THE ENIGMA OF HOPE We saw at the end of Acts chapter twenty-one, after the Turkish Jews tried to kill Paul and started a riot, the Roman centurion that rescued Paul from the angry mob gave Paul permission to speak to all the Jews from the steps of the temple of Jerusalem. Acts 22:1 Brothers and fathers, listen to me as I offer my defence … Paul speaks in Hebrew to the Jews recounting his religious pedigree as a Pharisee and his dramatic conversion to becoming a follower of Jesus. The Jew...
THE ENIGMA OF HOPE
We saw at the end of Acts chapter twenty-one, after the Turkish Jews tried to kill Paul and started a riot, the Roman centurion that rescued Paul from the angry mob gave Paul permission to speak to all the Jews from the steps of the temple of Jerusalem.
Acts 22:1 Brothers and fathers, listen to me as I offer my defence … Paul speaks in Hebrew to the Jews recounting his religious pedigree as a Pharisee and his dramatic conversion to becoming a follower of Jesus. The Jews fly into another rage and tear at their clothes and take Paul to the Roman barracks to be scourged with whips. And when Paul declares his Roman citizenship, the Roman Commander puts a stop to the scourging both because of Paul’s Roman citizenship and because he was confused by the behaviour of the Jews. He didn’t understand why Paul was being accused so he released him and commanded that Paul be tried by the chief priests and the council.
Chapter Twenty-three begins with the council trial and Paul declares to them all that his conscience is perfect before God, and this causes such offence to the high priest Ananias that he orders that Paul be slapped in the mouth, and Paul yells at him ‘God will slap you, you whitewashed wall. Who are you to break the law yourself by ordering me struck like that?’ When Paul was told that Ananias was the high priest he apologised and said he didn’t know that, and that he knew the Scriptures that say you should not speak evil of your leaders. Paul had to gain control of the situation somehow so he quickly thought of what he would say to the council group next. Some of them were Pharisees and some were Sadducees and only the Pharisees believed in angels and the Spirit and the resurrection of the dead, so Paul said that as a Pharisee himself he was being put on trial for simply believing in the resurrection of the dead. This ended up with the Pharisees and the Sadducees fighting with one another because of the Sadducees’ unbelief in these things - and the Roman commander had to put Paul in prison for his own safety.
That night the Lord stood beside Paul and said, ‘Don’t worry, Paul; just as you have told the people about me here in Jerusalem, so you must also in Rome.’
The next day forty Jews took a vow to kill Paul and they persuaded the council to bring Paul back in for further questioning. Paul’s nephew heard of their ambush, so he tipped off the Commander who called two of his officers and ordered him to get four hundred and seventy soldiers and spearmen and mounted cavalry, including a horse for Paul, to get him safely to Governor Felix in Caesarea.
Chapter twenty-four starts with Felix organising a new trial before the Jewish leaders in Caesarea.
Ananias the High Priest arrives from Jerusalem with some of the Jewish leaders and the lawyer Tertullus, to make their accusations against Paul. They immediately weigh in on how Paul was a troublemaker, inciting the Jews throughout the entire world to riots and trying to defile the Temple and causing rebellion against the Roman Empire back in Jerusalem. They blame Paul for confusing the Roman commander who forcefully disrupted their punishment of Paul at that time and they even complained about the commander defending Paul’s appeal to be tried by Roman law.
Then it was Paul’s turn, and he told Felix that with all his knowledge of Jewish affairs for so many years he would know that he had never incited a riot in any synagogue and these men could never prove the things they accused him of doing. He then denies all the charges and repeats that all he did was to defend himself for believing that the dead will rise again. Felix knew that Christians didn’t start riots so he refused to condemn Paul and put him in custody instructing the guards to treat him gently and to allow his friends to visit him and bring him gifts to make his stay more comfortable. This was simply a political agenda of Felix who thought that he might gain financially by getting a bribe from Paul or his friends for Paul’s freedom.
In the meantime Paul gets a chance to preach to Felix and his Jewish wife Drusilla about Jesus, but when he got to talking about obeying God and the judgement that was to come Felix became terrified and sent Paul away, still giving audience to Paul from time to time with the hope of a bribe which never came. And because Felix wanted to gain favour with the Jews, he left Paul in prison for two years. Then Felix was succeeded as governor by Porcius Festus.
Chapter twenty-five starts with Festus arriving in Caesarea and making a quick visit to Jerusalem which he probably wished he hadn’t because the first thing now on his to-do list was to respond to the disgruntled Jewish leaders who were still very unhappy with the way Felix had handled the trial of Paul and they wanted another trial and they wanted Festus to bring Paul to Jerusalem (Their plan was to waylay and kill Paul). But Festus told them to come to Caesarea the following week. The Jews arrived from Jerusalem and began hurling accusations which they couldn’t prove, and Paul again denied all charges of having opposed Jewish laws or of desecrating the Temple or of rebelling against the Roman government. He said to Festus ‘I am innocent, I appeal to Caesar.’ Festus conferred with his advisors and then replied, “Very well! You have appealed to Caesar, and to Caesar you shall go!”
A few days later King Agrippa arrived with his wife Bernice for a visit with Festus, who outlined to the king the case that the Jews had against Paul, and Festus said he was perplexed as to how to decide a case of this kind and that everything was still in the balance. He told Agrippa that he had asked Paul whether he would be willing to stand trial on these charges in Jerusalem, but that Paul had appealed to Caesar! Festus told Agrippa that he’d ordered Paul back to jail until he could arrange to get him to Rome. King Agrippa said that he would like to hear what Paul had to say, so Festus arranged another hearing and brought Paul to the court. When King Agrippa and Bernice arrived with great pomp and ceremony, Festus outlined the case against Paul to Agrippa and to the Jews and all the crowd.
Chapter twenty-six starts with Agrippa hearing Paul again preaching about Jesus as the Messiah who would suffer and die for the forgiveness of our sins and to rise from the dead, and to bring light to Jews and Gentiles alike. This was so annoying to Festus that he shouted at Paul and said “Paul, you are insane. All your studying has damaged your mind!” Paul replied, “I am not insane, Most Excellent Festus, and King Agrippa knows who I am and what I’ve done for it was not done in a corner, and King Agrippa, I know you believe in the prophets. (Agrippa was related to the Herodian dynasty which was Jewish)
Agrippa interrupted him and said ‘after saying what you just said do you expect me to become a Christian?” And Paul replied, I would hope that you and everyone here might become a Christian like me, except for being in chains.
Then the king, the governor, and Bernice, and all the others stood and left, and as they talked it over afterwards, they agreed, “This man hasn’t done anything worthy of death or imprisonment.” And Agrippa said to Festus, “We could have set him free - if only he hadn’t appealed to Caesar!”
Arrangements were finally made for Paul to sail to Rome under heavy guard.
Paul would likely have had a hope of converting Jews with the Gospel of grace, and converting governors and kings and emperors for the Kingdom of God that would perhaps influence all the nations of the world. Paul’s hope could have easily turned into disappointment in his dismal journey through those last few uninspiring chapters in Acts, with one contentious encounter after another, being resisted and rejected and mocked and scorned - but Paul had an even better kind of hope.
We saw in the previous study in Acts the paradox of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will - how that God sovereignly takes us in his way but graciously accompanies and leads us on our way. And this undergirds the new kind of hope that he writes about to us – the enigma of hope in the glory of God, which is far higher than our human idea of hope which looks into the future with an expectation of seeing things work out the way we hope they will because of our faith and faithfulness and good planning. We can’t live without hope, but the problem is our disappointments - so we live with hope and with disappointment because of not knowing what to expect or hope for with certainty. The only certain hope is the hope that God has for us. And Paul would certainly not be disappointed with his revelation of that hope to us which still speaks to us and to all the world two thousand years later.
Through Jesus we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (God’s glory means God on display in our lives – not us). Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings (including our disappointments), knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces a hope, and that hope does not disappoint us, because God's love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:2-5)
God plants a vision and a hope inside each one of us – it is his vision and his hope for us, and it does not disappoint us if we give our heart and mind to embracing that new and certain hope.
It is what God is always himself achieving in us.
He is always bringing us into his likeness.
It is what God is always doing for us.
He is always enriching our lives with his love and with all spiritual blessings.
It is what God is always doing through us.
He is imparting that love and blessing on through us to all those in our world.
There is a way we can position ourself within God’s certain hope that overcomes the future uncertainties and the lost hopes of the past. Those things only make us look around inside our heads. Instead we look out and see another horizon in our life that lets us find a deeper and higher meaning in what God in his vast creative power is doing for us (Ecclesiastes 3:11- the word for eternity in their hearts is horizon).
The enigma Hope lets God do the hoping for us.
We rest in that certain hope and wait for that to come to us from God. And in that inner stillness we still move forward in faith with his word as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, but we do not create our own future with our own hope - God says that he creates that for us.
‘For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope’ (Jeremiah 29:11).
When David was in the depths of despair, which is the exact opposite to hope, all he could do was speak to his own soul - he looked inside but he got sick of looking in there, he just got tired of doing that. In there was all about lost hopes and disappointments and his failures, so he said to himself, from where does my help come, from where does my hope come - and he looked to the Lord – he looked to the hills, looking to the horizon. That is God's horizon from where everything begins to flow - even in the natural he knew that the hills - not like the desert of his soul - the hills had streams of water flowing - the hills had shade. Looking to the horizon lifted his soul above his disappointments, and he knew something was coming to him from that place. He lifted his eyes there with his thank you, with his gratitude, and began to magnify the Lord not the problems, not the disappointments, thank you Lord, Amen.
