Scripture
Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day. Acts 23:1
Observation
The Apostle Paul was no stranger to persecution. He was warned ahead of time that danger awaited him on his return to Jerusalem, and when he arrived, a mob attacked him. The Roman authorities arrived and rescued Paul from this mob…they were in such a frenzy, the authorities had to actually lift Paul over their heads to get him out of there. So now Paul stands before the Roman authorities, and they decide to interrogate him by torture. They prepare to scourge him, and then the information comes out that he was a Roman citizen. That scared them, and they backed off. They turned him over to the Jewish council to decide.
The Sanhedrin was their Supreme Court, made up of seventy leading Bible teachers, and their council had the power to execute him. Paul knows their power of life and death, but he stands before them at peace. He’s looking them straight in the eyes, not ashamed, not afraid, and not about to back down. Paul used to be a member of their number…and now they consider him to be a turncoat…a traitor. There’s nothing this group would like more than to execute him. Yet he stands before them cool, calm, and collected.
Application
It is in times like this…crisis’ that we really find out what we are made of. Crisis don’t make the man, they reveal the man. Paul has lived well and pretty soon he will die well.
I have often wondered…how will I finish? Will I finish well? I cant think of anything more important than that. What a testimony to be able to say, I have fulfilled my duty to God.
Prayer
Lord, please help me to remember that I am not just living for this life, but the life to come. I pray that I will be able to live in such a way that I will finish well.
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4 comments:
I know that Tues.'s lesson is not posted yet, but if anyone could shed some light on Num. 1-2, I would appreciate it. There are a lot of numbers for the different tribes etc.; but I'm having a lot of difficulty finding the message, or lesson to be learned from these chapters.
Interestingly the numbered of Israel in Numbers 1: 46 is the same as the number given in Exodus 12: 37. The lesson seeming to be that after 40 years of wilderness wandering and a whole generation dieing in the wilderness israel's number that going into the promised land is the same. Pretty remakable when you consider that flowing through that desert wasa stream of water large enough that there was more than 2. 4 million gallons of water that flowed by their camp every day. Remarkable in that the bread that fell from heaven fed about 2.4 million persons every day, and there was bread that melted away in the noon time sun. remarkable that every Sixth day there was bread for 4.8 million persons and absolutely none of the Seventh day.
in chapter two you see the order of worship even in the day by day encampment of the 12 tribes. All that they were about was showing that God loves His people to be They were clean as well as worshipful. No sewer systems and yet they had none of the diseases of those people that lived around them becasue of this order and system of cleanliness that God led them to create.
Notice also chapter two verse 31, 32 of the six hundred fighting men none were counted of Levi "as the Lord commanded."
You mention the number of people in the wilderness. What is really amazing to me is the number of people who went into Egypt just 400 years earlier...70 people.
Truly God kept His promise and made a great nation.
Bill
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