An Inconvenient Truth
Acts 24’22-27
I’m preaching a message today I’ve entitled, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Some of you may recognize that title. In 2006 Former Vice President Al Gore released a film with the same title as my sermon today. The film was essentially a documentary that followed the Tennessean on the lecture circuit around the country as he presented his case for the coming catastrophic results of human-caused global warming. In fact, Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize the very next year because of his extensive work in connection with that cause.
But here we are 9 years later and many of the predictions he made in the film have not come to pass. For instance, he said that the North Pole could be “ice free by 2013.” However, instead of the polar ice caps being melted away, they are at their highest level since 2006.
Additionally, he also predicted many of the pacific islands would drown and the ocean levels would rise by 20 feet. Of course this hasn’t happened either. Now whatever you think of man-made climate change, or human effected global warming is not what I’m driving at. No doubt, we as humans are the stewards of this planet; God has entrusted us to manage His creation, and we ought to take care of it. That is a God-given responsibility.
My reason in pointing out these failed predictions by Al Gore is to suggest he probably could have chosen a different word to use in his title. Instead of an inconvenient TRUTH, well here are some other suggestions. Perhaps he could have entitled the movie and book, an inconvenient theory, hypothesis, guess. Or if he wanted to be completely honest and forthcoming with the purpose and intentions behind the film, perhaps he could have called it: a convenient opportunity to cash in big time on the gullibility of the American people with some over the top scare tactics about global warming. But that’s just my suggestion
Whatever you call it, don’t use the word truth. Because to use the word “truth” in the title, and then 9 years later to discover in fact much of it was “false” – is to significantly undermine the integrity of the word “truth.” Truth means fixed, resolute, unwavering, a fact, an infallible certainty.
Well in our text before us today we will see how the apostle Paul does in fact share an inconvenient truth with a Roman official by the name of Felix.
Let me recap where we are in the ongoing saga of Paul’s life on mission…
When we last left Paul he was standing before the Sanhedrin, the high council in Jerusalem, preparing to share his testimony of faith in Christ Jesus. That is something he had no doubt dreamed of doing for a long time. His missional method in every city was to preach Christ first in the synagogues. Here he has the pinnacle of synagogues. Certainly he thought, "If some of the Sanhedrin could be convinced that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, that might gain a foothold into all of Judea for mass evangelism."
But Paul never got to share his testimony of faith because he made two blunders right at the start. First, he inadvertently insulted the high priest through a rash comment. 2nd, he stirred up a theological debate between the Pharisees and Sadducees that got so heated, the Roman soldiers had to rush Paul out of the meeting for fear they would tear him apart.
Some of the Jews then developed a plot to secretly kill Paul by lying in ambush and waiting for him. When the commander of the Roman force in Jerusalem learned of the conspiracy to assassinate Paul, he arranged for Paul to be transported from Jerusalem in the middle of the night, guarded by 470 soldiers, and taken to the Judean Governor Felix in Caesarea.
For sake of time, we won't read the first 21 verses of chapter 24 this morning, but here's a summary: The high priest and some other elders from Jerusalem came down to Caesarea to make their case against Paul, saying he was a plague upon Judea, stirring up riots, profaning the temple, he's the ringleader of these troublemakers, the Nazarenes.
Paul is then given the opportunity to defend himself and he says to Felix, "none of those things are true. I came to Jerusalem to worship, I didn't cause a fuss, I didn't create any debates in the temple, I was just minding my own business when these Jews from Asia came in and stirred all this up.
Let's pick up our reading in verse 22:
22But Felix, having a rather accurate knowledge of the Way, put them off, saying, “When Lysias the tribune comes down, I will decide your case.” 23Then he gave orders to the centurion that he should be kept in custody but have some liberty, and that none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs.
24After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. 25And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.” 26At the same time he hoped that money would be given him by Paul. So he sent for him often and conversed with him. 27When two years had elapsed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. And desiring to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison. Acts 24:22-27
We've been working our way slowly through the book of Acts since January. And one of the great things about doing that is you begin to see that the same things happen in chapter after chapter. Many of the same themes are repeated throughout. Now the overarching theme is "the church on mission." So we could ask, “What does that mean to be on mission?” In the book of Acts its been about the Word going out and God bringing people in. And as you notice what is the same, chapter after chapter, it gives you eyes to notice the slight differences. And when you notice those little nuances of difference you begin to ask yourself questions like, “Why is this here?”
This passage for example. On the surface it seems like any number of other sections we’ve read in Acts – here’s Paul, before someone else, talking about Jesus. I mean, it seems like there’s 28 chapters of this. Couldn’t Luke have cut it down to say, maybe an even 20 chapters and consolidated some of these accounts? Why did he, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, include this section which seems so similar to many other sections?
And I think what we’ll discover this morning is that this account has some subtle differences which make the similarities even more striking. So this morning I'm going to point out three pairs, three couplets that are the same as his previous evangelistic engagements, but yet they're slightly different. Here's the first one...
I. Same MISSION, Different ADDRESS
kept in custody but have some liberty
Paul is in a different location, a different place than before. But yet he still has the exact same mission he has had throughout. Paul had been assaulted in Jerusalem and accused of crimes he didn't commit. He's been brought from one place to another, and now here he is in Caesarea. Finally he gets to stand before someone with significant authority, the governor Felix, and make his case.
Now Paul's been in Caesarea before on his missionary journeys in Acts chapter 18 and 21. We know from those chapters that there is a church there and faithful disciples who had actually assisted Paul in his missionary endeavors. But this time when he visits Caesarea, he's at a different address. He's in prison.
Felix has decided to reserve judgment until Lysias returns. If you remember who Lysias is, he's the Roman tribune, the commander of the occupying force in Jerusalem that was attempting to sort out all the bru-ha-ha surrounding Paul.
Now the text says he has some liberty, which means he's not chained up to a soldier, or in the stocks, he doesn't have armed guards looking over him around the clock. He even has friends who can come and support him.
But what we notice is that Paul has the same mission; the same sense of purpose; the same passion. As we've gone through our study in Acts, we've followed Paul on 3 different missionary journeys. He's logged thousands and thousands of miles both on foot and by boat. And he was driven by his mission. That drive has not changed. But here, rather than experiencing adventurous travels around the Mediterranean region as in the past, he's now confined to one city, one prison for 2 years.
And here's what I find fascinating: Paul doesn't see this as an interruption in his missionary service, but a fulfillment of it. He doesn't see this as a detour to God's purpose for him, but a divine appointment.
That caused me to begin to think. Do we see life's interruptions that way? I wonder, do you see unplanned events like that? No one plans on getting laid off from their company. But could you see that period of joblessness as not a detour God's plan, but a divine appointment?
A mom doesn't plan on getting put on bed-rest during a pregnancy. But could that interruption be a part of God's design for this season?
Certainly, no one plans on getting cancer. But if you do, could you view your cancer, not as a detour to God's purpose and mission in your life, but a divine appointment for God to use you in powerful ways.
How many things come into our lives that we didn't plan, and we certainly couldn't have foreseen - and it's probably good that we couldn't. How can you view those things, not as interruptions, not as detours, but as God's divine appointments and thereby maximize them for his glory and the good of the kingdom?
The apostle Paul, whether he's traveling freely across the Roman Empire, or when he's brought against his will from place to place, wherever he is, he's on mission. Same mission, different address. That leads to my next point,
II. Same MESSAGE, Different AUDIENCE
Look again at verse 24: 24After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus.
Paul's message never waivered. He was always looking for a way to steer the conversation to talking about Jesus. That was his consistent message.
In fact Paul reminded the church in Corinth about the singular subject of his preaching: For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2
We've discussed Paul's strategy before. If he's in the Jewish synagogue, he's speaking to those with a strong foundation in the Old Testament, and he speaks from the vantage point of the Law, but using the law as a springboard to talk about Jesus Christ. When he was in the marketplace talking to the merchants, what did he do, he talked about Jesus. When he's on the Areopagus in Athens, speaking with the philosophers of the day. He talked philosophy, but used it as a springboard to tell them about Jesus. Wherever Paul is, whatever the audience, he speaks about Jesus.
So it shouldn't be any surprise to us that when he's here before this Roman governor and his Jewish wife Drusilla, he has a different audience but he speaks to them about faith in Christ Jesus. For Paul, Jesus is the sun - SUN around which all of his conversations orbit. Always comes back to Jesus.
And I would ask you, what does your conversation orbit around? What does your conversation always come back around to? Does it come back to the glory days of playing football, reliving those moments when you were the starting quarterback... for the 6th grade JV team and you really lit it up back in 1984! Maybe your conversations always come around your job. Or perhaps your conversations come around to, "Could I interest you in an exciting business opportunity - AMWAY!" Or insert any number of multi-level marketing plans. Or maybe the conversation always comes back to yourself - you're a me-monster, always want it to focus on me. Or maybe your kids, "you're not going to believe what Johnny did." Or your house, "I just got the cutest curtains for the half-bath downstairs." Or maybe your conversation always lands on your hurts, your wounds, problems or pain?
Now there is most definitely a time to talk about any and all of those things, but what is it that you find yourself most eager to talk about when you are free to talk about whatever you want to talk about? For Paul, wherever he went, whatever the circumstance, whatever context, regardless of the audience, he wants to talk about Jesus. When your life orbits around Jesus, that's where your conversations will inevitably land.
Wednesday night I did a message on taming the tongue. And in that message I asked the question, "So how do we change our speech? And to answer that question I quoted Jesus from Matthew 12: "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Matthew 12:34
Whatever is in your heart is what will come out of your mouth. No doubt, Jesus was in Paul's heart, do you know why? Because that's who he talked about. Same mission, different address. Same message, different audience.
III. Same METHOD, Different APPROACH
25And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment
I want you to circle that word "reasoned." It's the Greek word de-ä-le'-go-mi from which we get the English word "dialogue." It's not so much preaching a sermon, a monologue, as much as it was a discussion - a discussion mind you that he was directing and driving toward the orbit of his life, Jesus.
We've seen this method used by Paul over and over again. He was always "reasoning" with people. We saw it when he was in Athens: So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Acts 17:17 Both in the synagogue among Jewish people, or in the marketplace everyday, Paul employed the same method - he was reasoning with people.
Christians are often accused of being irrational, illogical, or unthinking. But of all people, we ought to be those who are the most rational, the most logical. We have reasons to believe. I've said before, my heart cannot rejoice in that which my head rejects. We have a reasonable faith. Now there are certainly mysteries that are above and beyond reason. There are aspects of God's nature and character that are a mystery to us. If God wasn't mysterious, he wouldn't be God. But we are not irrational. There is evidence, there are proofs that support our faith. This was Paul's method.
When he was in Corinth, same method: But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. Acts 19:9 The hall of Tyrannus was a lecture hall where people would gather to hear orators give their speeches and discuss their philosophies and ideas. Paul reasoned with them there.
In Thessalonica, same song different verse. 2And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” Acts 17:2-3
That's Paul's method -he's reasoning, he's explaining, he's proving that Jesus is the Christ. Same method, but here with Felix and Drusilla, he uses a slightly different approach.
25And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment.
When Paul was in Athens, he reasoned with the philosophers on the Areopagus from their own poets. But with Felix and Drusilla, there's no record of Paul referencing poets or philosophers; he doesn't start with Abraham and the patriarchs that pointed to Messiah as far as we know. Obviously this is a condensed version of what he said. But when Luke wants to summarize the content of his reasoning with them, he describes it with three main headings: righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment.
Righteousness - moral integrity, justice.
Self-control - a fruit of the Spirit. A term particularly applied to the area of sensual appetites, sexual lust, exercising self-control.
Coming judgment - Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead.
Now when you step back from this and think, "Wait a second Paul. I mean I was with you when you're talking about faith in Christ Jesus, that sounds like the gospel. But now it sounds like you may be getting legalistic here. Talking about having morality, righteousness, self-control of sensual passions. Why don't you tell them how much God loves them, how God has a wonderful plan for their life, if they'll just pray this prayer and repeat after you, and really mean it, Jesus will come into their heart. You have a chance before the governor and his wife and you're lecturing on and on about righteousness and self control and the coming judgment?"
Is this kind of like, Santa Claus theology. "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake! You better watch out!!!" Jesus sees you, he's coming back, he's making a list and checking it twice to see who's naughty or nice. You better be good, you better be a good person.
So why is Paul using this approach here? Perhaps a little history will shed some light. I think understanding the context of Felix and Drusilla's relationship will give us great insight as to why Paul reasoned with them about righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment.
Now sometimes you may wonder when I give you information about the cultural or historical context of an event or place or people in the Bible, you may wonder where that comes from. Most of you probably just trust that I’ve done my research. Well today, I brought in one of the go-to resources for historical context. It’s the complete works of Flavius Josephus. Many of you have probably heard of Josephus. He was a Jewish historian born in 37 AD in Jerusalem. His father was a Jewish priest and his mother was of royal descent.
Later in life he defected to the Romans, became a Roman citizen and took the name of the Emperor’s family, Flavius. In 94 AD he wrote a book called “The Antiquities of the Jews.” It is a record of some of their history. It gives us great insight into what Judaism was like during the 1st century.
I’m going to read two short sections from his book, and see if this helps set the context of what we’re studying today. There are several passages in Josephus’ writings regarding Felix. Josephus presents Felix as someone who is willing to do just about anything to accomplish his goals. In one instance Felix becomes annoyed with the Jewish High Priest Jonathan. Let's see how he conspires to take Jonathan out: Josephus writes: 20.8.5.164
So Felix contrived a method whereby he might get rid of him. Wherefore Felix persuaded one of Jonathan's most faithful friends, a citizen of Jerusalem, whose name was Doras, to bring the robbers upon Jonathan, in order to kill him; and this he did by promising to give him a great deal of money for so doing. Certain of those robbers went up to the city, as if they were going to worship God, while they had daggers under their garments, and by thus mingling themselves among the multitude they slew Jonathan.
So maybe there’s a reason Paul is talking about righteousness, justice… and self-control. Let me read you another passage where Josephus writes about how Felix and Drusilla hooked up. This passage begins by discussing King Agrippa II. You’ll remember in Acts 12, King Agrippa I died because he took the adulation of the people as if he was God, and the real God struck him dead. His son now was a ruler, a tetrarch, over several countries.
“And when Agrippa had received these countries as the gift of Caesar, he gave his sister Drusilla in marriage to Azizus, king of Emesa, upon his consent to be circumcised; for Epiphanes, the son of king Antiochus, had refused to marry her, because after he had promised her father formerly to come over to the Jewish religion, he would not now perform that promise.”
This was very common in the ancient world. Drusilla was probably only 14 or 15 years old, her older brother as a gift in celebration of his reign. At first she’s supposed to be married to a guy named Epiphenes, but he has an epiphany that he doesn’t want to be circumcised. So he backs out and then she’s given in marriage to Azizus, who is king of Emesa. He does get circumcised as the Jews required. Not let’s see what happens…
“But the marriage of Drusilla with Azizus, it was in no long time afterward dissolved, upon the following occasion: While Felix was procurator of Judea, he saw this Drusilla, and fell in love with her; for she did indeed exceed all other women in beauty, and he sent to her a person whose name was Simon, one of his friends; and endeavored to persuade her to forsake her present husband, and marry him; and promised that if she would not refuse him, he would make her a happy woman. Accordingly she was prevailed upon to transgress the laws of her forefathers, and to marry Felix.”
Do you see what’s happening here? This is like real housewives of Caesarea, right? Felix says, “Drusilla, you're beautiful. I gotta have you; I want you for myself." And so he contrives this plan to influence her to leave her current husband, and to marry him; so she wrongly divorces her husband, who converted to Judaism and became circumcised. She leaves him and marries Felix, a pagan, who wasn’t circumcised.
Is it starting to make sense to you why when Paul has an audience with Felix and Drusilla, he reasons with them about righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment?
You know in modern church circles we hear this word “relevant.” Our preaching, music, programs should be relevant to our culture. And Amen to that, I didn’t go into the ministry to be irrelevant to our culture. But here’s something we should understand. Being relevant does not mean telling people what they want to hear, but telling them what they need to hear. And this is precisely what Felix and Drusilla needed to hear. Paul didn’t look for the least offensive, lowest common denominator way to share his faith.
Paul could have been like, “Ok, it’s Felix and Drusilla. Everybody knows what went down, their faces were on the cover of People Magazine as you checked out of the grocery store. I imagine on the cover, there's Drusilla and Azizus, split up, and right down the middle there's Felix. Paul could have thought, "Felix and Drusilla know that I know what went down. Their scandalous marriage is public knowledge. So let’s just stick to the basics, believe in Jesus, he’ll give you joy, purpose, he’ll fill the God-sized hole in your soul – and just leave it at that.” Paul didn’t do that. He said, Felix & Drusilla, you need to hear about righteousness, and self-control, and the coming judgment.
Last week in our small group study “Life On Mission” J.D. Greear quoted Francis Schaeffer. Francis Schaeffer was asked one day, “If you could spend an hour with a modern man and share the gospel with him, how would you approach that hour? His response is striking! quote:
“I would spend 45-50 minutes on the negative, to really show him his dilemma – that he is morally dead – then I’d take 10-15 minutes to preach the Gospel. I believe that much of our evangelistic and personal work today is not clear simply because we are too anxious to get to the answer without having a man realize the real cause of his sickness, which is true moral guilt (and not just psychological guilt feelings) in the presence of God.”
Francis Schaeffer
So Paul shares with Felix and Drusilla an inconvenient truth. In sharing that truth he maintains the same mission, the same message, the same method. And this mission and message and method always contains these two primary components – repentance and faith. Repentance of sin and faith in Jesus’ finished work on the cross. If you don’t have both of those components, you don’t have the gospel.
If your telling of the gospel is only, “Repent, repent, repent” then it turns into a legalism where people will believe salvation is based on what they do. Conversely, if you only preach, “accept Jesus, he’ll forgive you, he’ll make your life better than you could possibly imagine” but you don’t talk about what Paul talked about here - righteousness, self-control, coming judgment; if you never tell people that when turning to Christ they turn away from their sin, then you’ve not preached the gospel. Jesus put it this way in Mark 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15
So here’s what can happen – if we preach Paul’s gospel, which included righteousness, self-control, and coming judgment – people may ask you, “is your church some kind of hellfire and brimstone church.” You can say, “Well I don’t know, the pastor keeps the thermostat on about 66 degrees.” Here’s my encouragement to you. Within the friendly confines of this faith family, I encourage you to resolve now fully and finally what you believe.
Part of Paul’s gospel was the reality of a coming judgment. That means there is a judge, and he is coming. There is a judge, and he is coming. Do you believe it? Do you really believe it? And did you notice how Felix responded to Paul’s reasoning with him? Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.” Acts 24:25b
That word there for “alarmed” is the Greek word from which we get phobia. It was a fearful, alarming thing in the mind of Felix that there is a coming judgment. Is anyone every alarmed, terrified, fearful by your gospel? They ought to be because there is something terrifying that is coming. It's the truth, no matter how inconvenient it may be to our modern sensibilities.
Peter described it like this: The heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. 2Pet 3:7
Revelation 6 describes that day of judgment like this: 15Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” Revelation 6:15-16
Who is the Lamb? That’s Jesus. What a paradox! The sacrificial lamb who was slain for sinners, who died on the cross to take upon his own body the wrath for sin. The Bible is clear that to all who do not repent of their sin and believe and trust in his work on the cross will fall prey to the wrath of that Lamb.
The Lamb becomes judge, jury and executioner. And this friends, to Felix and to Drusilla, and to our current culture is an inconvenient truth. It’s a doomsday prophecy that is much more significant than any environmental, climate change catastrophe that may or may not be on the horizon. It is more significant because the inconvenient truth of this coming disaster has eternal consequences.
Felix was stirred but he was not changed. He was alarmed, but not converted. We know this to be true because the next verse we learn he thought maybe by giving Paul audience to speak his message he could get a bribe in order to be set free. But Paul didn’t compromise & as such he was imprisoned by him for 2 years. Felix was stirred, but he was not changed.
When you hear the gospel message you are in the position of greatest privilege and greatest danger. You will hear the truth, and if you do nothing with it, your heart will get harder – you’ll get stirred, and nothing changes.
Where do you stand with God? I mean really stand with God? Have you heard the message and thought it was inspirational, encouraging, convicting but yet never responded with repentance and faith; turning from Sin and trust in the Savior, Jesus Christ.
If I did not reason with you about righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment I would be an unfaithful shepherd.
The Hymn writer put it this way:
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.
If you’ve not trusted Christ, if you’ve heard the Gospel and like Felix find it compelling, or even alarming but yet you have not yet repented and believed, then my last thought is especially for you:
Last Thought: Do not POSTPONE your response to the gospel. “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 3:7-8) TURN from your sin and TRUST in Jesus today!
