Providential Protection
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 18 February 2024
The apostle Paul as he is now a prisoner. Paul is hunted and plotted against. There are some who desire to take his life. Paul had just been through three riots, all directed at him, and has escaped death three times. And now the Lord Jesus comes to him in person in verse 11, and says, “Have courage. For as you have testified of Me in Jerusalem, so it is necessary for you to testify in Rome.”
And he sat in the cell, and the plot was going on against his life, but his confidence was in God. Everything he has tried to do since he came to Jerusalem has ended in a riot. He tried to pacify the Jewish Christians, and that ended in a riot. He tried to give his testimony of what God had done in his life to the Jewish crowd in the temple court, and that also ended in a riot.
He tried to give testimony before the Jewish Council, the Sanhedrin, and that ended in a riot. And now he is a prisoner; his life is sought. But, down in his heart, he doesn’t feel his course is done. He doesn’t feel that he’s fought the good fight and it’s over. He still, in his heart, feels that he needs to go to Rome. And the Lord comes to him at night and says, “And so shall it be. You will be in Rome.”
And immediately an incident occurs that seals that confidence. God made a promise; he believed the promise. Nothing about the Lord is mentioned from verse 12 on. Nothing about the Holy Spirit; nothing about salvation; nothing about redemption; nothing about the Messiah; nothing about actual Christian doctrine that is postulated anywhere else in Scripture for the Christian life.
It shows how God cared and brought about what He wanted to bring about through the circumstances. Do you know that God does things in two ways: through miracles and through providence. A miracle is when God breaks the natural process to invade it in a supernatural way. Providence is where God gets His will, done by using the natural circumstances to accomplish what He wants to.
How many times have you read, “God came and did this miracle.” How many other times have you read that “So-and-so did this, and so-and-so did this, and then all of a sudden, it all worked out the way God wanted it.” That’s the difference between a miracle and providence. A miracle is God violating the natural world; providence is God using supernaturally the natural to accomplish His will.
I believe we are living in the day when God is doing things through His providence. And in Acts 23 and you see exactly the same: the providence of God. It is the use of all natural events. It is the difference between the apostle Paul being stoned at Lystra and the Lord raising him from the dead. It is a miracle where Paul goes to jail and the Lord with a localized earthquake knocks the whole jail down.
We don’t need a miracle because God can accomplish whatever He wants to accomplish through providence; through the ordering of things in the way that He desires to gain His ends. God doesn’t need to get publicity to do what He does. And so we see here what is a beautiful illustration of the providence of God. Let’s look at it in four scenes: the plot formulated, found out, foiled, and then the farewell.
First, the plot formulated in verses 12-15, “When it was morning, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under a curse not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. 13 There were more than forty who had formed this plot. 14 These men went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have bound ourselves under a solemn curse that we won’t eat anything until we have killed Paul.
15 So now you, along with the Sanhedrin, make a request to the commander that he bring him down to you as if you were going to investigate his case more thoroughly. But, before he gets near, we are ready to kill him.” And Paul knew the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus like no man who ever lived. He almost went through the same sequence of events that Jesus did.
Verse 12, “When it was morning,” that’s the morning after the night in which Jesus appeared to Paul and the very day after he had given testimony to the Jewish Council. Now, here’s the plot. Disappointed at having let Paul slip through their fingers, a group of these zealots determined that they were going to engineer a plot to kill him, and he wouldn’t get away this time.
Of course, that’s dumb, because God may or may not be involved in it. That’s why Jesus said, “Swear not at all, don’t do that. Don’t say, ‘God, strike me dead if I don’t do this,’ or, ‘God do this if I don’t do that’.” Let your conversation be “yes and no.” Jesus said, “Swear not at all neither by Heaven or Earth.” But they were doing that, and they wanted to drag God into it and appear very holy.
It is amazing that these people could be so violent against somebody who hadn’t done anything to them. He’s never broken their laws. All he did was preach love. All he did was preach salvation. All he did was announce that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, whom they had rejected, came alive from the dead and through Paul to tell them they could accept Him as their Messiah.
All he did was give them a message of peace and grace. Because they were the dupes of Satan, and that is the simplest way to look at it. They had been so subjected to the power of Satan by this time, existing so long in a false system of religion based on ego and hypocrisy, that they were Satan’s tools. And Satan wanted Jesus and the Gospel done away with forever.
“There were more than 40 who had formed this plot.” Apparently, they felt that the Romans would not bring about Paul’s death. And, they realized that they didn’t want Paul in front of the people making another speech, or he might wind up persuading too many of them. So they bound themselves by a blood oath, swearing to God that they would assassinate Paul.
In verse 14, they wanted more support. They came to the chief priest and elders. Now, the chief priests of the Sanhedrin were the Sadducees. The Sadducees party was the most antagonistic to Paul. Because Paul taught the resurrection and they did not believe that. They said, “Look, we have bound ourselves under a great curse that we will not eat anything until we have killed Paul.”
In verse 15 it became an ambush. According to verse 20, they did agree. So, the Sanhedrin voted to cooperate. But, then we begin to see the wheels of providence move as the plot is secondly found out. Verse 16, “But the son of Paul’s sister, hearing about their ambush, came and entered the barracks and reported it to Paul.” Now isn’t this interesting? Paul’s nephew was in on the plot somehow.
Do you realize that the Bible says nothing about Paul’s family? We know that his father was a Pharisee because he made that statement earlier. We know that he had suffered in Philippians 3:8 because of his faith in Christ, “The loss of all things.” Most Bible teachers assume that this included being disinherited from his Jewish family because from there on there is nothing about his family.
How then, does Paul’s sister’s son come to Paul’s rescue? And is it possible that the boy was present when the plot took place? Imagine how God worked the circumstances to have that little boy hanging around the conspirators and to get the right message, and then to have the presence of mind to go warn his uncle? This is no less supernatural than if God used a big sky-hook and pulled Paul right up.
Suddenly Paul begins to realize that this is step one in the fulfillment of a promise. Verse 17, “Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the commander, because he has something to report to him.” Verse 18, “So he took him, brought him to the commander, and said, “The prisoner Paul called me and asked me to bring this young man to you, because he has something to tell you.”
Verse 19, “The commander took him by the hand, led him aside, and inquired privately, “What is it you have to report to me?” Why would a chief captain take a little boy by the hand unless it was to kind of calm him down? Verse 20, “The Jews,” he said, “have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the Sanhedrin tomorrow, as though they are going to hold a somewhat more careful inquiry about him.”
God’s timing is perfect. Verse 21, “Don’t let them persuade you, because there are more than forty of them lying in ambush—men who have bound themselves under a curse not to eat or drink until they have killed him. Now they are ready, waiting for your consent.” God is superintending this thing. “The whole thing depends upon the promise from you to deliver the prisoner.”
So, the whole plot was found out. Verse 22, “So the commander dismissed the young man and instructed him, “Don’t tell anyone that you have informed me about this.” It was only a few years after this that the whole place exploded in a revolution. And, he knew the past history of what other commanders had run into in that place, and he did not want to butt heads with them.
Thirdly, the plot is foiled. Now you can see the providence of God. Determined to outfox the assassins, Claudius Lysias feels the pressure of Roman justice, and he doesn’t want to have on his hands the responsibility for the assassination of a Roman citizen, which could cost him his job and his life. And, he knows that he has an important man on his hands or there wouldn’t be such a hassle.
Verse 23-24, “He summoned two of his centurions and said, “Get two hundred soldiers ready with seventy cavalry and two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea at nine tonight. 24 Also provide mounts to ride so that Paul may be brought safely to Felix the governor.” Caesarea was 60 miles away, and it was a Gentile-dominated town. So there was less likelihood of a revolution or an assassination.
The Roman armies moved in three parts. First, the heavy-armed infantry with the swords and the shields who could set up the defense. Then, “In addition to that, 70 horsemen.” This is the cavalry. Then the third thing, 200 spearmen. What it means is “javelin throwers.” This is the light-armed troops. And so here are 470 soldiers armed to the gills to escort one apostle out of town.
Verse 25-28, “He wrote the following letter: 26 Claudius Lysias, “To the most excellent governor Felix: Greetings. 27 When this man had been seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them, I arrived with my troops and rescued him because I learned that he is a Roman citizen. 28 Wanting to know the charge they were accusing him of, I brought him down before their Sanhedrin.”
What is interesting about that? Luke never read it. Now, this is a good illustration of divine inspiration. The Spirit of God told Luke, by the miracle of revelation, the words of that letter, and he wrote them down with his own hand. That’s how the whole Bible has been written, by the inspiration of God. And the letter was probably written in Latin, so the Spirit of God had to give it to Luke in Greek.
No; Claudius didn’t know Paul was a Roman until he had already rescued him and strapped him on the frame to be scourged. And then he found out he was a Roman and panicked. He was going to torture Paul to get the truth out of him, and it wasn’t until he had already begun the process of torture that he found out he was a Roman and called a quick halt. But, when you write to your superior, you want to come off as great.
Verse 29-30, “I found out that the accusations were concerning questions of their law, and that there was no charge that merited death or imprisonment. 30 When I was informed that there was a plot against the man, I sent him to you right away. I also ordered his accusers to state their case against him in your presence.” In the history of Israel you find that the leadership has been corrupted through the centuries.
Verse 31-34, “So the soldiers took Paul during the night and brought him to Antipatris as they were ordered. 32 The next day, they returned to the barracks, allowing the cavalry to go on with him. 33 When these men entered Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they also presented Paul to him. 34 After he read it, he asked what province Paul was from. Then he learned he was from Cilicia.”
Now, Felix had to determine where Paul was from because he had to determine who had jurisdiction. The Romans had divided their conquered world into various provinces over which there were governors. Cilicia and Judea were considered to be in the domain of Felix, and that’s what he wanted to determine so that he would know that he had jurisdiction.
Verse 35, “He said, “I will give you a hearing whenever your accusers also get here.” He ordered that he be kept under guard in Herod’s palace. Herod had built a magnificent palace there, but Herod wasn’t really able to enjoy it to its fullest since he declared a day in which he was going to honor himself and God struck him and worms ate him because he didn’t give glory to God.
This passage tells me things about God even though God isn’t mentioned. One, it tells me God is faithful. He makes a promise in verse 11, and right in the morning He carries out the fulfillment of it. Second, God is caring. Did you see how He takes care of His servant? He knew how much Paul had endured, and He knew it was time for Paul to go first class, and that’s how he went. Let’s pray.