Tag Archives: kill

God In The Shadows

Bible Study, , , ,

GOD IN THE SHADOWS

“Three days after Festus arrived in Caesarea to take up his duties as governor, he went up to Jerusalem. The high priests and top leaders renewed their vendetta against Paul. They asked Festus if he wouldn’t please do them a favour by sending Paul to Jerusalem to respond to their charges. A lie, of course — they had revived their old plot to set an ambush and kill him along the way.

“Festus answered that Caesarea was the proper jurisdiction for Paul, and that he himself was going back there in a few days. ‘You’re perfectly welcome,’ he said, ‘to go back with me then and accuse him of whatever you think he’s done wrong.'” Acts 25:1-5 (The Message).

Like the proverbial elephant, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem had not forgotten about Paul. Felix’ indecision had not let him off the hook as far as they were concerned. He was still a thorn in their side and they were determined to annihilate him whatever it took. There was new blood in control and now was their opportunity to get around Festus before he could hear Paul’s side of the story.

Grabbing the chance to get him off guard, the religious leaders casually asked Festus to send Paul back to Jerusalem on the pretext that they would give him a hearing there, but they knew that, once Paul was dead, Festus could do nothing about it. It would not be their fault if he were murdered on the way to Jerusalem.

Fortunately for Paul, Festus didn’t buy that one! He was either too familiar with the rules of his job to agree to their request or he smelt a rat and chose to protect Paul and give him a fair hearing. Once again, there was a Higher Hand guiding Paul’s affairs so that he would not fall into the hands of his murderous opponents. Rome had no issue with him, so it was better for him to remain in Caesarea until someone had the courage to make a decision. God said he was going to Rome and that settled it!

When one takes a step back and on hindsight, one can see that, as long as Paul remained in the territory of Israel, he was not safe. Had he been acquitted and released, the Jews would have made sure their assassin was in place before he had a chance to get out of the country. God was surely watching over His son and, as unpleasant as it was for him to be imprisoned indefinitely, he was safe where he was until his passage to Rome under Roman guard, was assured.

Paul’s story should be of great encouragement to God’s children. King David assured us, and that after years of experiencing God’s protection through many dangerous situations, that all the days ordained for us were written in His book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16 – NIV). Not only has He ordained the length of our days, but He has also planned each day in advance.

That does not mean that He treats us as puppets or as pawns on a chess board. He honours His gift of choice far too much to do that, but it does mean that every day He has given us is packed with the potential to live it with Him and for Him.

Paul had come to know, through the hazardous life he had lived as a missionary in a hostile world, that he was indestructible until his work was done. He did not waste time worrying about his safety. He lived to the full in the assurance that it was God’s responsibility to take care of him, and he could get on with the business of God’s kingdom without wasting energy on what he could not control.

We live in the shadow of the Almighty. We cannot see where He is going but we can see where He has been and what He has done. Is that not enough to convince us that “Our God reigns”?

Trial By Fire

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TRIAL BY FIRE

“That night the Master appeared to Paul. ‘It’s going to be alright. Everything is going to turn out for the best. You’ve been a good witness for me here in Jerusalem. Now you’re going to be my witness in Rome.'” Acts 23:11 (The Message).

How desperately Paul needed reassurance at that moment! Things looked pretty bad for him. He was not involved in any criminal activity and at least the Pharisee part of the Sanhedrin had given their verdict — in their row with the Sadducees — not guilty, but not in an official trial. He could not be released and even if he were, he was still in danger of being torn apart by the angry mob if he so much as stuck his nose out of doors.

Paul must have felt very alone in his circumstances, between a rock and a hard place and not knowing what would happen to him next. Things seemed to have gone horribly wrong. There seemed no way out and he must have been wondering whether God’s plan for him had been derailed.

Just when he needed it, came the word from the Master Himself. ‘It’s okay, Paul, everything is still on track. I’ll get you to Rome, just as I said I would.’ It’s just like Jesus to affirm Paul even in these sticky circumstances. He spoke words of encouragement and approval like a good father and Paul must have breathed easy again, knowing that, crazy as things seemed to be, God was still there orchestrating the situation for His own purposes.

Paul was in custody in the barracks, and now the Roman captain was sitting with a problem on his hands — what to do with him. He had no authority to release him or to try him. It was the Jews’ fight. Somehow he had to get Paul a trial by the proper authorities.

“Next day the Jews worked up a plot against Paul. They took a solemn oath that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed him. Over forty of them ritually bound themselves to this murder and presented themselves to the high priests and religious leaders. ‘We’ve bound ourselves by an oath to eat nothing until we have killed Paul. But we need your help. Send a request from the council to the captain to bring Paul back so that you can investigate the charges in more detail. We’ll do the rest. Before he gets anywhere near you, we’ll have killed him. You won’t be involved.'” Acts 23:12-15 (The Message).

Now what! Paul’s Jewish antagonists had hatched a seemingly fool proof plot to kill him. No one knew about it, so they thought, and now they had Paul in the bag! This reminds me of the words of an old hymn:

“Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ’tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadows,
Keeping watch above His own
(“Once to every man and nation” – James Russell Lowell)

The reassurance Jesus had given Paul was enough for him to know that, no matter what the current circumstances, God would turn it to His own advantage.

Watch this space for the next episode!

All Out War

Bible Study, , ,

ALL OUT WAR

“But it wasn’t long before reports got back to the Thessalonian hard-line Jews that Paul was at it again, preaching the word of God, this time in Berea. They lost no time responding, creating a mob scene there too. With the help of his friends, Paul gave them the slip — caught a boat and put out to sea. Silas and Timothy stayed behind. The men who helped Paul escape got him as far as Athens and left him there. Paul sent word back with them to Silas and Timothy, ‘Come as quickly as you can!'” Acts 17:13-15 (The Message).

What was it with these Jews? Why were they not content to stir up trouble only in their own city? Why did they pursue Paul to other cities as well?

The battle lines were drawn between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, and each person had to choose on which side he would stand. The unbelieving Jews represented avowed and all-out opposition to the truth for which Paul and his companions were contending. The difference between the two sides was that the Jews were opposing Paul, while Paul was at war with the spiritual forces of darkness which were holding these Jews and all those who refused to believe, in darkness.

What tactic did the devil employ in his attempt to overcome the representatives of the kingdom of God? Kill them! Stir such murderous hatred in those who represented him that they would stop as nothing to get rid of them! It was not enough to confine the battle to their city. Follow them and stir up so much opposition that they would not be welcome anywhere!

What was Paul’s response? Fight back, using their tactics? He knew that the battle was not with the Jews but within himself. How would he react to people who hated him? Would he hate back? Would he become like them, under the influence of the dominion of darkness, bringing dishonour to his Master by behaving like an unbeliever?

Paul was learning to function as a citizen of heaven. Like his Master, Jesus, he did not retaliate. He had a message to deliver and a commission to fulfil. If his message was rejected in one city, he moved on to the next, leaving behind a small but Spirit-energised group of people who would stand as witnesses to the power of Jesus to transform lives.

The vicious persecution of his countrymen got to him. He pleaded with the Lord to intervene (2 Corinthians 12:8-10), but He refused because He had another agenda for His servant. To become like his Master, Paul had to learn to draw strength from Him, not to get out of but to go through the suffering. That was the way of God’s kingdom: to display the nature of Jesus by standing firm in the ways of the Master, no matter what people did to him.

Paul was learning that he did not only have a message to share with the world; he also had to live it out in a hostile and anti-God environment without absorbing or displaying the attitudes of those who were antagonistic towards him.

What about us? How unfortunate that many of us have not grasped this truth. The gospel is much more than a free pass to heaven. It brings with it a mandate to display Jesus in the same way as He put his Father on display by His life and death. This is the real proof that we have embraced and been changed by believing who He is and what he did.

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 1 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NIV).

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armour of God so that, when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and, after you have done everything, to stand.” Ephesians 8:12-13 (NIV),

The Tables Are Turned

Christian Life, , , ,

THE TABLES ARE TURNED

“After this had gone on quite a long time, some Jews conspired to kill him, but Saul got wind of it. They were watching the city gates around the clock so they could kill him. Then one night the disciples engineered his escape by lowering him over the wall in a basket.” Acts 9:23-25 (The Message).

What a turn-around! The persecutor becomes the persecuted!

Nothing short of a miracle could have put Saul in this predicament. The suffering the Master predicted for him had begun. Saul’s brilliant legal mind had already come into play in Damascus. His grasp of the gospel put him in the forefront of its defenders and brought him into the firing line of the fanatical Jews he once led.

Fortunately for Saul, he was securely connected to the fellowship of believers in Damascus. He had proved the genuineness of the change in his life by his bold challenge to the Jews he once stood with in his opposition to the Way. Just as he was putting his life on the line for the Master, so they were willing to put their lives on the line for him. The story of the church can easily rank among the best of modern thrillers!

“Back in Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples but they were afraid of him. They didn’t trust him one bit. Then Barnabas took him under his wing. He introduced him to the apostles and stood up for him; told them how Saul had seen and spoken to the Master on the Damascus Road and how in Damascus itself he had laid his life on the line with his bold preaching in Jesus’ name.” Acts 9:26-27 (The Message).

Strange, isn’t it, how quickly bad news travels? The believers in Damascus knew all about Saul, the persecutor. And yet, in Saul’s case, the truth of the good news of his transformation had not yet penetrated the church in Jerusalem. In spite of his activities in Damascus and the circumstances of his departure from that city, the believers in Jerusalem were still suspicious of him.

It took the action of another big-hearted brother, Barnabas, like Ananias, to vouch for him. Barnabas not only befriended and defended him in this situation. He also became a life-long friend and partner in the gospel, travelling and suffering together with him across Asia Minor in the cause of the gospel.

What were Saul’s credentials that vouchsafed his true conversion? He had met with Jesus and become His witness in spite of the opposition and the death threats that drove him out of Damascus and would hound him across Israel, Asia Minor and Europe and put him in jail more than once.

It was this hatred and opposition from his own countrymen that bit deeply into his soul and caused him to cry out to God for deliverance. Like the idolatrous Canaanites who so harassed the Israelites in their conquest of the Promised Land that they became a thorn in the side of God’s people, Saul’s own people became his worst nightmare in his quest to win them for his Master.

It was the Jews who stirred up riots against him, who turned Roman officials against him and who eventually had him arrested in Jerusalem, and imprisoned and tried in Rome as a dangerous criminal who had no right to be alive.

But whatever was done to him in the name of religion could not take from him the reality of that moment when he saw the risen Jesus and heard His commission to take the gospel to the world. Nothing would cancel out that command, not even the hatred of his own people, the suspicion of his fellow believers and the threat of death itself.

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…” Philippians 3:7-9a.

What will it take for Jesus to have followers like that…especially in the western world where comfort and convenience are the great enemies of true disciples?