldst thou be smitten? He did not threaten him with a closer confinement, or with death, for touching him (as John Baptist did Herod) in the sore place. But, (3.) He artfully shifted off his convictions by putting off the prosecution of them to another time. He has nothing to object against what Paul has said; it is weighty and worth considering. But, like a sorry debtor, he begs a day; Paul has spent himself, and has tired him and his lady, and therefore, "Go thy way for this time--break off here, business calls me away; but when I have a convenient season, and have nothing else to do, I will call for thee, and hear what thou hast further to say." Note, [1.] Many lose all the benefit of their convictions for want of striking while the iron is hot. If Felix, now that he trembled, had but asked, as Paul and the jailer did when they trembled, What shall I do? he might have been brought to the faith of Christ, and have been a Felix indeed, happy for ever; but, by dropping his convictions now, he lost them for ever, and himself with them. [2.] In the affairs of our souls, delays are dangerous; nothing is of more fatal consequence than men's putting off their conversion from time to time. They will repent, and turn to God, but not yet; the matter is adjourned to some more convenient season, when such a business or affair is compassed, when they are so much older; and then convictions cool and wear off, good purposes prove to no purpose, and they are more hardened than ever in their evil way. Felix put off this matter to a more convenient season, but we do not find that this more convenient season ever came; for the devil cozens us of all our time by cozening us of the present time. The present season is, without doubt, the most convenient season. Behold, now is the accepted time. To-day if you will hear his voice.

      IV. After all, he detained him a prisoner, and left him so, when two years after he was removed from the government, Acts 24:26; Acts 24:27. He was convinced in his conscience that Paul had done nothing worthy of death or of bonds, and yet had not the honesty to release him. To little purpose had Paul reasoned with him about righteousness, though he then trembled at the thought of his own iniquity, who could thus persist in such a palpable piece of injustice. But here we are told what principles he was governed by herein; and they were such as make the matter yet much worse. 1. The love of money. He would not release Paul because he hoped to make his market of him, and that at length his friends would make a purse to purchase his liberty, and then he would satisfy his conscience by releasing him when he could withal satisfy his covetousness by it; but he cannot find in his heart to do his duty as a judge, unless he can get money by it: He hoped that money would have been given him of Paul, or somebody for him, and then he would have loosed him, and set him at liberty. In hopes of this, he detains him a prisoner, and sends for him the oftener, and communes with him; not any more about the faith of Christ (he had had enough of that, and of the judgment to come; Paul must not return to those subjects, nor go on with them), but about his discharge, or ransom rather, out of his present captivity. He cannot for shame ask Paul what he will give him to release him, but he sends for him to feel his pulse, and gives him an opportunity to ask why he would take to release him. And now we see what became of his promise both to Paul and to himself, that he would hear more of Christ at some other convenient season. Here were many seasons convenient enough to have talked that matter through, but nothing is done in it; all his business now is to get money by Paul, not to get the knowledge of Christ by him. Note, It is just with God to say concerning those who trifle with their convictions, and think they can have the grace of God at command when they please, My Spirit shall no more strive with them. When men will not hear God's voice to-day, while it is called to-day, the heart is commonly hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Paul was but a poor man himself, silver and gold he had none to give, to purchase his liberty; but Felix knew there were those who wished well to him who were able to assist him. He having lately collected a great deal of money for the poor saints to relieve them, it might also be expected that the rich saints should contribute some to release him, and I wonder it was not done. Though Paul is to be commended that he would not offer money to Felix, nor beg money of the churches (his great and generous soul disdained both), yet I know not whether his friends are to be commended, nay, whether they can be justified, in not doing it for him. They ought to have solicited the governor as pressingly for him as his enemies did against him: and if a gift was necessary to make room for them (as Solomon speaks) and to bring them before great men, they might lawfully have done it. I ought not to bribe a man to do an unjust thing, but, if he will not do me justice without a fee, it is but doing myself justice to give it to him; and, if they might do it, it was a shame they did not do it. I blush for them, that they would let such an eminent and useful man as Paul lie in the jail, when a little money would have fetched him out, and restored him to his usefulness again. The Christians here at Cæsarea, where he now was, had parted with their tears to prevent his going to the prison (Acts 21:13; Acts 21:13), and could they not find in their hearts to part with their money to help him out? Yet there might be a providence of God in it; Paul's bonds must be for the furtherance of the gospel of Christ, and therefore he must continue in bonds. However, this will not excuse Felix, who ought to have released an innocent man, without demanding or accepting any thing for it: the judge that will not do right without a bribe will no doubt do wrong for a bribe. 2. Men-pleasing. Felix was recalled from his government about two years after this, and Porcius Festus was put in his place, and one should have expected he would have at least concluded his government with this act of justice, the release of Paul, but he did not; he left Paul bound, and the reason here given is because he was willing to do the Jews a pleasure. Though he would not deliver him to death, to please them, yet he would continue him a prisoner rather than offend them; and he did it in hope hereby to atone for the many offences he had done against them. He did not think Paul had either interest or inclination to complain of him at court, for detaining him so long in custody, against all law and equity; but he was jealous of the high priest and elders, that they would be his accusers to the emperor for the wrongs he had done them, and therefore hopes by gratifying them in this matter to stop their mouths. Thus those who do some base things are tempted to do more to screen themselves and bear them out. If Felix had not injured the Jews, he needed not to have done this to please them; but, when he had done it, it seems he did not gain his point. The Jews, notwithstanding this, accused him to the emperor, and some historians say he was sent bound to Rome by Festus; and, if so, surely his remembering how light he had made of Paul's bonds would help to make his own chain heavy. Those that aim to please God by doing good will have what they aim at; but so will not those that seek to please men by doing evil.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Paul's Sermon Before Felix

January 10, 1858 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." Acts 24:25 .

The power of the Gospel appears in marvelous grandeur when we see its hold upon hearts devoted to it, when subjected to trouble, persecution, and sorrow. How mighty must that gospel be, which, when it gained an entrance into the heart of Paul, could never be driven out of it! For it he suffered the loss of all things, and as for them, he counted them but dung, that he might win Christ. To spread the truth, he encountered hardships, shipwrecks, perils on the land, and perils by sea; but none of these things moved him, neither did he count his life dear unto him, that he might win Christ and be found in him. Persecution followed persecution; of the Jews was he beaten with rods; he was dragged from one tribunal to another; scarce in any city did he find anything but bonds and imprisonment awaiting him. Attacked in his own country he is accused at Jerusalem, and arraigned at Cesarea; he is taken from one tribunal to another to be tried for his life. But mark how he always maintains the prominent passion of his soul. Put him where you may, he seems to be like John Bunyan, who says, "If you let me out of prison to-day, I will preach the gospel again to-morrow, by the grace of God." Nay, more than that, he preached it in prison, before his judges he proclaimed it. Standing up before the Sanhedrim, he cries, "As touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question." When brought to stand before Agrippa, he tells out his conversion, and so sweetly speaks of the grace of God, that the king himself cries, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian;" and here in our text when he stands before the Roman Procurator, to be tried for life or death, instead of entering into a defence of himself, he reasons "of righteousness, continence, and judgment to come," until his judge trembles, and he that sits upon the throne takes the prisoner's place, while the prisoner judges him, in anticipation of that time when the saints shall judge the angels, as assessors with Christ Jesus. Why, once let a man believe the gospel, and determine to spread it, and it makes him a grand man. If he be a man destitute of power, intellect, and talent, it makes him grandly earnest in his arduous desire to serve Christ, in the little measure in which he can do it; but if he be a gifted man, it sets his whole soul on fire, brings out all his powers, develops everything that lies hidden, digs up every talent that had been buried in its napkin, and spreads out all the gold and silver of man's intellectual wealth, displaying it all to the honor of that Christ who has bought it all with his blood. We might stay a little while and dilate on this thought, and show you how, in all ages, this has been the truth, that the power of the gospel has been eminently proved in its influence over men's hearts, proving the truth of that utterance of Paul, when he said, that neither tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, shall separate them from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ their Lord. But instead of so doing, I invite you to contemplate the text more closely. We have before us a picture containing three characters: Felix and Drusilla, sitting side by side upon the judgment-seat; Paul, the prisoner, brought in bound in chains, to explain to Drusilla and Felix the doctrines of the Christian religion, in order that he might either be acquitted or condemned to die. You have a judge extremely willing to put the prisoner to death, because he desired to please the Jews; you have, on the other hand, a prisoner, unabashed, who comes before the judge, and without any debate, begins to unfold the gospel, selecting a certain part of it, described in our text as reasoning concerning "righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." The Judge trembles, dismisses the prisoner in haste; and promises to attend to him at a convenient season. Note, first then, the appropriate sermon; secondly, the affected audience for the audience was certainly moved "Felix trembled!" Note, then, thirdly, the lamentable disappointment. Instead of attending to the message, "Go thy way" was all that Paul had. I. First, then, we have an APPROPRIATE SERMON. Just hear for a moment or two the history of Felix. Felix was originally a slave; he was freed by Claudius, and became one of the infamous favorites of the emperor. Of course in that capacity he pandered to his master's vices, and was at all times prepared to indulge the Emperor in every lustful wish of his abominable heart. Through this he became promoted, and ran through the stages of Roman preferment, until he obtained the Governorship of Judea. Whilst he was Governor there, he committed every act of extortion which it was possible for him to commit, and went so far at last, that the Emperor Nero was obliged to recall him, and he would have been severely punished for his crimes, had it not been for the influence of his brother Pallas, another freedman, with the Emperor, through whom he obtained a release, after a sharp rebuke. The Roman historian, Tacitus, says, "He exercised, in Judea, the imperial functions with a mercenary soul." You may easily see, then, how appropriate was the discourse, when the apostle Paul reasoned concerning righteousness. Felix had been an unjust extortioner, and the apostle purposely selected righteousness to be a topic of his discourse. By the side of Felix sat Drusilla; in the verse preceding our text she is called his wife. It is said she was a Jewess. This Drusilla was a daughter of Herod Agrippa, the great a woman noted in that age for her superlative charms, and for her unbridled voluptuousness. She had been once affianced to Antioch who, upon the death of Herod, refused to marry her. She was afterward married to Azizus, the king of the Amesenes, who, although a heathen, was so fond of her, that he submitted to the most rigorous rites of the Jewish religion in order to obtain her in marriage. His love was but ill-requited, for in a little time she deserted him at the instigation of Felix, and was, at the time of Paul's address, living as the wife of the lascivious Felix. We may easily understand then, why the apostle Paul, fixing his stern eye on Drusilla, reasoned concerning continence, and publicly rebuked both Felix and Drusilla for the shameless lust in which they were publicly living. And then you may imagine since there was now a court sitting, and Felix himself was the judge, and Paul the prisoner, how strikingly appropriate was the last theme "judgment to come." I think, my brethren, it would not be very hard for us to imagine how well the apostle handled this subject. I can conceive that Felix expected to have a grand disquisition upon some recondite themes of the gospel. Possibly he expected that the apostle Paul would reason concerning the resurrection of the dead. He thought perhaps that predestination, election, and free will would be the topics or the apostles discourse. "Surely," thought he, "he will tell me those deep and hidden matters in which the gospel of Jesus differs from Judaism." Not so. In another place, on Mar's Hill, the apostle would speak of resurrection; in another place he could speak of election, and declare that God was the potter, and man was but the clay. This was not the place for that; and this was not the time for such subjects; this was the time for preaching the plain precepts of the gospel, and for dealing sternly with a wicked man who sat in eminent power. Conceive then, the pointed manner of his opening discourse How he would address Felix concerning righteousness. I can imagine how he would bring before the mind of Felix, the widow who had been defrauded of inheritance, the fatherless children, who, cast from affluence, were led to beg their bread. I can suppose how he brought before the mind of that base man the many bribes that he had taken, when he sat upon his judgment-seat. He would recall to him the false decisions that he had given; he would remind him how the Jews, as a nation had been oppressed how by taxation, they had been ground to the earth; he would bring before him one scene after another, where avarice had overridden equity, boldly and sternly depicting the exact character of the man; and then, at the end, declaring that such men could have no inheritance in the kingdom of God bidding him repent of this his wickedness, that his sins might be forgiven him. Then gently and delicately turning to the other subject, I can imagine how he would fix his eyes upon Drusilla, and remind her that she had lost everything for which a woman ought to live, and solemnly bring the most powerful motives to bear upon her lascivious heart; and then turning to Felix, would remind him that adulterers, fornicators, and unclean persons, have no inheritance in the kingdom of God reminding him how the vices of a ruler would tend to pollute a nation, and how the iniquities of the nation of the Jews must, in a great measure, be laid to his charge. I can conceive how, for a moment, Felix would bite his lips. Paul gave him no time for anger and passion; for in a moment, in a fury of impassioned eloquence, he introduced the "judgment to come." He made Felix think he saw the great white throne, the books opened, and himself arraigned before his judge: he made him hear the voices of the trumpet the "Come ye blessed" the "Depart ye cursed." He petrified him, nailed him to his seat, opened his ears, and made them listen, while with stern and impassioned earnestness, though his hands were bound with chains, he used the liberty of the gospel in upbraiding him. Well do I conceive that then Felix began to tremble. He that had been base, and mean, and perfidious, trembled like a coward slave, as he really was; and though sitting on throne, he pictured himself already damned. What he next would have done we can not tell, if the devil had not then suggested to him that it was time to rise; for in hot haste he and Drusilla left the throne. "Go thy way for this time; when I have convenient season, I will call for thee." Hear me, then, brethren! What the apostle Paul did, every minister ought to do. He selected a topic appropriate to his audience. It is ours ever to do the same. But are there not to be found many ministers who, if they addressed kings and princes, would pour out before them the vilest adulation and flattery that ever came from mortal lips? Are there not many who, when they are aware the great and mighty ones are listening to them, trim their doctrine, cut the edges of their speech, and endeavor in some way or other to make themselves pleasing to their audience? Can there not be found many ministers who, if addressing an Antinomian audience, would confine themselves strictly to predestination and reprobation? and ministers who, if they addressed an audience of philosophers, would just talk about morality but never mention such words as the covenant of grace and salvation by blood? Are there not some to be found, who think the highest object of the minister is to attract the multitude and then to please them? O my God! how solemnly ought each of us to bewail our sin, if we feel that we have been guilty in this matter. What is it to have pleased men? Is there aught in it that can make our head lie easy on the pillow of our death? Is there aught in it that can give us boldness in the day of judgment, or cause us happiness when we face thy tribunal, O Judge of quick and dead? No, my brethren, we must always take our texts so that we may bear upon our hearers with all our might. I hope I may never preach before a congregation I desire always to preach to you; nor do I wish to exhibit powers of eloquence, nor would I even pretend to exhibit any depth of learning. I would simply say, "Hear me, my fellow men, for God doth send me unto you. There are some things that concern you; I will tell you of them. You are dying; many of you when you die must perish for ever; it is not for me to be amusing you with some deep things that may instruct your intellect but do not enter your hearts; it is for me to fit the arrow to the string and send it home to unsheathe the sword be the scabbard never so glittering, to cast it aside, and let the majesty of naked truth smite at your hearts; for in the day of judgment aught beside personal home-speaking will be consumed as wood, and hay, and stubble; but these shall abide, like the gold and silver and precious stones that can not be consumed. But some men will say, "Sir, ministers ought not to be personal." Ministers ought to be personal, and they will never be true to their Master till they are. I admire John Knox for going, Bible in hand, to Queen Mary, and sternly upbraiding her. I admit I do not exactly love the way in which he did it; but the thing itself I love. The woman had been a sinner, and he told her so flat to her face. But now we poor graven sons of nobodies have to stand and talk about generalities; we are afraid to point you out and tell you of your sins personally. But, blessed be God, from that fear I have been delivered long ago. There walketh not a man on the surface of this earth whom I dare not reprove. There are none of you, however connected with me by ties of profession or in any other respect, that I would blush to speak personally to, as to the things of the kingdom of God; and it is only by being bold, courageous, and sending home the truth, that we shall at last be free from the blood of our hearers. May God grant us the power of Paul, that we may reason on appropriate subjects, and not select generalities, when we ought to be pushing home truths to the consciences of our hearers. After all, the apostle Paul needs no eulogy. The best eulogy that could be passed on the apostle was the fact that "Felix trembled." And that brings us to the second part of our subject. II. "FELIX TREMBLED." Yes, the poor prisoner, having nought wherewith to assist him in the delivery of the truth but having everything to his disadvantage the chain, the prison dress, the character of one that had stirred up sedition in a nation this poor prisoner, with believing hand, laid hold on the sword of truth, and with this he did divide in sunder the joints and marrow. He did beard the lion in his den. Even now I see him look the governor sternly in the face, attack him in his heart, drive him from his excuses, push the word home at the point of the bayonet of truth, drive him from every refuge of lies, and make him tremble! O marvellous power of a preached gospel! O mighty truth that God is with the ministry, when the kings of the earth that take counsel together are yet dismayed by it. Who is he that doth not see here something more than human eloquence, when prisoner becomes the judge and the prince upon the throne becomes the criminal? "Felix trembled." Have I not some here who have experienced the same feelings as Felix? Some plain-spoken minister has told you something that was rather too plain for you. At first you were angry; on second thoughts, and as the man moved on in his discourse, you became chagrined that you gave him the opportunity of thus exposing you, as you imagined. A better thought struck you and you saw at once that the man could have no intention personally to insult you; and then your feelings changed. Thunderbolt after thunderbolt fell from his lips; he seemed a very Jupiter Tonans sitting upon his throne, casting lightnings from his lips. Ye began to tremble. "Verily here is a man that has told me all things that ever I did; is not this man sent from Christ?" Ah! and thus you have borne your witness to the truth of the gospel. Though you have not felt its power to your salvation, yet you have been an unwilling witness that the gospel has been true; for you have felt its power when it made your knees knock together, and your eyes run down with tears. But what is it that makes men tremble under the sound of the Gospel? Some say it is their conscience. Yes, and doubtless it is in some sense. The poet said, "Conscience makes cowards of us all;" and certainly, when the minister's exposition is faithful and pertinent to our own case, conscience, if it be not thoroughly seared and dead, will make the blush mantle on our cheeks. But I take it that conscience of itself is so thoroughly corrupt, together with all the other powers of manhood, that it would never even make a man go so far as trembling, if there were not something at work upon the conscience, besides being left to its own natural force. My brethren, I believe that what some people call natural conviction is, after all, the work of the Spirit. Some very profound divines are so fond of the doctrine that the Holy Spirit always works efficaciously, that they think that the Spirit never can work a transitory emotion in a man's soul; they impute such things to conscience. And if they see a man like Felix trembling, they say 'tis all natural conscience! Now, do they not see that they are in this touching on another doctrine equally dear to them the doctrine of total depravity? for if men be totally depraved by nature, then as trembling is a good thing, they are not capable even of that without some influence of the Holy Spirit. The fact is, my hearers, the Holy Spirit works in two ways. In some men's hearts he works with restraining Grace only, and the restraining Grace, though it will not save them, is enough to keep them from breaking out into the open and corrupt vices in which some men indulge who are totally left by the restraints of the Spirit. Now, there was in Felix some little portion of this restraining Grace; and when the Apostle laid the Gospel open to him, this restraining Grace quickened the conscience, and compelled Felix to tremble. Mark you, this Grace man may resist and does resist; for albeit that the Holy Spirit is Omnipotent and never can be resisted when he works Omnipotently, yet as a strong man may sometimes not put out all his strength, but work with his finger, for instance, so that he may permit even a gnat or an ant to overcome him, even so the Holy Spirit sometimes works but temporarily and but for good and excellent purposes, which he always accomplishes; but he allows men to quench and resist his influences, so that salvation is not so much as approached thereby. God the Holy Spirit may work in men some good desires and feelings, and yet have no design of saving them. But mark, none of these feelings are things that accompany sure salvation, for if so, they would be continued. But he does not work Omnipotently to save, except in the persons of his own elect, whom he assuredly bringeth to himself. I believe, then, that the trembling of Felix is to be accounted for by the restraining grace of the Spirit quickening his conscience and making him tremble. But what shall be said of some of you who never tremble? Thou hast come hither this morning with thy brazen face, and with thine impudent and arrogant heart. Thou hast been mouthing high heaven with thy blasphemies; and now thou standest all unmoved and unabashed in the house of God. Though a Baxter should rise from the dead, and with moving sighs and tears should preach the Gospel, you would laugh and scoff; though Boanerges with a tongue of thunder should come and preach to you, you would turn up your lip and find some fault with his oratory, and his words would never reach your heart. O ungodly generation! how hath God given you up, and how hath hell bewitched you? O race of evil doers! children that are corrupters! how are ye seared. My soul reads with prophetic glance the handwriting on the wall! You are condemned already; you are past hope, "trees plucked up by the roots, twice dead." For in the fact that ye tremble not, there is proof not only of your death but of your positive corruption. Ye shall die as ye are, without hope, without trust or refuge; for he that hath lost feeling hath lost hope; he that is past conscience, God the Holy Spirit hath given up, and he will no more strive with him for ever. III. And now, passing rapidly over this point of the trembling audience, we come in the next place to the LAMENTABLE DISAPPPOINTMENT which Paul experienced, when he saw Felix rise in haste, and dismiss him from his presence. "It is wonderful," said a good man once to a minister, "it is wonderful to see a whole congregation moved to tears by the preaching of the Word." "Yes," said that minister, "it is wonderful; but I know a wonder ten times greater than that: the wonder is, that those people should so soon wipe away their tears and forget what they have heard. 'Tis wonderful that Felix trembled before Paul; 'tis more wonderful that Felix should say, "Go thy way." "'Tis strange, 'tis passing strange," that when the word touches the conscience, even then sin hath such power over men, that the truth can be repulsed and driven out of the heart. Felix, unhappy Felix! why is it that thou dost rise from thy judgment-seat? Is it that thou hast much business to do? Stop, Felix; let Paul speak to thee a minute longer. Thou hast business: but hast thou no business for thy soul? Stop, unhappy man! Art thou about again to be extortionate, again to make thy personal riches greater! Oh! stop: canst thou not spare another minute for thy poor soul? It is to live for ever: hast thou naught laid up for it no hope in heaven, no blood of Christ, no pardon of sin, no sanctifying Spirit, no imputed righteousness? Ah! man there will be a time when the business that seems so important to thee will prove to have been but a day-dream, a poor substitute for the solid realities thou hast forgotten. Dost thou reply, "Nay, the king has sent me an urgent commission; I must attend to Caesar." Ah! Felix, but thou hast a greater monarch than Caesar: there is one who is Emperor of heaven and Lord of earth; canst thou spare no time to attend to his commands? Before his presence Caesar is but a worm. Man! wilt thou obey the one, and wilt thou despise the other? Ah! no; I know what thou durst not say. Felix, thou art turning aside again to indulge in thy lascivious pleasures. Go, and Drusilla with thee! But stop! Darest thou do that, with that last word ringing in thy ears, "Judgment to come." What! wilt thou repeat that wanton dalliance that hath damned thee already, and wilt thou go again to imbrue thy hands in lust, and doubly damn thy spirit, after warnings heard and felt? O man! I could weep o'er thee, to think that as the bullock goeth to the slaughter, and as the lamb licks the knife, so dost thou go back to the sin that destroys thee, and to the lust that ruins thee. You, too, many of you, have often been impressed under the ministry. I know what you have said on the Monday morning, after deep searchings of heart on the Sabbath: you have said, "I must attend to business, I must see after the things of this world." Ah! you will say that one day, when hell shall laugh you in the face for your folly. Think of men that are dying every day saying, "We must live," and forgetting that they must die. O poor soul! to be caring about that house, thy body, and neglecting the tenant within! Another replies, "I must have a little more pleasure." Pleasure dost thou call it? What! can there be pleasure in turning suicide to thine own soul pleasure in defying thy Maker, trampling on his laws, despising his grace? If this be pleasure, 'tis a pleasure over which angels might weep. What, man, wilt thou count this pleasure when thou comest to die? Above all, wilt thou count this pleasure when thou dost stand before thy Maker's bar at last? It is a strange delusion that causes thee to believe a lie. There is no pleasure in that which brings wrath upon thy soul, even to the uttermost. But the usual reply is, "There is time enough yet." The young man says, "Let me alone till I grow old." And you old men, what do you say? I can suppose that the youth looks forward to life, and expects to find a future time more convenient. But there are some of you o'er whose heads seventy winters have blown. When do you hope to find a convenient season? You are within a few days' march of the tomb: if you do but open your poor dull eyes, you may see death but a slight distance in advance. The young may die; the old must! To sleep in youth is to sleep in a siege; to sleep in old age is to slumber during the attack. What! man, wilt thou that art so near thy Maker's bar still put him off with a "Go thy way?" What! procrastinate now, when the knife is at thy throat when the worm is at the heart of the tree, and the branches have begun to wither when the grinders fail even now, because they are few, and they that look out of the windows are darkened? The sere and yellow leaf has come upon thee, and thou art still unready for thy doom! O man! of all fools, a fool with a gray head is the worst fool anywhere. With one foot in the grave, and another foot on a sandy foundation, how shall I depict you, but by saying to you, as God said to the rich man, "Thou fool! a few more nights and thy soul shall be required of thee;" and then where art thou? But still the common cry is, "There is time enough." Even the worldly moralist said, "Time enough is always little enough." Time enough, man! What for? Surely you have spent time enough in sin: the time past may "suffice you to have wrought the will of the Gentiles." What! time enough to serve a God that laid down his life for you? No! eternity will not be too long to utter his praise, and therefore it can not be too long to love him here, and serve him the few remaining days that you are to live on earth. But stop! I will reason with you. Come, Felix! thou shalt not go away this morning till my whole soul hath poured itself out over thee, not until I have cast mine arms round thee, and tried to stop thee this time from turning from the face of him that bids thee live. Thou sayest, "Another time." How knowest thou that thou wilt ever feel again as thou feelest now? This morning, perhaps, a voice is saying in thine heart, "Prepare to meet thy God." To-morrow that voice will be hushed. The gayeties of the ball-room and the theater will put out that voice that warns thee now, and perhaps thou wilt never hear it again. Men all have their warnings, and all men who perish have had a last warning. Perhaps this is your last warning. You are told to-day, that except ye repent, ye must perish, except ye put your trust in Christ, ye must be cast away forever. Perhaps no honest lip will again warn you; perhaps no tearful eye will ever look on you affectionately again; God to-day is pulling the reins tight to check you from your lust; perhaps, if to-day you spurn the bit, and rush madly on, he will throw the reins upon your back, saying, "Let him alone;" and then it is a dark steeplechase between earth and hell, and you will run it in mad confusion, never thinking of a hell till you find yourself past warning, past repentance, past faith, past hope. But again: how knowest thou, if thou shouldst ever have these feelings again, God will accept thee then? "To-day," he says, "to-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." This hour his love weepeth over you, and his bowels yearn for you. To-day he says, "Come, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be whiter than snow." Do you to-day turn a deaf ear to trim? Do you to-day forego his invitation and despise his warning? Take heed! You may one day need what now you despise, and you may then cry to him, but he will not hear you; you may then pray to him, but he will shut out your prayer, and his only answer will be, "I called!" "I called, and you refused. You stood against that pillar under the gallery; I called and you refused! I stretched out my hands, as if I would bring you to my bosom, and no man regarded me. You were there in the gallery; you listened, but it was as though you heard not; therefore" and oh! the dreadful conclusion! "I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh." Stay! those are not my words, they are God's words. Turn ye to the book of Proverbs, and find them there. It were a harsh thing for me to say of God; but God says it of himself, and God is true, though every man be a liar; and if he be true, how know ye that he may not despise your prayer one day, shut out your cry, and banish you forever? But again: how do you know that you shall live to be warned again? Said a minister once, when I gently hinted to him that he had not preached the gospel that morning, "No, I did not mean to preach to sinners in the morning; but I will preach to them in the evening." "Ah!" said I, "but what if some of your congregation of the morning should be in hell before the evening." So may I say to you. You have promised to go to a friend's house to-day, you think you can not break that promise; you wish you could. You wish you could go home and fall on your knees and pray; but no, you can not, because your promise binds you. You will have a convenient season one of these days! And so God Almighty is to wait man's convenience! How do you know you will live till that convenience comes? A little too much heat or too much cold within the brain a little too fast flowing of the blood, or a little too slow circulation thereof some little turning of the fluids of the body in a wrong direction, and you are dead!

"Dangers stand thick through all the ground, To bear you to the tomb, And fierce diseases wait around, To hurry mortals home."

Oh! why will you then dare to procrastinate, and say, "time enough yet?" Will your soul ever be saved by your saying "Time enough yet?" Archbishop Tillotson well says, "A man might say I resolve to eat, but the resolve to eat would never feed his body. A man might say, I am resolved to drink, but the resolve to drink would never slake his thirst." And you may say, "I am resolved by-and-by to seek God;" but your resolve will not save you. It is not the forgetful hearer but the doer of the word that shall be blessed therein. Oh that ye might now say To-day, my God, to-day I confess my sin; to-day I ask thee to manifest thy grace; to-day receive my guilty soul, and show me a Saviors blood; to-day I renounce my follies, my vices, and my sins, constrained by Sovereign Grace; to-day I cast away my good works as my ground of trust; to-day I cry,

"Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling!"

Oh! happy minister who shall have such an audience! happier than Paul, if he should know that his congregation had said this! Come, O Holy Spirit, and draw unwilling hearts, and make them bow before the scepter of sovereign grace. Preaching, you see, takes away my voice. Ah! it is not that. It is not the preaching, but the sighing over your souls that is the hard work. I could preach forever: I could stand here day and night to tell my Master's love, and warn poor souls; but 'tis the after-thought that will follow me when I descend these pulpit steps, that many of you, my hearers, will neglect this warning. You will go; you will walk into the street; you will joke; you will laugh. My Master says, "Son of man, hast thou heard what the children of Israel say concerning thee? Behold, thou art as one that playeth a tune upon an instrument; they make merry with thee, and they go their ways." Yes, but that were little. To be laughed at is no great hardship to me. I can delight in scoffs and jeers; caricatures, lampoons, and slanders, are my glory; of these things I boast, yea, in these I will rejoice. But that you should turn from your own mercy, this is my sorrow. Spit on me, but oh! repent! Laugh at me: but oh I believe in my Master! Make my body as the dirt of the streets, if you will: but damn not your own souls! Oh! do not despise your own mercies. Put not away from you the gospel of Christ. There are many other ways of playing fool beside that. Carry coals in your bosom: knock your head against a wall: but do not damn your souls for the mere sake of being a fool, for fools laugh at. Oh! be in earned upon an earnest subject. If there be no hereafter, live as you like; if there be no heaven, if there be no hell, laugh at me! But if these things be true, and you believe them, I charge you, as I shall face you at the judgment bar of the Lord Jesus in the day of judgment I charge you, by your own immortal welfare, lay these things to heart. Prepare to meet your God, O sons of Israel! And the Lord help you in this thing; for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The closing chapters from 21 to the end of the book are devoted to an episode full of interest and profit Paul's course from Jerusalem to Rome. And here we find ourselves in an atmosphere considerably different from what we have had before. It is no longer the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, either inaugurating the great work of God on the earth at Jerusalem, nor His equally wonderful energy in breaking through the old bottles of Judaism, when grace flowed freely, first to Samaria, then to the Gentiles, and in principle, as we know, in due time to the ends of the earth. Neither have we the apostle separated, as it is said, unto the gospel of God. These were the three great divisions and the main contents of the book up to the point we are arrived at. But now the apostle is about to become a prisoner, nor this without warning. The Holy Ghost, as we may see on the surface of the verses I have read, admonished the apostle time after time; but the apostle shows us the most striking combination of what was truly heavenly in faith and life with the strongest clinging of heart to his brethren after the flesh. This is what makes the difficulty of appreciating his history by no means small. But one may say that what was infirmity must be allowed to be infirmity on the noblest side (if any thing be so, which I do not deny,) of the human heart. Nevertheless we have the immediate effect in the lesson that even this does force us into altogether new circumstances wherein God never fails to magnify Himself. He knows how to turn even that which may have been in itself mistaken to His own glory, and then He in grace forms new channels and suited ways, not without a righteous judgment of the error even if it were in the best, and so much the more remarkably because it was in the best. And this I believe to be the prominent lesson of these later chapters of the Acts.

Let us, however, pursue the course of the divine instruction.

The apostle goes on his way and finds disciples, and tarries among them, as we are told, at Tyre for "seven days." This seems to have been a common term of stay we can readily conceive why. One great reason, I do not doubt, was to enjoy the fellowship of the saints together, to spend with the Christians in a new place that day which has the strongest possible claim on the heart that is true to Jesus the first day of the week. This was expressly shown in Acts 20:1-38. The Spirit of God does not repeat the same express statement here. Nevertheless I do not think we are far astray if we connect the seven days of the apostolic visit with that which was stated plainly in verses 6, 7, of that chapter. At Troas it was said that "we abode seven days; and upon the first day of the week, when the disciples (or rather, we) came together to break bread, Paul preached." Here there is no such positive affirmation, but still the mention in a similar way of seven days with the disciples may well open a question for spiritual judgment what the motive was for such a term. I do not doubt myself that it was to have the joy of meeting all saints in each locality as opportunity served, and of cheering and strengthening them on their course.

No doubt the spiritual instincts of the children of God would lead them always to desire to be together. For my own part I cannot understand a child of God who on principle could abstain from any occasion that summoned round the name of the Lord the members of the household of faith. It appears to me that, far from being a waste of time or from any other object being of the same moment, it is simply a question whether we value Christ, whether we truly are walking in the Spirit, if we live in the Spirit, whether the objects of the constant active love of God are also in measure the objects of our love in Christ's name.

I think therefore that it is according to the Lord that the children of God should if practicable be together every day. To this the power of the Spirit would lead: only the circumstances in which we are placed in this world necessarily hinder it. Therefore the true principle according to the word of God is a coming together whenever it is practicable; and we do well to cherish a real exercise of heart and conscience in judging what the practicability is, or rather whether the impracticability be real or imaginary. Very often it will turn out to be in our will, an excuse for spiritual idleness, a want of affection to the children of God, and a want of sense of our own need. Accordingly obstacles are allowed in own minds, such as the claims of business, or the family, or even the work of the Lord. Now all these have their place. Surely God would have all His children to seek to glorify Him, whatever may be their duty. They have natural duties in this world; and the wonderful power of Christianity is seen in filling with what is divine that which without Christ would be merely of nature; and this should ramify the whole course of a man's life after he belongs to Christ. And so again the claims of children for instance, or parents, or the like, cannot be disputed; but then if they are really taken up for Christ, I do not think it will be found that it is to the loss of either parents or children, or that the little time is missed in the long run that is spent in seeking the strength of the Lord, and in communion according to our measure. We ought to be open for both; and we shall ourselves never have any power to help unless we have the sense of the need of help from others; but both will be found together.

It appears to me that through the blessed apostle the Spirit of God gives us in these passing touches, and in recounting them valuable hints as to the spirit that animated him in his course. We may know in some slight degree what it is to be long on a journey without due rest, food, or shelter; and passing from one country and continent to another was by no means then the easy thing that it is in modern times. We have all the habit of being rapidly enough in motion, and anxious to get to the end. We can understand how the apostle, with so many hindrances in the way, might feel the comfort of these repeated stays, seven days in one place, seven days in another, as we have seen, expressly showing. the desire of his heart. after communion as well as confirming their souls. Such is what we find in this blessed man's course: in our little measure surely it ought to be so with us.

On this occasion, however, the disciples told Paul through the Spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem. This was serious. There is no other comment upon it. We know not what the apostle said or did, further than this, that the apostle certainly went up to Jerusalem all the same. "When we had accomplished these days, we departed and went our way." Then we have the beautiful scene of the wives and the children. This has its value. There is a marked absence of allusion to children in the Acts of the Apostles, where much is said among men and saints and servants of God. But we do hear of them in that, which is confessedly suitable. Here they are brought forward, but not as a superstitious church ere long did, among other things, to receive a portion from the table of the Lord: things were soon to change if not to arrive at that pass yet; but we do see them in the expression of the love that filled all, and the desire to reap to the very last moment the blessing of having an apostle in their midst. In short, the children were there no less in token of respectful love to him who was going, but also set in the attitude to receive whatever blessing the Lord might be pleased to bestow upon them. "And they all brought us on our way with wives and children," it is said, "till we were out of the city, and we kneeled down and prayed, and, when we had taken our leave one of another, we took ship, and they returned home again."

Another means of letting us into the ways of God among His people is found at Caesarea. "We entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven." We cannot well have forgotten his labours in earlier days at Samaria, and round about. But we are told here what we had not learnt then, that "the same man had four daughters." As unmarried, they were remaining in their father's house; and they prophesied. There is no reason why a woman should not have this or most other gifts as much as a man. I do not say the same kind of gift always. Surely God is wise and gives suited gifts whether to men or women, or, it may be, I was going to say, to children. The Lord is sovereign and knows how, as putting all who now believe in the body of Christ, so also to give them a work suitable to the purposes of His own grace. Certainly He did clothe these four daughters of Philip with a very special spiritual power. They had one of the highest characters of spiritual gift they prophesied. And if they were invested with this power, certainly it was not to be put under a bushel but to be exercised: the only question is how.

Now scripture, if we be but subject, is quite explicit as to this. In the first place, prophecy stands confessedly in the highest rank of teaching, but it is teaching. Next, the apostle is himself the person who tells us that he does not suffer a woman to teach. This is clearly decisive; if we bow to the apostle as inspired to give us God's mind, we ought to know that it is not the place of a Christian woman to teach. He is speaking on this topic, not in 1 Corinthians 11:1-34, but in 1 Corinthians 14:1-40 He is drawing the line between men and women in 1 Timothy 2:1-15. The latter epistle forbids the women as a class to teach. The other and still closer word in the former epistle, commands them to be silent in the assembly. At Corinth, apparently, there was some difficulty as to godly order and the right relations of men and women, because the Corinthians, being a people of speculative habits, instead of believing, reasoned about things. It was the tendency of the Greek mind to question everything. They could not understand that, if God had given a woman as good a gift as a man, she was not equally to use it. We can all feel their difficulty. Such reasoners are not wanting now. The fault of it all was, and is, that. God is left out. His will was not in the thought of the Corinthians. There was no waiting on the Lord to ascertain what was His mind. Clearly, if He has called the church into being, it cannot but be made for His own glory. He has His own mind and will about the church, and He has therefore spread out in His word how all the gifts of His grace are to be exercised.

Now the passages in1 Corinthians 14:1-40; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40 and in 1 Timothy 2:1-15 appear to me to be perfectly plain as to the relative place of the woman, whatever may be her gift. This may be said to decide only as to one sphere the assembly where the woman, according to scripture, is precluded from the exercise of her gift. I may say further, that in those days it did not occur to them that women. would go forth publicly to preach the word. Bad as the state of things was in early days, they seem to me to have looked for a greater sense of modesty on the part of women. There is not the slightest doubt that many females with the best intentions have thus preached, as they do still. They, or their friends, defend their course by appeals to the blessing of God on the one hand, and on the other to the crying need of perishing sinners everywhere. But nothing can be more certain than that scripture (and this is the standard) leaves them without the slightest warrant from the Lord for their line of conduct. Public preaching of the gospel on the part of women is never contemplated in scripture. It was bad enough for the Corinthians to think that they might speak among the faithful. It might have seemed that there women had the shelter of godly men; that there they were not offensively putting themselves forward before all sorts of people in the world, as must be the case in evangelising. Among the godly they may have imagined a veil, so, to speak, drawn over them more or less. But in modern times the end is supposed to justify the means. Gross as the Corinthians were, I must confess that to my mind the plans of our own day seem even more grievous, and with less excuse for them.

However this may be, we see here that the daughters of Philip did prophesy. No doubt it was in their father's house, as already intimated: otherwise the word of God would thus be set one part against another.

While they tarried there, a certain prophet came down from Judea, who repeats the warning to the apostle. Binding his own hands and feet with Paul's girdle he declares, "So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." And thus it was accomplished to the letter. Nevertheless, spite of the tears of the saints, spite of the warning of this prophet, as of others before, Paul, with mind made up, answers, "What mean ye to weep and to break my heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."

After all the apostle goes accordingly, and in Jerusalem the brethren receive him gladly. "And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present." It is evident from this picture that all ecclesiastically was in due order at Jerusalem. An apostle was there who had an apparently high place of local dignity. Besides there were the ordinary overseers whom the Holy Ghost had set as guides and leaders in the assembly (that is, the local charge of elders). "And when Paul had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry." They owned the way in which the Lord had been glorified. At the same time their word to him is, "Thou seest, brother, how many thousands" (the true meaning is tens of thousands, myriads, which may probably give some a larger thought than is familiar of the vast and rapid spread of the gospel at that time among that nation) "of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law; and they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying, that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs." This was a mistake. Such was not the course of the apostle.

What Paul really taught was the impropriety of putting Gentiles under the law: he did not interfere with the Jews at this time, Later a distinct and peremptory message came from the Holy Ghost; but the process of the Lord with them was gradual His method with His ancient people I deem of importance for us to learn and imitate. It is perfectly true that it was in the mind of God in due time to bring out fully the deliverance of both Jew and Gentile from the law; but this was not done all at once, at least as regards the Jew. What the apostle set himself decidedly against was the effort to bring the Gentiles under law; and this was precisely what Pharisaic brethren were zealous for. Whether Judaizing Christians or the Gentiles themselves took up the law, the apostle did most resolutely reject and condemn the fatal error. But as regarded the Jews themselves there was the truest forbearance, flowing from, not characteristic largeness of heart only, but tender consideration for scrupulous consciences. If God had not yet sent out the final word that told them the old covenant was ready to vanish away, how could he who so closely followed His ways be hasty? The early days were really a time of transition, where Christ was ministered first to Jew and then to Gentile. The Gentile, never having been under law, was far more simple than the Jew in appreciating the liberty of the gospel. The Jew was tolerated in his prejudices until the closing message came from God, warning them of the danger of apostasy from the gospel through their adhesion to the law.

Having dwelt on this in sketching the epistle to the Hebrews, there is the less reason to say more about it now. But that epistle was to the Hebrew believers the last trumpet which summoned them to renounce all connection with the old system. Up to that time there had been a gradual transition, the gap widening, the difference more pronounced, but still every tie was not broken till this the final call. Such a way strikes me as worthy of our God a way which to our precipitate minds might seem somewhat difficult, because we have been mostly trained as Gentiles. Since we have entered into the truth of God more perfectly, we have seen the enormous mischief of bringing in the law and mixing it up with the gospel.

Let us remember then that, whilst the Holy Ghost always maintained liberty for the Gentile, there was unquestionably a time of waiting on the Jew. Even the apostle Paul was no exception to patience with their prejudices. As to the twelve, they seem to have feebly enough entered into this liberty from the law. Doubtless Paul, as being apostle of the Gentiles, called from heaven by the risen Jesus, and witness of sovereign grace, apprehended it after a different sort and richer measure; but we shall find that even he could warmly sympathise to a great extent with the feelings of a Jew. He is the one to whom, under God, we are indebted for knowing anything about Christianity in its full form and real strength; yet, for all that, it is quite evident that he had, if not Jewish prejudice, certainly the warmest Jewish attachments; and, in point of fact, it was the strength of his affection to the ancient people of God that brought him into the trouble recorded in these concluding chapters of this book, the Acts of the Apostles.

This, we must remember, to a certain extent, may be viewed as an answer to the love found in our blessed Lord Himself; but then there were striking differences. In our Lord, love for Israel was, as all else, perfect: there was not, nor could be, the faintest admixture of a blemish. We know well the bare hint of such a thought would be repulsive to our faith and our love for His person. To the Christian it is impossible to conceive it for an instant. At the same time, we know His love for that people was felt and expressed up to the last. It was His persistent love which brought Him into the circumstances of utter rejection when God's time was come, and He suffered all the consequence of their hatred (though infinitely more also for sin in atonement, which was His alone). Now the apostle knew what it was to love Israel and suffer for that love. Not only among the Gentiles, but among the saints, the more he loved the less, he was loved. This was true; but, if in general true there, emphatically was it to be verified among the Jews. Thus stands the wonderful fact in the history of the apostle Paul: the very man who brought out the church distinctly, and showed its heavenly character as none other approached; the very man that proved the absolute abolition of the old ties and relations, swallowing. up all in Christ exalted to the right hand of God: he is the man whose heart retained the strongest attachment of love to the ancient people of God. And I have not the smallest doubt that God gives us in this case a grave but gracious warning of its danger. Were it an apostle, were it the greatest of the apostles, still Paul was not Christ, and what in Christ could be and was absolute perfection, in Paul was not. Yet Paul was a man who puts all that have been since that day into the shade.

If I may express my feelings here, let me say that I felt nothing a greater trial to my own spirit than touching on this very theme. I could not point out any one thing I shrink from more than having the appearance of reflecting on such a servant of Christ. Yet God has written the history of all this, and He has written it surely not for sentiment and silence, but for utterance and common profit. He has written it, no doubt, that we should feel our own great shortcomings, end that we should beware of our spirit in setting up to condemn such an one as the great apostle of the Gentiles.

Still, I repeat, the Holy Ghost has recorded here His own warnings on the one side, and on the other the refusal of the apostle to act on them, if I may venture so to say, though it were through fulness of tender love, and an ever-burning affection for his brethren after the flesh. Alas! when we think of our faults; when we reflect how little they spring from anything that is lovely; when we recollect how much they are mixed with. worldliness, and impatience, and pride, and vanity, and self; when we observe that he was so deeply chastened, and met with such a distressing stop to the world-wide work which God had given him, in what a light do our faults appear! He had a pressure of trial such as few men ever knew beside himself; and, what might embitter it to him, all this the natural effect of slighting the admonitions of the Spirit of God by yielding to his undying love for a people out of whom, after all, he had been divinely separated to the work the Lord had given him to do. God having given us the account, whatever may be one's own feelings, can it be doubted that we are bound to read, and by grace to seek to understand? Yea, not this only, but may we apply it for the present blessing of our souls, and for our progress in the path of Christ here below, whatever it may be. We may have the smallest possible sphere; but, after all, a saint is a saint, and very dear to God, who magnifies Himself in the least of those that are His.

It is assuredly for our profit and to God's own glory that the Holy Ghost has written this remarkable appendix to the history the onward history of the Acts of the Apostles. Here we have a check which brings in new things, the fruit of persisting in going up to Jerusalem spite of the Spirit's testimony against it. The more blessed the man, the more serious the miss of firm footing. There is one step outside what the Spirit enjoined, whatever may be the mingling of that which is beautiful and lovely; at the same time, it was not the full height, so to speak, of the guidance of the Spirit of God. This exposed the apostle to something more, as it always does; and, indeed, so much the more, because it was such an one as Paul. The same principle is plain in David's life. The lack of energy, which might have been comparatively a little hurt to another, became the gravest snare to David; and, found out of the path of the Lord, he soon slips into the meshes of the devil. Not that I mean anything in the least degree tantamount in the apostle Paul; far from it; for, indeed, in this case the apostle was mercifully preserved from anything that gave the smallest activity to the corruption of nature. It was simply a defect, as it appears to me, of watching against his own love for Israel, and thus setting aside, consequently, the warnings that the Spirit gave. The tears and appeals seem to have rather stimulated and strengthened his desire, and accordingly this exposed him to what was a snare, not immoral but religious, through listening to others below his own measure. He took the advice of James.

"What is it, therefore? The multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee. We have four men which have a vow on them; them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads" what a position for the apostle to find himself in! "and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning. thee, are nothing." Without pretending that there was nothing in the previous line of Paul tending to this (compare Acts 18:18), it is evident that the object was to give the appearance that he was a very good Jew indeed. Was this warrantable, or the whole truth? Was he not a somewhat ambiguous Jew? I believe that, as we have seen, there was an undisguised respect for what once had the sanction of God. And here was just the difference in his case from our blessed Lord's perfect ways. Up to the cross, we all know, the legal economy or first covenant had the sanction of God; after the cross, in principle it was judged. The apostle surely had weighed and appraised it all; he did not require any man to show him the truth. At the same time there was no small mingling of love for the people; and we know well how it may intercept that singleness of eye which is the safeguard of every Christian man.

The apostle then listens to his brethren about a matter in which he was incomparably more competent to form a sound judgment than any of them, Accordingly he suffers the consequence. He is found purifying himself along with the men who had a vow. He enters the temple, "to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them. And when the seven days were almost ended" which it is well known had to do with the Nazarite vow "the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help! This is the man that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place; and further brought Greeks also into. the temple, and hath polluted this holy place." The next verse shows us why. It was a mistake; nevertheless it was enough to rouse the feelings of all Israel. "All the city was moved, and the people ran together," and the issue was a frightful tumult, and the apostle was in danger of being killed by their violent hands, when the chief captain comes and rescues him. This paves the way for the remarkable address which the apostle delivers in the Hebrew tongue, given in the next chapter. Acts 22:1-30.

The mention of the Hebrew tongue appears to confirm the true key to the difference between this account of the apostle's conversion and others. It is not precisely in this book as in the gospels, where a different. way of presenting the same fact or discourse of our Lord Jesus obtains, according to the character of the design in hand; yet is it the same principle at bottom. Even in the same book a difference of design may be traced. There may be observed this in the three accounts in which Paul's conversion is given: first, the historical. account; secondly, Paul's own statement to the Jews; and, thirdly, Paul's to the Jews and Gentiles as to the Roman governor and king Agrippa. This is the true reason of the difference there is in the manner in which facts are presented. We need not enter minutely into detail.

On examination you will find what is said to be correct, that here as is evident he adopts a language which was for the very purpose of arresting the attention in appealing to the affections of the Jew; he speaks in their familiar tongue, and accordingly gives an account of his conversion in such a way as he considered conciliatory to the feelings of the Jews. To these there was one thing which was unpardonable; but this was the very glory of his apostleship, the direct object for which God raised him up. Thus, with the most gracious of intentions, and with the warmest love towards his countrymen after the flesh, the apostle gives an account of his conversion and the miraculous circumstances that attended it, of his meeting with Ananias, a devout man according to the law, which he takes particular pains to state there, and of the trance into which he afterwards fell at Jerusalem in the temple whilst praying. But he tells them out that which he must easily have known (and so much the more because of his accurate understanding of the feelings of the Jews) would rouse them to the uttermost: in short, he lets them know that the Lord called him and sent him to the Gentiles.

It was quite enough. The moment the sound of "Gentiles" reached their ears, all their feelings of Jewish pride took fire, and at once they cried out, "Away with such a fellow from the earth! It is not fit that he should live." As they cried and cast off their clothes to throw dust into the air, the chiliarch commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging. There he put himself in the wrong; for Paul was not only a Jew but a citizen of Rome; and he was so by a better title than the commandant who thus ordered him to be bound. The apostle quietly states the fact. I dare not judge him, though there may be some Christians who would: he was clearly entitled to remind those that were the guardians of the law of their own transgression. He uses no means further, but merely tells them how things stood.

It appears to me that it is a morbid squeamishness rather than true spiritual wisdom that would cavil at such an act on the part of the apostle. Every one knows that it is easy to be a martyr in theory, and that those who are martyrs in theory are seldom so in practice. Here was one destined to torture, and really one of the most blessed witnesses of the Lord all through. Faith enables one to see things clearly. Should the guardians of law break the law? Faith never teaches one to court danger and difficulty, but to walk the path of Christ in peace and thankfulness. The Lord has not called His servants to desert it. I dare say some of us may have been struck with the fact that the Lord told them when they were persecuted in one city to flee to another. Assuredly this is not courting martyrdom, but the very reverse; and if the Lord Himself gave such a word to His servants in Judea and to His disciples (as is well known), it appears to me that it is at least hazardous without grave spiritual ground to face a danger so decided of condemning the guiltless who are entitled to our reverence. Here we have no sign of anything said by the Holy Ghost in the form of warning; and therefore, observe, it is not in the least degree a setting aside what is clearly laid down elsewhere. We have seen the Holy Ghost admonishing the apostle, when carried far in ardent love, and we can easily see that He had a sovereign title, both to guide and to correct even if it were an apostle.

Nothing of the kind appears here. It was a fact which the Roman officer had overlooked illegally, and the apostle was entitled to state the fact. It was in no way a going to law. Need it be said that such a recourse to the powers that be would have little become a follower and servant of Jesus? It was in no way using such means as man would have employed; it was the simplest possible statement of a circumstance serious in the eye of the law, and it had its effect. "And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chiliarch, saying, Take heed what thou doest; for this man is a Roman." The chiliarch enquires accordingly. You must remember that to say you were a Roman, if you were not, was a capital offence against the government, which of course they never failed to visit with the severest punishment. To claim it untruly was too dangerous to be often attempted, as it exposed a man to the imminent risk of death. The officials of the Roman empire were rarely disposed therefore to question such a claim, especially where it was made by a man who, on the face of it, was such a character as the apostle, little as he might be known to any of them.

So "straightway," it is said, "they departed from him which should have examined him, and the chiliarch also was afraid after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him." However, man strives to preserve his dignity after his own fashion. "On the morrow, because he would have known the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his bands," (that is to say, he leaves him still a prisoner which he had no right to do,) "and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down and set him before them." The apostle seeks no further redress, and was as far as possible from the desire or thought of punishing the man for the mistake he had made. For this evidently would have been a departure from grace: but the occasion helps to give a little insight into this wonderful man of God. For when the high priest Ananias commanded those that stood by to smite him that said he had lived in all good conscience, Paul turns quickly upon him with the words "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall" (and so He did); "for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law? And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God's high priest? Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people." Acts 23:1-35.

This is a fine instance of the most simple, and at the same time admirable, way in which grace recovers, even if there be a momentary slip of haste mingling with it. There can be no doubt at all that the high priest had acted in a way entirely contrary to the law. There was therefore an indisputable right to rebuke him. At the same time I suppose that his decided character, and his keen sense of the glaring injustice, did betray itself in his utterance. Further, it is an instance of what is found often elsewhere in Scripture. God may be with a deed which on one side of it may have haste mingling with it, but on the other real truth and righteousness. What was done here by the high priest was glaringly contrary to the law of which he was the professed administrator. Nor certainly did God permit these solemn words to fall to the ground without bearing fruit. Paul at once, however, corrects himself, and owns that had he known him to be the high priest, he would not have spoken so; that is to say, whatever might be the character of the man, Paul was not one to lower the office. He would leave it to God to judge that which was unworthy of it.

There is another thing that claims our notice. Is there not a certain peculiarity discernible in a measure in the apostle now? First of all there was haste of spirit. Is there as firm treading as before in the path where the power of the Spirit of God rested on him? Do we not find an adroitness, may I venture to say, though wishing in no way to utter a word too much, as is easily done? But still is there not a cleverness in the way in which the apostle, when he perceived that one part of the council were Sadduccees and the other Pharisees, cried out, "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees;* of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question"?

*The plural form is recommended to us by the most ancient uncials, some good cursives, the Vulgate and the Syriac; the singular prevails in the great majority of copies and versions. Being more natural or customary, though far less energetic, we can understand copyists falling into it.

This does not seem according to the simple and full activity of the Spirit of God that we have seen in the apostle when he was away from Jerusalem. He had gone where he had been divinely warned not to go; and it matters not who it is, if it were even the greatest of the apostles, is there not a sensible difference when there is the smallest divergence from the peaceful guidance of the Holy Ghost? And if this is true of him, what shall we say of ourselves? Do not allow your lips to utter strong things about the apostle Paul; but let your own consciences, and let mine, take heed to our own ways, and above all beware of this that we be not found slighting one word that comes to us from the Holy Ghost. Let us weigh and cherish every expression of God's mind. In this ease the apostle Paul could not doubt it. It was not doubt; but he strengthened himself now that the time was come to suffer. He had made up his mind for the worst that man might or could do. Was it all that was there? In truth there was more than this; but I think the comparative lack of calm, the exposure to haste, and the other features that appear in this remarkable history, are meant to be signs to our souls of the real truth of the case as it now stood.

The consequence was soon apparent on this occasion. The diversion produced was no doubt what men would call politic; that is, the apostle designed to divide and conquer. He made good use of the one party that had whatever there was of zeal and orthodoxy. There is not the smallest pandering to the Sadducees, which would have been far from the Spirit of God. Now I am very far from saying or implying any unworthy ways; but I do mean that there was a kind of availing himself of the difference that reigned between these that held to the word of God with, at any rate, an outward religious respect, and those that despised it; and this is a danger that no man is free from, particularly in circumstances of danger. The apostle yielded to it then. He stated the fact that the hope and resurrection of the dead were in question; but still the question arises, What was his motive for putting it so? What does the Spirit of God bring out before us here? Was it simply the truth? Was it only Christ? I doubt so.

It seems clear that the discerning eye of the apostle saw the horrible state of the high priest and his party, that whatever might be the honour of the office, yet, in the defiled and defiling hands that now held it, it was only used for their own worst purposes against the truth and grace of God. Accordingly he availed himself of the strong feeling of the sounder part of the nation, and thus gained what might have seemed unexpected adherents among the Pharisees. It did not give him after all the advantage. To the believer is not this always the result? I doubt very much the weight of such a gain. Have we not learnt that the true gain is Christ? and that to take our side unqualifiedly with the Lord, by God's grace to shut our eyes to all consequences, and our ears to all censure, and just go on holding to that which we know is acceptable in His eyes and for His own glory, is not this the only true path of service, as it certainly is the precursor of victory? In this case it would be a victory unmixedly for the Master. Such an idea as one's own victory ought not to be in a Christian man's mind. Let our desires be simply for the Lord for His grace and truth, for His own work and glory in the church. His name is ill-served by making use even of the most reputable of His adversaries. Those zealous for the law, one cannot but know, are opposed to the gospel, the Pharisee no less than the Sadducee. The apostle presents to the multitude "the hope and resurrection of the dead." He does not commit himself to speaking about Jesus; he does not say a word of the gospel. Had he brought in either, all would have come to nothing: the Pharisee would have resented the word just as much as the Sadducee. Leaving out what was adverse to his purpose, he puts forward that which he knew would set one part of his enemies against the other.

Yet here was vouchsafed no small comfort from the Lord to His servant. "And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle. 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." What a proof of what the Lord is, even in (yea, because of) those very circumstances when the apostle's heart might have been exceedingly cast down! He had persisted in going up to Jerusalem, and brought himself into what certainly looks like a false position, and as a fact exposed him to a number of disasters and painful oppositions. The Lord at this very time, when things looked gloomiest, appeared to His servant, and comforted him. Instead of a word of reproach, on the contrary it is all that could bid him good cheer.

How good the Lord is! How perfect in His ways! He knows how to deal with a mistake whenever there is one, while He righteously deals with it so much the more in one who ought not to have made it, a mistake in his case being a thousand times more serious than in another. Nevertheless, the Lord has nothing but comfort to administer at such a time. "Be of good cheer, for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness of me in Rome." He was not going to be killed. This was just before the conspiracy appeared. What could man do? Why should he be afraid then? The Lord meant him to go to Rome: his heart's desire was to go there. That is what his heart was set upon next to Jerusalem; and he had his way in going to Jerusalem; and now the Lord was about to take him to Rome. To Rome he was going, but he was to visit it bearing the marks of having been up to Jerusalem. He was going to Rome a prisoner; bringing the message surely of the grace of God, but not without the experience of what it cost to have yielded to his love for the ancient people of God. He was going to Rome with a deeper sense of what his true calling was. His allotted work lay among the Gentiles pre-eminently and especially among the uncircumcision. Why did he not cleave simply and solely to his calling?

Nor were the foes of the gospel scrupulous, spite of their boasted attachment to the law of God. A conspiracy was forming among the unhappy Jews, and the Lord in His providence brings it to light by one that was kinsman of the apostle, to whose heart the ties of flesh and blood appealed with some strength, if there were no higher motive. No doubt he must have been a Jew to have been in the secrets of that portion of the nation which was bent upon the destruction of the apostle. He divulges the secret, first to Paul, subsequently to the chiliarch. Accordingly Lysias (for this was his name) gets ready a detachment of soldiers, and horsemen, and spearmen, during the night, and sends Paul to Felix the governor with a letter. Little did the Roman think that his letter was to be read by you and me; little did he know that there was an eye that looked him through and through as he wrote. That the false and the true should be proclaimed on the housetops he never counted on. "Claudius Lysias unto the most excellent governor Felix, sendeth greeting. This man was taken of the Jews, and should have been killed of them; then came I with the troop and rescued him, having understood that he was a Roman." He understood nothing of the sort; he was merely deceiving his superior, seeking in fact to make capital out of that which was error and fault; for, as we have seen, he began with a positive infraction of Roman law. He had bound, and this for the purpose of scourging, one no less a citizen than himself. He was guilty of claiming credit and zeal, where he had been both remiss and hasty. Oh, how little does the world think that the secrets of the most private letter, the counsels of the cabinet, the movements of kings, of governors, and ministers of state, of military chiefs and their men, no matter who or what, are all before One who sees all and forgets nothing.

Acts 24:1-27. Paul, however, is rescued; and now comes another scene. Ananias, the high priest, descends with the leaders to try their fortune before the governor with the captive. On this occasion they hire an orator to plead for them. If he begins with the grossest flattery and pomposity of speech, the apostle answers with as strikingly admirable and quiet dignity, exactly suited to the circumstances.

Here the apostle, then, when the governor beckoned him to speak, explains how utterly false were all the charges of this hired rhetorician. He loved his nation too well instead of being in anywise their troubler, as he had been represented. "As thou mayest understand, that there are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem to worship. And they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man, neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogue, nor in the city." There was therefore no such case as Tertullus had set forth: "We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes; who also hath gone about to profane the temple." He had only been a few days in Jerusalem, and was there worshipping, not seeking to trouble anybody. "Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me. But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets: and have hope towards God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Then he frankly states what had brought him up on this occasion. "I came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings." He really did love them. "Whereupon," he says, "certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult; who ought to have been here before thee, and object what wrong they had against me." But the witnesses were not found. In point of fact, there was nothing tangible to allege against him. It was merely the outburst of priestly hatred and popular fury, followed by a conspiracy formed to murder; and when this failed, the effort was to bring about a judicial condemnation. Who could fail to see the mere will and malice of man? It had no other origin or character.

"When Felix heard these things, he adjourned them, saying, When Lysias the chiliarch shall come down, I will know the uttermost of your matter. And he commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty." His wise experienced eye at once saw how things were: there was not the slightest ground for the charges against the apostle. Hence the unusual order not of liberty only, but. that none of his acquaintance were to be forbidden to come or to minister to him. Nay, more than this: "When Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith of Christ." But there was no compromise: he heard what he did not expect. It was not the resurrection now; it was an appeal to conscience morally, or, as it is said here, "He reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." All has its season, and this was a word exactly suited to the man and the woman to whom Paul preached. It was well timed. Any one who is at all acquainted with the history of this personage for he is an historical character knows that he was peculiarly guilty, and that these words of the apostle were directly levelled at, and a condemnation therefore of, his moral delinquency.

Felix trembles, accordingly, and talks about hearing him at another time; but that convenient time never came. "He hoped also that money should have been given him." How truly, therefore, and how seasonably, had Paul "reasoned to him of righteousness!" "He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him: wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him." Besides, you see the character of the man in what follows. "After two years Porcius Festus came in Felix's room: and Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound." There was no justice to be got out of this unjust judge. It was not that he wanted sense, or wisdom, or judgment. He had all these, and so much the worse for him; but he was willing to sacrifice everything for his own ends. He had been foiled in his desire for money; and now to please those Jews whom he heartily despised willing to do something that would ingratiate himself with them without costing him anything he leaves Paul bound.

Festus in due time appears to our view in the next chapter (Acts 25:1-27) He had the same desire. He was no better than his predecessor. Festus proposes in a singular way that Paul should go up to Jerusalem. This, was an unheard of thing for a Roman governor the chief representative of the empire to send one who had been brought before him back to Jerusalem to be judged by the Jews. Paul at once takes his stand on the well-known principle of the Roman empire that ought to have guided Festus. He says, "I stand at Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest. But if I be an offender, and have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die; but if there be none of these things whereof they accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar." This is clearly a matter of spiritual judgment. Paul had now committed himself to this course, as later he actually went before Caesar. It was irrevocable. There was no human possibility of change now. He had uttered the word; before Caesar he must go. Nevertheless, a short time after this we find Agrippa comes down, and the Roman governor, knowing well the active mind of the king, tells him the story of Paul. He felt his own weakness in having to do with such a case, and he knew the interest of Agrippa. Agrippa accordingly tells the governor that he would like to hear the man himself.

On the next day, "when Agrippa therefore was come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and was entered into the place of hearing, with the chiliarchs and principal men of the city, at Festus' commandment Paul was brought forth." And here we find a remarkably fine contrast with all the glitter and pomp of the court. The king himself was a most capable man, but destitute of moral purpose. His wife, however she might be favoured naturally, was alas! a woman of no character whatever. Both of them were under the most painful cloud of suspicion even in the minds of the heathen themselves, not to speak of the Jews. These are the persons who, with the Roman governor, sit in judgment upon the apostle. And then comes forth the prisoner bound with chains. But oh what a chasm separated them from him! What a difference in the eyes of God! What a sight it was to Him to behold these judges dealing with such a man without one shred to cover them of what was of Himself nay, with that which was most shameful and debasing. In all the splendour of earth's rank and dignity they sat to hear the poor but rich prisoner of the Lord. And Agrippa (Acts 26:1-32) said to him, "Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself: I think myself happy, king Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee." If we find the full peace and blessedness of this honoured man of God, what the Lord wrought, and the mighty power of His grace, we see the most dignified yet lowly courtesy towards those who listened, Agrippa especially. "Because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews: wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently."

He expounds therefore all his history, how he had been trained from his youth in the strictest sect among the Jews, and again mentions how he was judged for the hope of the promise made of God to "our" fathers, Thus he reasons on the resurrection: "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you if God raises the dead?" He at once brings in this which every Pharisee acknowledged, and which was the main test of orthodoxy among the Jews. This is applied to the history of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, all turned on it. If it was true that God had raised Him from the dead, what was the position of the Jews, and what the glory of Jesus? All turned therefore on the resurrection.

Then he points out the facts of his own conversion. It was not favourable circumstances that had thrown him in the way of the gospel; it was the very reverse of attachment to the Christians or of any lukewarmness toward the law. All his prepossessions were for Israel, all his prejudices against the gospel. Nevertheless while he had carried this to the uttermost, while with the authority of the chief priests he had sought to persecute them to death, the grace of God surmounted all either of religious ties or religious hatred in the heart of Paul. "When I went to Damascus," he says, "with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun."

And not more surely was the heavenly light which streamed upon the apostle above all nature's light, than the grace which God showed that day completely eclipsed all that was of man in his heart and previous history. All disappeared before the all-overcoming strength of the goodness of God in Christ. "And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against goads. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." The work was done. I say not that there was all the peace and blessedness he was afterwards to enjoy, but there was effected then the entrance of that spiritual light of Christ that dealt with his conscience in all its depths. At once, down to the very roots of his moral being, all was stirred up, and the good seed, the seed of everlasting life, was sown underneath. He is bidden to rise and stand upon his feet. "For I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee."

The word is not exactly as we have it "delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles." It is hard here to see the propriety of that term "delivering" in our common Bibles. In this connection it was not a question so much of a rescue as of taking him out from the people and from the Gentiles. The Lord was severing him from the Jew no less than the Gentile. It is also more than Peter speaks of inActs 15:1-41; Acts 15:1-41 (taking out from the Gentiles a people for His name); which we have seen already, as it was of prime importance to insist on it at the great council of Jerusalem. It was of course still true that God is taking out a people for His name; but in the case of Saul of Tarsus the Lord speaks of taking him out from the Jew no less than the heathen. It is a separation therefore unto the new work of God from both Jew and Gentile. "Unto whom," speaking of the Gentiles, "now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are sanctified through faith that is in me."

Nor was Paul disobedient to the heavenly vision. He bowed to the Lord. He was right, as became a man taught of God. And he "showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they, should repent and turn to God, and do works worthy of repentance." For these were the true causes of Jewish hostility.

There was no setting himself up against the law. God forbid that this should ever be an object for a Christian man! He does not call us to a negative testimony, even if legitimate; He calls us to a task far more truly of Himself. It is not against evil so much as for good that God gives us a mission. We must hold this fact always as a fixed principle. I grant you that he who is called out to a purpose that is worthy of God does judge what is evil; nay, not merely this, but judges especially what looks ever so good. Correcting evil by power is not the present purpose of God for the Christian or the church; and be assured His will is the only true directory and the only safe ground for us in everything.

Let us then always enquire, what according to scripture does God design and desire for His people now? What is His real revealed work now? To what therefore is He calling you and me? To what did He set apart the apostle then? It was certainly not the pulling down of the Jews or their legal economy. Judgment was coming on that nation soon, but as long as God forbore Paul lingered over them in patient love; and was he not quite right? But God was calling out a people from the Gentiles as well as from the Jews, and separating him from all his antecedents, from everything that his heart was so fondly bound up in: for never was mortal man that loved Israel more than the apostle Paul did. But God took him out of all his old Jewish associations as well as the Gentiles, to whom now He sent him.

It is evident that we must be separated from human influences even of the best kind, in order to be a fit vessel for God's purposes where the need is greatest. If you would effectually help others, you must always be above the motives and ways that sway them. Impossible to deal rightly with a person if you are merely on the same level with him. This is the reason why, if a brother be overtaken in a fault, what is wanted is a truly spiritual soul to seek his restoration. A careless Christian would spoil the case; because, if he who is in fault can put his finger on something like his own shortcoming in the one who deals with him, it gives him an excuse for his own sin, and a ground for censuring, his censor. Whereas, if there had been the true effect of the grace of God in him who appeals to his soul; if grace has both brought out from all that is evil and sustained in good, so that he can be accused of nothing against the Lord, I need not say how God honours it as His will and special provision for dealing with those who are involved in any fault. Here, in the apostle Paul, is the same principle, though in a far deeper and larger way. Indeed, it is but the assertion of grace that mighty principle of God's goodness in power, working spite of evil according to all that is in His heart.

Paul, then, was taken clean out of everything, both Jew and Gentile, but sent to the Gentile especially. "And the bare sound of this it was that horrified the Jews; nor could they reconcile how one who had burning love to the Jew could at the same time be the prominent, untiring witness of grace to the Gentiles. In their legal pride they could not forgive it. The most hostile feelings broke out against Paul, coupled with the madness of envy and jealousy against the Gentiles. So he tells them, "For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. Having, therefore, obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying nothing else than those things which Moses and the prophets did say should come; whether Christ should suffer; whether he should be the first through resurrection of the dead to announce light," etc.

As he thus explains, the Roman governor interrupts him in the exclamation, that much learning had made him mad. Paul replies, "I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness." There is all possible respect, it will be observed; at the same time, he could not without protest allow the ignorance of a blind heathen to put such a stigma on the truth. He appeals to one beside Festus certainly an impartial witness as far as Christianity was concerned. "For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely; for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner." The alleged facts of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus were not unknown to Herod Agrippa. They were universally talked of by all who concerned themselves with Israel.

Suddenly he turns with a direct question: "King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest them. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Though I do not agree with some modern efforts as to this clause, I admit that the word "almost" hardly gives the true force. "In a little degree you are persuading me." In what spirit was this said? It seems to be a sentiment into which he was surprised, and in this sense wrung out from him. He could not deny the truth of what the apostle asserted. He would not disclaim his own prophets. He was, in point of fact, shut up in a corner as far as regarded the facts and the prophecies that spoke of them beforehand. Thus, cool a man of the world as he was, the surprise of the pointed enquiry of the apostle obliged him to acknowledge that in a little degree Paul was persuading him to be a Christian. This does not intimate, of course, that he really believed in the Lord Jesus; but the premisses of the apostle did involve the conclusion that Jewish prophecy pointed to Jesus Christ, so that Agrippa could not but own a certain impression made on his mind.

But Paul answers in a spirit truly admirable, and this not alone with wisdom, nor with loving desire only. There is another element, too, exceedingly sweet, as showing the state of the apostle at this time, and his own soul's deep present enjoyment of the Lord and of His grace. "I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both in a little and in a great degree such as I am, except these bonds." I hardly know such an answer from man's lips. We have wonderful words of others as well as of Paul elsewhere; but to my mind, throughout the compass even of this blessed book, it would be hard to find an expression of grace and truth, with the condition of happiness which the Spirit vouchsafes, more admirably suited to the circumstances of all concerned more perfectly reflecting what God gives by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul could not wish his bonds for any, however he might glory in them for himself. He boasted to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ; but he could not desire such fare then at least for such as he desired to be brought to the Lord. The time might come, no doubt, when those who proved good soldiers in that warfare might rejoice, even as he rejoiced, in his sufferings for Christ's sake and for his body's sake, as well as for the gospel. But this he could with all his heart wish, that they might be, not only in some measure (even if it were only a little), but in a great degree such as he was. It is not merely that they might be Christians; still less that they might be converted; but "such as I am."

The wish embraces both the reality or standing and the state of the Christian; yea, such enjoyment as filled Paul's own heart at the very moment when he stood in bonds before this splendid court. Did not Paul know the dark cloud that hung over Agrippa and Bernice, not to speak of others? Grace surmounts all evil, as it overcomes and forgives the worst enemies. There is not one bitter reflection, nor a denunciatory word. Grace wishes its best even for those who are bent on the pleasures of sin for a season. We know that judgment is sure and just; but grace can rise to a higher kind of justice not that of earth or of man, but of God, who can be just, and justify him that believes "the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ." This was what filled his heart, and it was the full unhindered strength of God's own grace made good and seen in Christ that was now working in his own soul. It was drawn out by his delight and enjoyment of the Christ to whom he had been bearing witness, whose glory made pale all that a Roman governor or a Jewish king could boast. It was not the surprise, but the overflowing heart of one who looked right into eternity who recalled once more the brightness of the glory of heaven, wherein he had seen Christ Himself brighter than all that glory the source, power, and fulness of it all, and the giver of it also to those who believe. It was this that filled him then, and strengthened him to utter such an expression of divine love.

The court breaks up, Agrippa acknowledging himself that Paul might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed to Caesar. This is to be noted.

Acts 27:1-44. The next chapter details the singularly instructive voyage of the apostle: where, instead of being a prisoner, he looks as if he was really the master of the ship; and, indeed, had his word been duly heeded in time, they would have been preserved in safety. How wonderful a thing faith is! How blessed the faithfulness that flows from faith; how completely it is the power of God in whatever position a man may be!

Here you find the apostle on his way to the Gentiles. All was clear now. He is away from that which was a charmed circle to him, where his bow did not abide in strength, but now, as before Festus and Agrippa, has returned to his old vigour. All is found in its place: no proofs are wanted where every fact proves it.

Acts 28:1-31. The last chapter shows us not only the journey to Rome, but the apostle reaching it. There, too, we find how truly the power of God is with him. He is received and no small kindness shown by the inhabitants in the island of Malta. And Paul illustrates how far any word of the Lord is in vain by accomplishing one of the peculiar promises in the disputed verses at the end of Mark. This strikes the minds of these heathen, so that afterwards we find the father of the great man in the island with Paul, who prays and lays his hands upon him and heals him. "When this was done, others also which had diseases in the island came, and were healed: who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary."

Arrived in Italy, they taste the comfort of brotherly love. "We found brethren, and were desired to tarry with them seven days; and so we went toward Rome. And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum, and Tres Tabernae; whom, when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage." What a joy it is for a humble brother to be the means of inspiring the apostle Paul with fresh cheer along the road of Christ; and how we defraud ourselves as well as our brethren of so much blessing by our little faith and scanty love in identifying ourselves with the most despised and suffering for the name of the Lord! To what a work are we not called! What a wonderful mission is that which the Lord confers upon the simplest soul that names the name of Jesus! May He wake us up to feel how blessed we are, and what a spring of blessing He is! Out of them, it is said, "shall flow rivers of living water." Here, observe, it was the apostle himself; and, though it may seem strange to some, even he could find the sweetness and the power of the ministry of love.

To Rome Paul goes, and there he dwells with a soldier that keeps him; and in due time he sees the Jews, and lays before them the gospel at full length. Alas! it was the same tale; for man is everywhere the same, but God is too. "Some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive."

The sentence, the long-suspended sentence, of judicial hardening was now about to fall in all its withering strength. It had been hanging over the nation ever since the days of Isaiah the prophet; for not without ground was it uttered then. Still the patience of God pursued its way, till Jesus came and was rejected, when the clouds gathered more thickly. Now not only the Holy Ghost was come, but He had testified of the risen glorified man, from Jerusalem to Rome. But if He had testified, the Jews, instead of being, as they ought to have been, the first to receive God's testimony, were in point of fact the first to refuse the most active and obstinate emissaries of unbelief and of Satan's power, not only not entering in themselves, but forbidding those who would. Accordingly, then and most justly fell that pall of judgment because of unbelief under which they lie to this day. But the gospel goes to the Gentiles; and spite of all that had wrought hitherto, or might work hereafter, they were to hear, and they have heard; and we are ourselves, thanks be to God, the witnesses of it.