While Jesus promised his followers would be persecuted and brought before rulers, he also assured them the Holy Spirit would provide wisdom and a message. This is illustrated through the Apostle Paul's defense before Felix, where Paul, rather than premeditating, relied on the Spirit to bring to mind relevant scriptures and truths. The core lesson is that while preachers must study and meditate on God's Word to be filled by the Spirit, those facing persecution will be divinely equipped to speak. The message concludes by emphasizing that God preserves the testimony of his servants, which outlasts their persecutors, and encourages listeners to choose Christ, the source of true righteousness and self-control, over a life of unrighteousness and impending judgment.
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speak answered for as much as i know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation i do the more cheerfully answer for myself because that thou mayest understand that there are yet but twelve days since i went out to jerusalem for to worship and they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogue, nor in the city. Neither can they prove that things were off they now accuse me. But I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the proper.
and have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. And herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience, void of offense toward God and toward men. Now after many years I came to bring alms to my nation and offering whereupon certain jews from asia found me purified in the temple neither with multitude nor with tumult who ought to have been here before thee an object if they had ought against me or else let these same ears say if they have found any evil doing in me while i stood before the council accepted me for this one voice that I tried standing among them touching the resurrection of the dead.
I am called in question by you this day. And when Felix heard these things, having more perfect knowledge of that way, he deferred them, said, When Lysius the chief captain shall come down, I will know the uttermost of your matter. and he commanded a centurion to keep Paul and let him have liberty, that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him. But after certain days when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.
And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled and answered, Go thy way for this time. When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might lose him, wherefore he sent for him the offener and communed with him. But after two years Fortes Festus came into Felix's room, and Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound.
Saul, we'll read for this morning. Lord willing, we'll read the next chapter tonight and proceed in our studies on the Acts. It might have been a little mixed up down at the printing press. I see they have my morning subject. are in for tonight and the night subject for this morning. Well, there's a similarity between the two, so you'll just have to take in the two. If you came this morning and you swear expecting to hear this up, you thought, I'll take that up tonight, so you come back and get that one tonight. So we'll speak on our subject for this morning, and that is some fear facts. Therefore, will they not face them?
very interesting to read this chapter and remember what the Lord Jesus said to his disciples over in Luke chapter twenty four referring to the days ahead when there would be persecution toward his followers and the gospel and I'm going to read to you just two verses what the Lord said would happen to his faithful witnesses He says, But before all these things, the final days, the judgments that are coming, they shall lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake.
And it shall turn to you for a testimony, settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate. before what ye shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, such as all your adversaries shall not be able to gain say nor resist. Now the Lord told his disciples that this would befall those who would take their stand for Christ in the days ahead, when they would be brought before governors and kings. And here we find the Apostle Paul. He is being brought before the Governor these.
He has been before the High Priest. He's been before also the Sanhedrin. But now he's brought before the Governor. Undoubtedly, he is reminded of these verses of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I've had young preachers say that It wasn't necessary for one to study or to meditate in order to be a preacher. That the Lord says, open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. Well, see it, Spurgeon, the great preacher said, when a young fellow told him that, that he didn't have to study, he didn't have to read, he didn't have to meditate.
For the Bible says, open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. Spurgeon says, you're right, and God will fill your mouth with wind. In other words, if you're going to understand the Bible, and I want to say this, Christ on this occasion is not speaking to creatures. He is speaking to martyrs. He says, do not premeditate when you're standing before martyr kings and those who are going to persecute you, when you stand before your accusers. Don't premeditate in your mind. I'll give you the answers. I'll tell you what to say.
Now he's talking to martyrs there. He's not talking to preachers. Because in reference to preachers, he says, meditate upon these things, and give thyself holy to them. And he says, the Holy Spirit will bring all things to your remembrance. Now the Spirit of God cannot bring to your remembrance something you have never read, or never heard. I want to repeat that. The Holy Spirit is not going to bring to your mind any portion of Scripture that you've never read or you've never heard quoted.
He shall bring all things to your remembrance. Now the Lord Jesus Christ was with his disciples for three and a half years, and they had no Bible. But the Lord said, I'm going to heaven. And when I go, the Spirit of God is going to come down, and He will remind you of those things you heard me say for three and a half years. And as the disciples, those fishermen went forth preaching time and time again, statements of the Lord Jesus Christ came back into their mind, brought there by the Holy Spirit of God. And so God would have all those who would attempt to be a preacher, to do a lot of reading, and a lot of studying, and a lot of meditating.
And any young fellow or older fellow who says, well, I don't have to study, I don't have to meditate, he doesn't have to tell his audience that. They know that. They know it. In other words, God wants us to read His Word. saturate your soul with the Bible. And time and time again, if a Christian is seeking the witness to a non-Christian, it's amazing, it's thrilling how the Spirit of God will bring to your mind the exact text you need for that occasion. Because you have planted that word in your own heart, you have read the Bible, you have meditated upon it, you have heard it preached, And there is the material.
And it's just like a contractor or a mason. Now the mason must have the bricks put there and the mortar put there so he can use his trial and build the wall. And that's true. If you want to do any building for the Lord, then put the word of God in your heart. but the material there in your own private studies read the scripture hear the word preach and then when the time is appropriate the spirit of god will bring to your mind during my forty one years minister almost half the text that i was quote from the platform or more than half come into my mind that i had never thought of prior to the message but i read at some time in my life and so the Spirit of God just brings them to your mind so they fit in just where he wants them to be fitted or where they're suited.
And so the Lord here is telling about his disciples and what they would suffer and how they would be persecuted. Now he says, don't premeditate. When you know you're going before the king as my witness, going before the governors, going before some of these brutal dictators, don't you premeditate. Just you wait. And I'll give you a mouth. I'll give you something to say that will be appropriate. It'll meet the occasion and it'll hit the nail on the head. And how true that was. What a comfort this was to the Apostles.
Because how do you know what the prosecutor is going to accuse you of? You don't know beforehand what the prosecuting attorney is going to say. Therefore, you would be unwise to try and conjure up your answer. And so Paul is now going before Felix the governor. But there were two things he did know from this scripture. He knew this. I'm going to be a witness for Christ. Whatever the prosecution has to say. whatever this professional orator Tertullus is going to say, is beside the point, I'm going to witness for Christ.
I'll see to that. I'll witness for my Lord. And the second thing I'm going to rest on, that the Lord will stand with me, and he'll confirm the opposition. he tells you that in that verse fifteen of Acts twenty four or Luke twenty four that I read Luke twenty one rather for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversary shall not be able to gain say or resist how often down the church age for two thousand years where God's people have gone before their persecutors Many of them to be burned at the stake were cast to the wild beasts in the atmosphere.
Others have been stoned. Others have been shocked. They've uttered wisdom. Words of wisdom that God gave them at their trial that compounded their persecution. Look at the case of Stephen that we studied in chapter seven. Why wisdom? Stephen had such wisdom that the high priest and all the Sanhedrin, they were confounded by the wisdom of Stephen. Oh, that has happened thousands and thousands and thousands of times, out to the mouths of babes and sucklings.
Says God, I will perfect the trade. And God time and time again has confounded men with mighty minds. by the simple utterances of a young Christian from the word of God. What if God has silenced the opposition? There's one thing clear in this trial with Paul. What happened to him presently was a little consequence. I don't care what they do with me, says Paul. Do what they like. That's a little consequence. What happens to me?
but there's one thing I know I'm going to do. If this is my final day, if this is the time of my execution, so be it. I long ago settled, I was willing to die for Christ. But I'll take advantage of this opportunity to witness for my Lord. You know, it's very remarkable that the results of this trial have been read and reread and preached down the centuries. Felix and his wife have passed off the sea. The high priests and the elders have passed off the sea.
And along comes Festus that we'll be reading about tonight. And then King Agrippa and eventually Caesar at Rome. all these men who were group beasts and persecuted the early church, putting poisons to death, they passed off the sea. But the testimony of God's servants has continued. It's continued. Now that's exactly true. Friend, you may have people persecute you. Because you're a Christian, Today, many of God's people are being put to death.
They can talk as they like about religious freedom behind the Iron Curtain. Don't you believe it? There's a lot of persecution going on behind the Iron Curtain and the Bamboo Curtain. Some are dying for Christ. But I'll tell you, there's one thing that'll last longer than those men who are persecuting God's people, and that is the testimony of God. God says, I'll use the testimony of my people against you wicked men in the day of judgment. God will preserve the witness, the faithful testimony of his servants and of his beloved people.
Many kings, many emperors, many nations who persecuted God's people have long since passed off the sea, but the story lives on. We have that in the Acts. If you will read this passage, I try to emphasize as we were reading, and it's in three sections, you have the indictment or the prosecution in verses one to nine, and then you have the defense in verses ten to twenty one, and then the result of the trial in verses twenty two to twenty seven. Let us notice the characters present in the courtroom on this occasion.
You have Felix. You have Paul, the Apostle Paul, the little Jew. You have Ananias, the high priest. You have Tertullus, the higher professional auditor or lawyer. You have the Romans there. You have the Jews. And Tertullus leaves off with flatteries and pulses. He talks about this king, Felix. And Felix was a brute beast. Felix was a cruel, vicious, tired. That's what Felix was.
He was wicked. He was an ungodly, sensuous man. Yet here you find turtles. And he flatters him. Flatters him. And he accepts him. And then to Judas, he turns his attack upon the Apostle Paul. God's faithful servant. What did he say about him? Why, he left loose a blast of lies, as you'll read in verses five and six, a blast of lies at the Apostle Paul. Now, what he said about Felix was false, too.
He flattered him when he deserved anything but flattery. But now he turns to the Apostle Paul, and it's another blast of lies. But this time, what he said was anything but true about the Apostle Paul. What did he say about the Apostle Paul in verses five and six? He said, this is a pestilent battle, a sword of sedition, a ringleader of the Nazarene sect. when Paul himself in chapter twenty six and five says, I am of the straightest sick, a Pharisee. He goes on in his blast against the Apostle.
He accuses Paul of being a political rebel, an agitator, guilty of heresy, sacrilege, and a defamer of the temple. This is what the lawyer, persecuting the Apostle, tried to bring before the judge feelings but how false it all was just a pack of lies and I thought of it I read this about the text of the word Jesus said ye are of your father the devil and he's a liar from the beginning and this professional origin hired by the Jews to represent them before Felix caught.
He was a liar. He was a child of the devil. Because all that he said about Paul was absolutely false. But now Paul gets his chance. Paul is his own defense attorney. And he was a brilliant man. Paul was a lawyer too. He had a legal mind. He was no fool. But what does she say when his turn comes? You read in verses ten to twenty-one. He manifest courtesy, but no flattery. He didn't flatter Felix at all.
What he had to say was truth, not falsehood, fairness, not malice, respect, not contempt. And this was an argument. It wasn't abuse. Paul denied what Turculus had said. And he said this, I'll charge you. I'll challenge you or these Jews to prove what you said. Now that was something to say in their court. I'll challenge you. You prove your statement. Will he accuse me of all these things, of causing unrest throughout the whole world and causing so much trouble in Jerusalem.
Paul said it's only twelve days ago that I came here, and I couldn't have done all you said I've done at that time. Twelve days. And he challenges the prosecuting attorney to approve his book. And he couldn't do it. But Paul says, I'll confess this. I'll confess. as he says in verse fourteen i confess that i believe all things that are written in the plots i believe god's precious word i believe what god's word says about his way and his worship christ is the way the truth and the life and another thing i confess i believe i have hope in the living god and I believe in a literal resurrection of the just and of the unjust.
You find all that in verse fifteen, I think it is. These are things, he says, I confess. And I make no apologies, Felix, for what I believe. I'm proud to say I believe the Word of God. I'm proud to say I believe in the living. I'm proud to say all my hope is in the resurrected Christ, who sits at God's right hand. I'm a firm believer in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, foreshadowing a coming day when the unjust shall also rise to stand before God in judgment of the great white throne.
and also Christians shall rise to meet the Savior in the air. I confess, I believe all is. And something else, Felix, I confess, and that is that I have a clear conscience before God and before men. And it could have pointed his finger at Felix and said, I challenge you to make that statement. that you've got a clear conscience. I challenge Tertullus to say that he's got a clear conscience. I challenge the high priest to say that he has a clear conscience for God who has it.
I challenge those Jews from Asia who had said all these things about me. Why didn't they come and attend this trial? I'll challenge them to say they've got a clear conscience before God. and the poor man. They didn't have a clear conscience. Paul struck right home with that statement. And you'll notice what happened after that. Felix kind of deferred the situation. You'll notice in verse twenty-two. And when Felix heard these things. having more perfect knowledge of that way he deferred them and said when lestius the chief captain shall come down i will know the uttermost of your matter taken to paul in other words he had no comeback to paul's defense about what he believed in the fact he had a clear conscience about what he believed and to prove that it went home he deaward, as you'll notice in verse twenty three, for, and he commanded a censure to keep Paul and
to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come on him. Now, if Paul had been the dangerous man, that the prosecuting attorney said he was, Do you think that judge would have let Paul have all the liberty and the freedom he wanted and let his relatives come and be surrounded? No. If Felix believed what the lawyer had said, if he said this is a dangerous man, a mood of sedition, a cause of tumour, heaven's host guard, though Felix had enough sense to see.
that Paul wasn't the man, the dangerous, despicable character that the jewish said he wanted. Give him all the freedom he wanted. Let his relatives come and visit. But you know there's something very noticeable here in verse twenty four. And after certain days when Felix came with his wife, Jocilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. That's unusual. He must have been impressed and he sent for the Apostle Paul. He said, I want a personal conversation.
Just you, my wife and I. And I want to hear more about this. He declared a decision a little while previously when he said, well, that you captain's not here, we better not make a decision. He got out of that, and now he's sending for Paul that he might have a personal conversation on how Paul's remark about righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. You notice that in verse twenty five, Paul's great sermon, and as he reasoned, Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.
Pelix trembled and answered, Go thy way for this time. When I have a convenient season, I will call to thee. When he spoke of righteousness, he stung Felix. But for Felix knew he had been anything but righteousness. He had been an unrighteous man politically and on writing there beside him sat drusilla a jewess who had been married to a relative of felix of the age of fifteen felix wound her away from her first husband and insisted that she live with him could he or she have a clear have a clear conscience politically?
Could he have a clear conscience morally? No, he could. Neither could young white New Zealand. And so when Paul faced righteousness, he hit the nail on the head. And the second thing he emphasized was temperance. Temperance. Temperance means self-control. Feelings. you haven't manifested self-control in your ruling this people you haven't been you haven't had self-control over your passions or you wouldn't have done what you did to your relative when you took away his young wife and now you're living with it you have anything but self-control you've lost control of your passions It was Sir Walter Rawley who said that he wielded the power of a king with the mind of a slave that was thieves.
Here the Apostle Paul is hitting the nail right on the head. You haven't been a tempered man. And then third, judgment to come. Three words. Paul drives home. Righteousness, temperance, judgment becomes. In other words, Felix, you're unrighteous, politically, morally. You're an intemperate man. You have no control over yourself, your passion. And remember what's going to come if you don't change judgment.
Judgment becomes. Isn't any wonder we read in that very verse twenty five? Felix Trimble. Felix Trimble. He says, go thy way for this time. I don't want to hear more of this, Paul. Go thy way for this time. When I have a convenient season, I'll call for you. Yes, you want to get around it. The Apostle Paul had not only convicted him of his sin by these trusts, these stir through the soar of divine truth, but he also had the answer.
Righteousness, where is true righteousness found in Jesus Christ? Christ is made unto us wisdom of righteousness, sanctification, redemption. Because he said there in verse twenty four, he came to hear more about faith in Christ. And Paul, before he told him about Christ, he told him he needed to repent because of his unrighteousness, his lack of control, Christ.
In other words, like a real dietician, a physician, he analyzes the case. Now he says, I'll prescribe the remedy. The Apostle Paul, he analyzed the case of King Felix, the governor, and he prescribes the remedy. Christ is the remedy for your unrighteousness. It's not your right doing, it's not your good work, Felix. You need Christ. And it's only when Jesus Christ is imputed to your heart will you have righteousness. Righteousness is found in Christ and Christ alone.
And the only way you can have righteousness is because Jesus Christ came down from heaven and he died in your place. He the righteous suffered for you the unrighteous man, that you the unrighteous man might not suffer, but be made righteous before God in Jesus Christ. And as for your intemperance, Felix, God has the answer in his Holy Spirit. For if you turn to Galatians chapter five, some of the fruit of the Spirit is temperance. After you are made righteous in Christ, how will you go to control your passions?
How are you going to control yourself? Only by the enthralling Holy Spirit can you control that temper. Only by the enthralling Spirit can you control your tongue and your passions. That's the only way you can do it. God has the answer. For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, litmus, tempers, and faith. Then again, ask the judgment to come. God's got the answer for that in his word.
Righteousness found in Christ. self-control or deference found in the Holy Spirit that dwells in the heart of every Christian. And judgment to come, that's shaken up with the word of God, that there is therefore now no more judgment for them who are in Christ Jesus. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that set me hath the everlasting life. pass from death unto life. Paul's sermon was doctrinal, righteousness, deference, and no more judgment.
Paul's sermon not only was doctrinal, it was personal, right to Felix and his wife. He didn't beat around the bush. And Paul's sermon was practical. very practical. Neither shall ever be a practical man unless you get to know Jesus Christ and know the power of the indwelling Spirit to make you a temperate man. Furthermore, Paul's message was very, very courageous. Imagine him talking to you, the governor, that had just giving one command or one look to one of those omen soldiers and they could have taken the head off tall in a minute how dare you talk to me and my what about our unrighteousness our intent none of your business yes felix could have done that but i'm telling this one man that the powers that be have always been afraid of and that's a man of god filled with the holy spirit what was it the Queen of Scots said about John Knox, she said, I fear that man's
prayers more than I fear the armies of England. Here we find Felix sitting there with all his power and his wife beside him, living an ungodly life. And Felix trembled. It took a lot of courage to talk with his governor like that. Yes, Paul's message was courageous and it was scriptural. He spoke to him of the faith in Christ and it was a powerful message because Felix trembled. He trembled, he was under conviction and he looked.
Paul preached the full gospel and Christ is nothing like that. the full gospel that Paul preached is Christ and nothing less, a plain gospel, Christ and nothing more, a pure gospel, Christ and nothing else. That's all men and women need today. The sum up to summarize these two men, Paul and Felix. I don't know any better way to sum them up. Here you have a man in spiritual debt, and you have a man enjoying spiritual life.
Felix, Esther, S. Agrippa, Bernice, and Lucilla, and eventually Caesar's will see later on. They had a disordered nature. They had a wayward will. They had a wild imagination. They had perverted desires. They had vicious propensities, worldly lusts, low ambitions, sin darkening light, evasing statess and appetites, of soiling purity, weakening powers of existence.
forever drawing the veil of unbelief between their heart and God. No hope, no peace decreasing in poverty, growing in darkness, gathering clouds of coming judgment. That summarizes fear is right. and his life and eventually heroes. You see, at all the ungodly who fought God's people in the beginning for now, at every unconverted person.
How about the Apostle Paul? How do you summarize his life? The Apostle, a nature renewed by the power of divine grace. How wonderful. penitent over his sin, accepted into sonship the very family of God, all faculties working heavenward, a will, subdued into apiopedias of the will and word of God, a heart loving what is lovely, looking up with fervent desire to him who is the foundation of all life.
The Spirit enjoins favor, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost, the comforts of pardon, sin, fellowship of God, beloved people, anticipation of coming, going. Here you have the alternatives between these men, these wicked kings and queens, and the Apostle Paul, satan's crowd, and God's faithful people. These are the eight alternatives.
I say like most this morning, over in Deuteronomy thirty-nineteen, I call heaven and earth the witness or direct record this day against you. I set before you the way of life, the way of death, mercy, and the curse. Therefore choose life. And I trust you will this morning choose life. You've got your choice between the Christ that Paul knew, great, died or you're going to stay with this other crowd unrighteous uncontrolled passion and judgment in your choice is yours the responsibility has been mine to send to you this chapter and it's best it's up to you the prophet of these words Our
Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we commit to thy presence. We ask thy blessing upon thy word. May it please thee, O God, to use what has been spoken. For it is thy word, and we ask thee to use it. Entirely for thy glory, the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the salvation of precious souls you sit in our midst today. For we ask it in his worthy and precious name. Amen. Number two, forty-two. Out of my bondage, sorrow and night, Jesus, I come.
Jesus, I come into thy freedom, gladness, and light. Jesus, I come to thee. out of my sickness into thy health out of my want and into thine wealth out of my sin and into thyself jesus i come to thee we'll stand and sing two hundred and forty two if you have trusted trice come and tell us if you haven't trusted trice do so at this time for you'll never have or more conveniences This one Felix says, when I have a convenient season, you never had a more convenient season than right now.