A Visit In The Night Series

A Visit In The Night

Acts 22:30-23:35

Let me ask you a question: Have you ever blown it; I mean really blown it? Have you ever done something or said something that negatively affected your Christian witness? I think all of us would admit that we have.

I've shared my personal testimony with you before, how God radically saved me in the summer between my 7th and 8th grade year of junior high school. I've shared how when I stepped onto my school campus the first day of school in 8th grade I was a completely different and transformed person from the punk, disrespectful, potty-mouthed kid that left that campus the last day of 7th grade. I determined when I showed up, first day of school with my big, black, KJV Bible in hand, I was going to drive a stake down and make a clear declaration of my commitment to Christ. I became known as the preacher.

So from 8th gr. on thru high school I was that guy - The outspoken Christian. Then comes my senior year. Long story short, I had sunken into an apathetic, indifferent season in my walk with Christ. I had clearly marked myself off as a Christian to those who knew me, but I was making choices and allowing myself into situations that challenged those convictions. It culminated into the most regrettable act of my young Christian life. My parents had planned a weekend out of town. On the Monday before that weekend I made the mistake of telling one of my wrestling teammates that I would have the house to myself all weekend. His response, "Let's have a party!" I told him no way, but he persisted. I acquiesced and said, "Ok, but only guys from our team. I don't want a lot of people over."

The next day at school I discovered my friend was distributing a flier across the school of 2000 students. As Saturday night arrived I'm anxiously waiting, looking down the road to see if anyone was actually going to show up; hoping they would forget about it. No such luck. A steady stream of cars began arriving at our family farm. Each car filled with teenagers and all of them getting out with cases and cases of beer. It turned into the biggest drunken party of the year. In my yearbook, many signed it thanking me for the best party ever. Was this going to be my lasting legacy at EBHS?

The next Monday at school, all my Christian friends that had looked up to me with such confidence and respect as a faithful follower of Christ just shook their heads in both disappointment and disbelief when I passed them in the hall.

I was immediately so overwhelmed with grief and guilt, I went to the front office, checked myself out of school, and drove to my church to go talk to my pastor. That evening I confessed everything to my parents.

What about you? Have you ever blown it? Have you ever polluted your profession or tarnished your testimony? If so, join the club. And here's what we'll see in the text today - the apostle Paul is a charter member of that club. But here's what I know from experience and from the truth of God's word: as you wallow in the mire of guilt and regret; as you begin to succumb to the darkness of night that seems to envelop your soul, there is One who will come and stand beside you; there is one who will come and give you a visit in the night. And in his coming, he offers forgiveness, encouragement, and purpose that you might move forward in faithfulness to Him.

When we left the apostle Paul last week he was standing on the steps of Fort Antonia in Jerusalem, having just been delivered by the Roman soldiers from a terrible beating at the hands of a mob just outside the temple. Bleeding and broken as the soldiers carried him up the steps, he asks the Roman Tribune, the commander of the occupying force in Jerusalem, if he might have the privilege of speaking to the mob. He was given that privilege and he spoke. What a man, what love that he would want to speak the life-transforming gospel to a people that moments earlier were seeking to beat the life out of him.

The sad result of Paul speaking to the people is another riot had ensued, the people threw off their cloaks, tossed clods of dirt in the air and cried out the words, "Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live." Acts 22:22 Paul was then scurried away by the Roman commander and his soldiers.

Next he almost fell prey to the violence of the Romans instead of the Jews because when they had taken him into the barracks they stretched his body across the stocks to prepare him for a Roman flogging. Why? Because the Roman tribune decided he would beat the truth out of Paul. Most scholars think he was laid bare for that flogging at the very spot where some 25 years earlier Jesus was flogged before his crucifixion. As he is about to be beaten, Paul reveals that he is a Roman citizen by birth and he escapes the flagellum. Had he undergone that it might have killed him, or at the very least maimed and crippled him for life.