The following teaching is the 24th of a series on the book of Acts by the Reverend John W. Howe of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The title of this teaching is Prisoner and Yet, and the scripture reference is Acts chapters 27 and 28. Acts chapter 27 and verse 1. Let's just ask God to bless our time. Father, we thank you for the way that you have opened our understanding these many weeks as we have had the adventure of moving through what's called the book of the Acts of the Apostles.

We recognize it to be, in fact, the continuing acts of the Lord Jesus through his church by the power of the Holy Spirit. We ask you, Father, to guide us yet again this day. as we look at the last couple of chapters that we would see you moving in power in that generation and in this world without end.

Amen. Acts chapter 27 and verse 1. Last time we saw Paul standing before two Roman governors, First Felix and then his successor Festus, men who held approximately the same authority that Pilate had held when the Lord Jesus stood before him.

They were, all of them actually had their headquarters in Caesarea, even though the events of Jesus' trial took place in Jerusalem. Pilate was headquartered in Caesarea as were first Felix and then Festus. Just to recap quickly, I think the parallels are fascinating.

On the one hand, we saw a number of parallels between Paul's successive trials and that of Stephen, and other parallels, on the other hand, between his time before these governors and Jesus' time before Pilate. As with Jesus, also with Stephen, there was no real evidence against Paul. As with Pilate, both of these men, Felix and then Festus, wanted to placate the Jews, wanted to do a favor to the Jews, to curry their favor with him.

And so we saw one miscarriage of justice after another. Finally, Paul appealed to Nero Caesar, as was his right as a Roman citizen. He said, I take my case to Caesar.

That's kind of like us appealing to the Supreme Court. That's the highest court of authority, and he was immediately granted the right to do that. As King Herod Agrippa II said, had he not done so, he should have been released, because they had no case against him.

Even though he had been incarcerated for over two years on very, very flimsy charges and no substantial evidence, the truth of the matter is he should have been released. But because he made this appeal to Caesar, now the machinery was set in motion and there was no backing out of it. That's where we pick up the story then at Acts chapter 27.

He starts off for Rome by ship, by boat, under the care of a very gentle and perhaps sympathetic Roman centurion, a fellow by the name of Julius. It doesn't specifically say that he was a secret believer or that he was entertaining thoughts of becoming one. But you sort of read that between the lines, that maybe this man had a real heart for God as well as a tenderness toward St. Paul.

They sail along the coast of Cilicia and then along the coast of Pamphylia to a place called Myra. There they changed ships and they headed for the southern coast of Crete. They hoped, first of all, to winter in the city of Phoenix and then they decided instead to press on toward Italy.

Sort of hard in this day of air travel to think of the amount of trouble that was involved in making that kind of a journey. They hoped to winter, all right, in the middle of the Mediterranean there, but then in fact decided to press on toward Rome, toward Italy. Verse 9 and following, Paul warns them prophetically against traveling any further at this time, but they go ahead anyway.

they're nearly destroyed in the process first he warns them prophetically and then he reassures them prophetically that they will all survive even though the ship will be lost the ship and all its goods will be lost in a storm at sea and that's exactly what happens it breaks up in the surf just off the island of Malta which if you have a a good map in the back of your Bible you'll find at the southern coast of Sicily there they go ashore and I'm moving very quickly into chapter 28. They start a little fire and out of the brushwood that they've gathered for the fire, a poisonous snake comes out and latches on to Paul and the natives figure that he is really getting justice, that having survived the shipwreck, now he's going to be done in by a venomous snake. It's sort of a trial by ordeal, although not at the hands of the Romans, at the hands either of nature or at the hands of God working through the natural elements.

Instead, Paul survives. And they go from the opinion that he's finally got his to the opinion that he must be a god. That having survived this venomous snake bite, they revert to the opposite conclusion, sort of like what happened back in going from Lyconia to Lystra in chapter 14.

You remember that they were ready to do Paul and Barnabas in, and then they decide, no, they must be gods, and they hailed Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes. Obviously, he dispels that idea as quickly as he can, and yet, remarkably, God opens up a healing ministry to Paul and this brief layover on the island of Malta. First to one of the chief men, the father of the fellow who is the chief of the islands, by the name of Publius, and then virtually to all who were sick.

I want you to get the dynamics of this. Here he is en route to trial before Caesar, facing who knows what, certainly more imprisonment, certainly more false charges being levied against him, certainly more abuse. He knows that.

The Holy Spirit has said to him, as you testified before me in Jerusalem, so you will testify before me in Rome. So he knows at least that much. Possibly death awaits him, martyrdom, in the city of Rome.

He's survived shipwreck and snake bite. And what does he do? He starts bringing healing to all the natives en route.

Absolutely amazing scene. They bring out all the sick of that island, and he lays hands on them and prays for them, and they begin to recover. Not too unlike the Lord Jesus, en route to his final confrontation, and he pauses to heal the ear of the slave of the high priest.

Spirit of God just echoing what has previously happened in Jesus himself. Well, after three months on the island of Malta, they get another ship, and they start off again, finally arriving at Rome. Only to find that the backlog of court cases there is so heavy that it's going to be at least two years before he comes to trial.

Things haven't changed all that much, have they? It's been a very long process. I want you to see that.

It's now at least two and a half years since this started, and it's at least another two years before he's going to come before Caesar for his appeal. And yet God has been working in Paul all of this time, and we've seen bits and pieces of the ministry that have issued from it. It's more important to see what God is doing in Paul himself as he's giving to him a spirit of patience, a spirit of confidence to believe that all is not lost.

In spite of frustration after human frustration, God knows what he's doing. I know whom I have believed, and I'm absolutely persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. He hires his own house in the city of Rome.

he's allowed to do that he's still under guard but he's given remarkable freedom it's sort of like being free on his own recognizance and yet having his own bail bond officer attached to him he's set up his own house he could go into jail but he's given the freedom if he's willing to foot the bill he can have his own house on the outskirts of Rome and that's exactly what he does first thing he decides to do, knowing of this delay, is he calls all the Jews of the city of Rome together. Still a heart for his own people. In spite of repeatedly having said, I go to the Gentiles, right, he invariably starts with the Jews.

And here it is again, verse 17, after three days he called together the local leaders of the Jews, and when they had gathered, he said to them, brethren, though I had done nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. When they had examined me, they wished to set me at liberty because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. But when the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, though I had no charge to bring against my nation.

For this reason, therefore, I've asked to see you and speak with you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain. You see how he again says it's not the issue of Jews and Gentiles. My gospel is that of resurrection and in fact the fulfillment of all the promises that were made under the old covenant.

Notice their answer. They said to him, we have received no letters from Judea about you and none of the brethren coming here has reported or spoken any evil about you but we desire to hear from you what your views are for with regard to this sect namely the church the way Christianity we know that everywhere it is spoken against so they say we've heard nothing about you particularly but we've heard many things about this new teaching having to do with Jesus who is called the Christ and we want to hear from you about it what we've heard is not good but we'll listen to you and so they appoint a day and he begins to expound to them says from morning till evening testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. Verse 24, some were convinced by what he said while others disbelieved.

The majority disbelieved. Again, a remnant. Over and over we've seen the same pattern.

A few of the Jews received this new teaching and embraced the Lord Jesus. The majority don't. And so as they disagreed among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement. The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, Go to this people and say, You shall hear but never understand.

You shall indeed see but never perceive, for this people's heart has grown dull. And their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn to me to heal them. And virtually on that note, the book ends.

Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and they will listen. So one more instance of preaching first to the Jews, some of them believing, but obviously a rather small minority, the majority disbelieving, And one more statement, I go to the Gentiles, in essence, and quoting scripture to back up that decision. And there it ends, a very, very unsatisfactory ending to the book.

Nothing concluded. Paul has a couple of years to wait before he comes to trial, and there's no verdict given within the pages of scripture itself how that trial ends. Hold your finger here for just a moment.

I want to come back and look at the last couple of verses. But turn back to Isaiah chapter 6. This is the passage that Paul has just quoted.

And it's interesting. It's always interesting. May I suggest to you that if you're not already in the habit of doing so, it is always interesting to go and look up a passage when somebody in the New Testament quotes from the Old and see what the context was.

It often sheds a tremendous new amount of light on it. Isaiah chapter 6, verses 9 and 10 are the ones that Paul quotes. It comes in the context of Isaiah's great vision.

You remember where he sees the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple and so on. And Isaiah says, Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips. And an angel comes with a burning hot coal and touches his dirty lips and heals them.

Then Isaiah says, he hears the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And he says, here am I, send me. Then comes the word from the Lord that Paul has just quoted.

Hear and hear, but do not understand, and so on. But look at verse 11, Isaiah's response. Then I said, how long, O Lord?

How long will my people be hearing but not hearing, seeing but not seeing? How long will their hearts be hardened? How long will it be that I'm sent to speak to others, to Gentiles?

And the answer is, he said, until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without men, and the land is utterly desolate, and the Lord removes men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land, and though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump. Could I suggest to you that even in the closing statement, a kind of a very final dismissal of the Jews by St. Paul as saying, I turn from you and go to the Gentiles.

You're hearing and yet you don't listen. You're seeing and yet you don't perceive anything. You've just fulfilled Scripture a pox be on you and this gospel will go to the Gentiles even in so doing the passage he quotes carries within it a hint just a hint that God isn't finished with his ancient people yet okay they'll be scattered they'll be devastated they'll be laid waste and yet the holy seed is the stump out of that stump there shall still come some new life which is reflected in the letter to the Romans isn't it after the full number of the Gentiles come in, they will be converted again.

So even there. And yet what a strange way for the book to end. You know, nothing resolved within it.

It just kind of peters out. One wonders if something happened to Luke before he completed his manuscript. He ends with Paul living for two whole years at his own expense, welcoming all who come to him, preaching the kingdom of God, teaching about the Lord Jesus openly and unhindered and yet no final verdict, no trial.

We can put together some footnotes that we know from outside history. We know from the book of Philippians that the whole Praetorian guard ends up hearing the gospel. Rome keeps changing the guard because every time you change somebody to St. Paul he gets converted.

And so they keep changing the guard, and that just multiplies Paul over and over, and each new convert becomes a missionary, traveling about the whole of the Roman Empire at the expense of the government. We know also from Philippians chapter 4 that eventually, we're not given any details, Paul has access to the very household of Nero Caesar himself, and some of the members of Caesar's own household, presumably his relatives, some of his servants. very close to the throne, are converted and become members of the way.

We know that the Christians in Rome, who up to this point have been absolutely intimidated by the hostility of the government, are very much emboldened by Paul's witness and begin to become much more open about their own relationship to the Lord. We know as we push on through the New Testament that one day while he's awaiting trial, a runaway slave shows up a fellow by the name of Onesimus and apparently he came specifically looking for Paul because he felt that there was something very inconsistent about his master's profession of faith. His master was a man named Philemon and Philemon was one of those who was converted back in the city of Ephesus when Paul rented the hall of Tyrannus.

He remember and preached and various people came in from all of the surrounding area of Asia Minor. One of the fellows who came in was named Philemon. Got converted, went back, started a church in his own hometown, a place by the name of Colossae.

But this man Onesimus apparently felt that there was something quite inconsistent about Philemon's profession of faith because whilst he was a lovely Christian to everybody else, he still was a pretty bad boss to work for. And so Onesimus runs away and seeks out Paul. gets converted.

And Paul sends him back home. He says, you go back and face the music. I have no guarantee that when you go back, Philemon will receive you as a brother.

He may be very angry with you. But it's your responsibility to go back and submit yourself to the authority of your master. But I'll write a little letter to accompany you.

And he sends a very personal letter. Remarkable little letter. one of the shortest in the New Testament, to Philemon.

It says, Your runaway slave, Onesimus, has come to me in my imprisonment, and I've become a father to him in the faith, and I'm sending him back to you. Interestingly enough, the name Onesimus means useful, and Paul says, Formerly he was not very useful to you, but now he's become useful to me, and to you, and I'm sending him back as if he were my own heart that I'm sending to you. Would you receive him as you would receive me were I to come in person?

It appears that Onesimus not only broke away from his servant relationship, but stole some money as he left. Paul says, if he's robbed you, just charge that to my account. I'll pay it.

Not to mention that you owe me a very great deal, Philemon. your very life and salvation, but go ahead and charge it to my account. Remarkable balance.

Remarkable balance. I translate that out that the one under authority is to treat the one in authority as if he were the Lord Jesus himself. Onesimus, you go back and face the music.

No guarantees. But the one in authority is to behave like the Lord Jesus himself. He's been a rotten servant, a thief.

Receive him as you'd receive me, the apostle who led you to the Lord. He sends another letter with Onesimus, a general letter. We call it the epistle to the Colossians.

In it he says Jesus Christ holds together the very molecules, the very atoms and electrons that were about in the brain of the atheist who denies there is a God. In him all things hold together and have their being. It says while I'm thinking about Colossae and Asia Minor I think I'll write another letter to the Ephesians.

Sits down, pen in hand. We call it the letter to the Ephesians. Actually it was a circular letter that went throughout the whole area and was passed from one community of believers to another.

He sends it back by the hands of a fellow named Tychicus. And in it he writes, Do you realize that the central secret of the universe is that one day all things will be reconciled in Jesus Christ? Do you realize that?

Sages and prophets and holy men of old would long to understand what you understand today. That in Jesus Christ all things consist. And one day everything will be beautifully brought into unity in him.

That's the Lord that Paul is serving. Incarcerated under house arrest. Waiting his trial in Rome.

What a distance he's come. From that despair. Remember when he went to Asia?

Despair. A wide door for effective ministry opened. And yet I couldn't go through it because it was so down fallen.

downcast in my spirit and here awaiting trial not knowing what the outcome is going to be I'm absolutely convinced that God knows what he's up to he's holding it all together in his palm of his hand one day Peter visits him rather briefly we don't know too much about that visit but it so impacted Peter's life that Paul's theology is very much reflected in the letters of Peter and you're going to find some very familiar themes when Neil begins to lecture on that in a couple of weeks time. Finally, Paul writes a letter to the Philippians. He says, No church has entered into partnership with me the way you all have.

I want you to know that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. God knows what he's up to. He says, I've learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.

I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. I know how to suffer want or to enjoy plenty. I've learned that.

As I said, they keep changing the guard all this while and every convert becomes a missionary and the Roman government sends them out to Sweden, to Norway, to England, to Scotland, to Wales, probably to Spain. Scholars are divided in their opinion about whether or not Paul was briefly released. And some would say he himself did yet a little bit more travel himself before being arrested yet again and facing a final verdict.

Some would say he was initially released, given a clean bill of health, and then as part of the campaign that Nero had of blaming the Christians for everything that went wrong, you remember how he burned the city and blamed it on the Christians, that he arrested Paul a second time and condemned him to death. In any event, he was finally put to death around 67 or 68 AD, almost certainly by beheading. I think that the documentary that's going to be on television next week has him crucified upside down, but that's what happened to Peter.

Paul was almost certainly beheaded. And most scholars would say that the very last thing that he wrote was his second letter to Timothy. Some would even suggest that he may have been signing his signature to it as the soldiers arrived at the door.

The ink was still wet on the paper. Almost the last line of that letter, Paul says, I'm on the point of being sacrificed. The time of my departure has come.

Henceforth is laid up for me the crown of righteousness. That word departure analusis is a word that's taken over from nautical terms and what it literally means is my weighing anchor my hauling up of anchor departure slipping away from the dock you can see a mighty ship that's been anchored there next to the dock or in the harbor and that's not what it was made for it was made for the high seas and when you haul up that anchor and it drifts out under the power of the wind, it begins to come into its own. That's what Paul is saying.

I'm on the point of being sacrificed. The time of my weighing anchor and sailing out into the high seas of God's love and eternity is right before me. Roman soldiers think that they're destroying me.

They're chopping off my head. They're just setting me free to be what God wants me to be. They're just letting me come into my own.

Henceforth is laid up for me the crown of righteousness. I wonder, in the light of those various footnotes, if it really was an accidental ending to the book of Acts. It may be quite deliberate.

Acts is not, after all, the story of St. Paul. It's the story of the continuing ministry of the Lord Jesus. and it's interesting that the closing words are he was preaching the kingdom of God teaching about the Lord Jesus quite openly and unhindered Paul's life came to an end but the continuing acts of Jesus didn't you can do what you like to St. Paul chop off his head you can do what you like to St. Peter crucify him upside down you can burn the city of Rome and blame it on the Christians you can throw them into lions dens and boil them in oil you can do what you like you can try to stamp out the fire of the church and all you're going to do is scatter the embers so that one fire becomes twenty or a hundred or five hundred fires and whatever you do to a given individual the gospel will go on quite openly and unhindered until he comes again twenty four weeks ago we began with a little band of Jewish disciples huddled together in an upper room waiting because Jesus had told them to for what they didn't know the promise of the Father whatever that is the baptism of the Holy Spirit whatever that is scared confused later, the kingdom of God has reached to the uttermost parts of the Roman Empire.

We have a new Israel, don't we? It's no longer just a little band of Jews. It's a new Israel with men and women and boys and girls from every tongue and nation as they knew it then.

We We have a new temple. The old temple is about to be demolished, absolutely overrun, destroyed, ridiculed and blasphemed, but that's the old temple. God's building a new living temple, living stones upon a living foundation.

Have a new holy nation, a new royal priesthood. All this has been established and it's being upbuilt. and you can do what you will to any given member of it, the gospel of Jesus Christ will be proclaimed quite openly and unhindered until He comes again.

Let's stand and pray together. Bless the Lord, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.

Bless his holy name. He has done great things. He has done great things.

He has done great things. Bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, And all that is within me Bless His holy name Lord Jesus Christ, we give you praise this day for the way in which you moved through these 28 chapters among that first band of disciples.

And we thank you that there is not a back cover on this book. That you continue to move throughout your church. That you move in our very lives and that we've not read about extraordinary men and women.

we've read about very ordinary ones who opened themselves to an extraordinary God. Lord, we would learn these mighty lessons in whatsoever state we are therewith to be content. That when human frustration comes into the picture, if we have eyes to see it, what happens to us can still serve to advance the gospel.

That they can do what they like to us, but the Word of God is not chained. That they can chop us down, cut us off, but the Gospel goes on openly and unhindered because you are alive, because your spirit is active, because the gates of hell will not prevail against your church. We say hallelujah to you, Lord Christ.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.

Be exalted over all the earth. For your great name's sake. Amen.

Amen.