“And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, ‘Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city’.” (vs 10)
When I preached from chapter 15 a few weeks ago, I asserted that the times God seems to be most directly active and working in His children’s lives coincides with times they are most active in service for Him, and most often when they are in some time of trouble because of that service.
Now let me be clear; I believe God is significantly active in all His children’s lives at all times. It is the times we need help and encouragement that we ourselves are most aware of His activity, for He makes Himself known then for exhortation or encouragement’s sake.
Think of the states of mind of some in the Bible who have had personal visits from Him and you’ll see what I mean. Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, Jacob about to be confronted by Esau, Jeremiah upon learning that even his own father and brothers were plotting against him, the two grieving disciples on the road to Emmaus, are some examples.
As I have said in the past, I don’t believe there are a great many instances of God appearing to people in visions simply because He is pleased by faith and sight does not require faith. But I also believe, because I see in scripture and have seen in my own experience, that He is faithful to meet His children’s needs when they arise.
I’ve repeated a story in the past told by Oral Roberts, who said he had a dream that he was at an altar rail praying with several other men whom he did not know. In his dream Jesus was walking down the line and as He came to each man He raised him to his feet and gave him a hug, but as He passed by Reverend Roberts He simply caught his eye and smiled.
Oral Roberts said he asked Jesus, ‘Lord, why did you hug those men but only smile at me?’ and the Lord replied, ‘Because you only needed the smile.’
Think what you will of Robert’s theology, I see no reason to doubt the occurrence of his dream and he had a point.
Jesus will meet us where we are and His benefits to us will be in perfect proportion to our need.
So, in our text today we see Jesus coming to His Apostle in the night by a vision to meet a need that we otherwise might never have been aware of. To get a sense of the burden that must have been on Paul’s heart and mind, let’s back up a step and get a sort of panoramic view of the events of his recent past.
COURAGEOUS MEN IN PERILOUS PLACES
Following the Jerusalem Council, recorded in chapter 15, Paul is raring to make the rounds to all the places he and Barnabas have been, to check on the brethren there and strengthen the churches. But there’s a glitch. Barnabas wants to take John Mark along and Paul doesn’t think he’s ready for it since he deserted them earlier in Pamphylia.
They have a strong disagreement over this. Not just a quiet debate. The language used in those final verses of chapter 15 indicates a red-faced, door-slamming sort of disagreement.
Paul, the hardened soldier, isn’t going to trust his back to someone who has failed him in the past. I can identify with that. As a police officer going into potentially dangerous situations, there were some officers that I wanted coming in behind me, and there were others I wanted in front of me so I could keep an eye on them. There were still others that I hoped would not show up at all.
Barnabas the encourager, on the other hand, wanted to give his cousin John Mark another chance.
Now commentators have their speculations about all the side issues that may have been involved, and I’ve heard preachers talk about what a hot-head Paul was, or how Barnabas should have submitted to the authority of a chosen Apostle.
I don’t want to get into all that here. I’d like to just point out that the perils we face in service to Christ are not always physical. In fact many times they are spiritual, and a rift with a brother or sister in the work can be as discouraging and spiritually exhausting as a beating with a rod.
So I will point out that out of this unpleasant moment God brought victory, in that now instead of one mission trip there were two going on. Furthermore, we know from Paul’s later epistles that there was eventual reconciliation with Barnabas (I Cor 9:6), and John Mark was later a great help to Paul in ministry (Col 4:10, II Tim 4:11).
For the moment, however, Paul is setting out with Silas instead of Barnabas, and the circumstances of their parting no doubt weighed heavily on the heart of the one whose message was one of grace and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So the perils begin on a spiritual plane.
As they travel they come to Lystra and meet Timothy, a believer who is well spoken of by the brethren in the area, so Paul invites him to come along, and the three of them go on strengthening churches and there are some encouraging times.
Then Paul gets his Macedonian vision and in obedience to the Lord they go to Philippi. There they meet Lydia and she and her household are baptized.
So there are encouraging times during this mission trip. There is fruit to be seen from the earlier journeys of Paul and Barnabas, and now the Holy Spirit is bringing new fruit.
But then the opposition starts getting tough in Philippi, when Paul turns and casts a demon out of a fortuneteller, thereby taking away her powers, and hurting the purses of those who were making money from her activities.
So Paul and Silas are stripped and beaten with rods and thrown in jail and God delivers them miraculously. And sometimes we get all caught up in that account of the earthquake and the doors opening and the chains falling off and the jailer and his family getting saved; and all those things are wonderful to study and contemplate.
But Paul and Silas were in pain. They had been through a traumatic experience and they were beaten with rods! God delivered them from prison, but He did not miraculously heal their wounds. Chapter 16 verse 33 says the jailer took them to his house and washed their wounds.
The next day they are released so they say goodbye to Lydia and company and leave town, going indirectly to Thessalonica, where their teaching incites a riot. The brethren send Paul and Silas out of town because of the trouble brewing, so they go to Berea where noble-minded men are more accepting of them and their message. But chapter 17 verse 13 tells us that when the Jews of Thessalonica find out Paul is preaching in Berea, they follow him there and begin stirring up trouble again!
They aren’t satisfied to have driven him away from their own town. Here is an example of how religious zeal does not necessarily go hand in hand with spiritual truth. They have violently rejected the good news of the Messiah, and they are determined that no one else is going to have it thrust upon them if they can help it.
So Paul has to leave town again, and this time we’re told that Timothy and Silas stay behind in Berea, with instructions to join Paul in Athens as soon as possible.
Is this exciting stuff? Is this what many churches would label successful ministry today? Everywhere Paul goes he’s being slandered, beaten, dragged around, caught up in riots and scuffles, run out of town…
…and yes through these chapters we can see evidences of the Spirit working. People are being saved and baptized, churches are starting, the noble Bereans are searching the scriptures… but let’s not be blind to the physical and spiritual gauntlet that Paul has been passing through.
I think some of you can identify with the road Paul was traveling. You may never have been on a foreign mission field, and hopefully you’ve never been beaten with rods, but perhaps you’ve gone through a period when one thing after another comes along to knock you down, to cause you emotional turmoil and mental anguish, and one day it all just piles up at once and you want to slink away to a dark corner and hide.
Well Paul goes to Athens by himself. We’re not told why Timothy and Silas stayed behind, but it’s interesting to contemplate. Did Paul request some alone time? Or maybe there were some things that needed to be managed and dealt with in the young church there in Berea that couldn’t be addressed during a time of upheaval so Paul had to remove himself from the situation.
Anyway, his spirit is provoked within him at the idolatry all around him in Athens. He gets an invitation to speak to the philosophers on Mars Hill, and Christians, this is not some high honor because they’ve heard of this famous Apostle and are hungry for the truth. This is not the same as it would be for one of the pastors of our association if he went to Southern California and was introduced to John MacArthur and was asked if he’d stay the weekend and preach in MacArthur’s church.
These people were filled with self-pride that they were open-minded and tolerant of other men’s religions and philosophies. Theirs was an ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ attitude. Your truth and my truth may be different, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
So Paul wasn’t going before a friendly audience, just a curious one; an audience that took a great deal of pride in hearing a new thing and then debating it to shreds.
Then in the end they took off their tolerant hats and put on their sneering hats. As soon as they heard of the resurrection they sneered.
Folks, that’s exactly what we’re seeing on a grand scale in our modern world. The same ones who are preaching tolerance and acceptance of others and criticizing the mainline evangelical protestants for our so-called ‘intolerance’, are the same ones who turn very quickly to scoffing and ridicule and even hateful threats if you dare to confront them with Biblical truth concerning sin, salvation, and Jesus as the only way to the Father.
Verse 21 of chapter 17 says they loved to spend their time hearing new things. They were a club. They had a name for their club that I don’t try to pronounce, but it starts with a ‘P’. And their club had rules about fairness, one of them being that the speaker was not allowed to compliment them in any way so as not to sway their opinions or hinder their ability to remain open-minded.
Then this new guy speaks of the resurrection and all of a sudden he’s getting raspberries, hoots and humbugs.
Can you imagine how much he longed, then, for Timothy and Silas to catch up? How lonely he must have felt?
Only a preacher can fully understand the burning that God puts within His heralds to preach the Word and see it take root and change lives.
At the point of Jeremiah’s deepest discouragement he cried out, “But if I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.”
(Jer 20:9)
ON TO CORINTH
And perhaps this is the unspoken and unrecorded turmoil going on in Paul’s heart as he once again walks away from a gathering where he has seen very little favorable response and heads for yet another town. Remember, he was waiting for Timothy and Silas to join him in Athens. But instead of waiting for them there he moves on to Corinth.
There had to be a reason for this. Some from that group on Mars Hill invited him to come back so they could hear more. So there had to be a reason he just picked up and moved on.
Well we’re told that his spirit was provoked by the spiritual darkness there. Your NIV says he was distressed. According to Vine’s dictionary of New Testament words, the Greek word there means ‘to sharpen’, used metaphorically of being roused to anger. Vines then says used passively, as in Acts 17:16, it means to stir up.
So we can think this through a little and identify with the feeling of being stirred up within ourselves and exasperated at circumstances around us over which we have no control, but we know they are wrong and harmful and there seems to be no help or change on the horizon.
Try to think with the heart of this evangelist who has recently split with a dear brother, been beaten and jailed, chased out of town after town, and now stands alone in this teaming metropolis where idol worship abounds and men are worshiping themselves, and he’s just been jeered and scoffed at once more.
Yes, I think this is why he went to Corinth. Some light is shed for us in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 2 verses 1-5
“And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”
So as we read these opening verses of Acts 18 we get a picture of a man who is discouraged and beaten up. He’s given this very profound and eloquent sermon to the Athenian philosophers and can still hear their laughing in his ears, so he comes to Corinth, finds Aquila and Pricilla who have recently come from Rome after Claudius kicked out all the Jews there, and he takes up tent making for a time.
And even though it says that on Sabbath days he was reasoning with Jews and Greeks in the synagogue, we remember the words we just read from I Corinthians and realize that some of the fire had died down and was in need of rekindling.
Now when we talk about Paul or any other preacher of the Word of God we’re talking about ministry.
But can’t we all think of times when we realize we’re tired and we’ve basically become just an automaton, doing what we do with no zeal or delight, and we need to be reminded why we wanted to do it in the first place?
In Colossians 3:23 Paul exhorts his readers to do their work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.
That one’s a little hard to follow sometimes, isn’t it? When you’d like to tell the customer to take a short step off a high ledge. Or the boss sees a full moon out the window and suddenly grows fangs.
The benefits you’ve counted on suddenly go all but away. Co-workers, who smile and joke with you criticize you without cause behind your back.
It’s hard to stay zealous, and it’s hard to say to yourself, ‘but it’s for the Lord’ and really feel like you mean it.
Here’s another thing that happens when we get into that state of mind. We stop seeing the good that comes out of our work.
Because of the whining of God’s people Moses was bummed out.
“Why hast Thou been so hard on Thy servant? And why have I not found favor in Thy sight, that Thou hast laid the burden of this people on me?” Num 11:11) And he goes on from there, he’s far from done.
At the defeat of the Israelites at Ai, Joshua complains that God has brought them across the Jordan just to deliver them into the hands of the Amorites.
After his victory on Carmel, Elijah informs God, who needed to be informed, I’m sure, that He may as well take Elijah’s life because there was no one left serving God in Israel but him, and since Jezebel was on his heals he was toast anyway.
Moses was forgetting momentarily the mighty ways God had used him to bring His children up out of Egypt.
Joshua was forgetting momentarily all the marvelous ways God had sustained His people in the wilderness, and then the recent magnificent victory over Jericho.
Elijah was forgetting the miracles that he had done in the power of the Holy Spirit. He was forgetting the fire that consumed the altar, the bull, the rocks and the dirt, at his request.
Paul was so down that he was reacting badly. Just look at this little hissy fit.
“Your blood be on your own head! I am clean. From now on I shall go to the Gentiles.”
Then he walks out of the synagogue and very demonstrably goes next door to a God-fearing Gentile named Titus Justus.
It doesn’t even say he went there to give the Gospel. Notice that? He may have gone inside, sat down and pouted for all we know.
But so discouraged was he, that he was forgetting the many churches that sprung up like new flowers everywhere he put is foot. He was forgetting the mighty works God had done through him to bear witness to his ministry.
Paul was so down he wasn’t noticing that the leader of the synagogue he had just stormed out of and his whole household believed and got saved, and Paul’s message was beginning to spread like wildfire through the streets of Corinth.
And sometimes you just need to go to your pouting place, and say ‘Lord, I need encouragement. Could you please help me remember all the good that my work and my witness have done? Could you open my eyes to see the good that my life brings to people’s lives even today?’
GOD ENCOURAGES
Y’know what? We sin against God when we labor under the misconception of Him, that He looks down on us brooding and ‘tsk, tsk’-ing us for our failures or our slowness, or our times of discouragement.
We beat ourselves up, or we get feeling low because life in general is beating us up, and I think we just kind of think of God as standing there with His arms folded wondering when we’re going to buck up, step up, and shut up.
Why do we think that? Why do we expect the worst from Him, when the example of scripture shows Him to be quite the opposite?
In Numbers 11 when Moses finally ends his whining with an invitation for God to kill him, God graciously gives him the solution to his problem and encourages him with, ‘Now you will see whether My word will come true for you or not.’ In the very next chapter when Aaron and Miriam grumble against Moses God calls them on the carpet for it.
When Joshua was done accusing God of abandoning His people, instead of squashing Joshua like a bug, God gives him the solution to his problem and then when the problem is taken care of God encourages him.
“Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.”
After Elijah is done repeating for the second time that he was all alone and had no hope for the future, God encourages him by giving him a charge to go anoint a new king, then assures him, ‘I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
To Paul, He came and said, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.”
What an encouragement that had to be to Paul! Paul hadn’t been there long and only a few had been saved. We’re not even sure he knew yet about Crispus and his family because he was busy pouting. But God, who knew exactly who in Corinth would turn to Him in saving faith, announces in advance that He has, present tense, many people there.
They’re here, Paul, and they’re ripe for the picking. Just go do what you have been gifted to do, and don’t worry, I’ve got your back.
Christian, what word of encouragement do you need to hear from Him that will renew your zeal, empower your limbs, rekindle your fire?
He says you’ll never taste of death. He says He is with you always. He says you’ll never be forsaken. He says that anyone who toils in His name does not do so in vain.
I’m thinking of how Thomas Chisolm put it; “Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow; blessings all mine with ten thousand beside.”
Can you see why this applies to every believer no matter their age, their level of education, their social status? Until the moment He takes you home to be with Him, you are the light of the world. You are light because He lives in you. You have His Holy Spirit in you, and He is the one who empowers, who emboldens, who convicts and brings to Jesus.
Even when you can’t say it to yourself and mean it, you really do everything as unto the Lord, because you’re His and as His possession you are now serving Him in what you do, whether you recognize it on a daily basis or not.
I just want you to know and be assured today that even the courageous need encouraging. So you’re not a failure if you’re discouraged. You’re just human, but you’re a human who has the Spirit of God, and like David (I Sam 30:6), who, when the people spoke of stoning him strengthened himself in the Lord his God, you can go to Him also and say ‘Lord, remind me why I’m here. And if I’m off track get me back on it. And remind me that what you have gifted me to do is so that I can do it as unto you and be a witness for you in it. And Lord, I’ll remind myself of your promises, and I’ll rejoice in your presence, and I will be lifted up and courageous once more”.
God defended Moses personally and punished those who grumbled against him.
God led Joshua to victory after victory in the land until it was in the Israelites hands.
God took Elijah up to Heaven in a whirlwind.
God established the throne of David forever, on which His Greater Son, Jesus Christ now sits.
God kept the Apostle Paul in Corinth, unharmed and unhindered for another 18 months and a church grew strong there.
What’s on His agenda for you?
