I Would to God – Acts 26:24-32

What sort of attitude, or state of mind, would you have if you were well into your second year of prison?

What if you knew that you weren’t guilty of any sort of crime?

What if, not only were you innocent, but after several trials which proved your innocence, you were still under arrest?

What sort of attitude would you have?

Would it be a Christian attitude? Would it be fleshly and human?

Would it glorify the Lord or would its focus be completely on yourself?

Now let’s change the question slightly:

If these things were true, what would be your chief desire? What would come first?

Would it be to bring glory to God, even if it meant another two years in jail?

Would your primary desire be for your immediate release?

Or would it be the salvation of the prison guards & the wicked people who were keeping you incarcerated?

Think about these questions.

How Christian is your heart, and how Christian would you behave?

I can’t remember if we have made this comparison before, but if we haven’t we should have.

Paul’s situation was not totally unique, even within the pages of the Word of God.

For example, we could talk about Daniel and the lion’s den or his 3 friends and their furnace at Auschwitz.

But there is another situation which parallels Paul even more closely: Joseph, the son of Jacob.

Falsely accused as a direct result of making a deliberate choice to obey God and eschew sin.

And after being made a servant of other prisoners, still desiring to be a blessing to those people.

When he saw that Pharaoh’s baker and butler were upset he went out of his way to comfort them.

For one it turned out well and for the other not so well.

Take some time later to fill in the blanks and fluff out the parallel between Joseph and Paul.

This evening let’s think for a few minutes about Paul’s desire, as he expressed it here in verse 29:

“Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”

I think that we can say that this is a very Christian kind of attitude.

Whether or not we are ever in prison, this should be our desire and attitude as well.

Paul’s prayer.

Every once in a while I use the words “I would to God,” but it’s always with hesitation and sometimes with a little embarrassment.

To my muddled mind these words border on blasphemy.

In fact, even though they aren’t commonly used in modern English, most of the time when we do hear “would to God” they are spoken in a blasphemous way.

If all that the speaker means is “I hope” or “I wish that such and such would take place” then blasphemy has been committed.

As we read this morning, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

Even Christians need to beware of using the name of God in vain.

I would be a far wealthier man today, if I had a dollar for every misuse of God’s name that I have heard over the last two weeks by a bunch of people who profess to be Christians.

But obviously, Paul was not cursing, swearing or committing blasphemy when he said, “I would to God.”

There is absolutely nothing wrong, and a whole lot that is right, about expressing our prayers in public.

It was the prayer of Paul to God that Agrippa and the others in that court-room were Christians as he was.

This should be used to remind us that the conversion of the lost is something about which we need to pray.

What would have been the likelihood that Festus or Agrippa would ever become Christians?

Humanly speaking it would be hard even to hope for such a thing.

But the salvation of the lost is not a human thing; it is not a Christian thing; it is not something that even a great apostle can accomplish.

The salvation of the lost is the work of God; it is a miracle; it is impossible without the working of divine omnipotence.

We may look at a religious secularist like Festus and think that he could never become a Christian.

We may look at Herod Agrippa II and think to ourselves that we’d never even want him to be a Christian.

But then we would have earlier said the same sort of things about Saul of Tarsus.

Not only don’t we think that he could ever be saved; we’d not choose to see him saved if we could.

The persecutor, Saul, with the blood of some of our friends, the saints of God, on his hands, doesn’t deserve to be a part of our church, and we don’t want to see him in Heaven.

But despite our thoughts or expectations, here he is a ring-leader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

Would to God the Agrippas of this world were saved.

We need to discipline ourselves to pray for even those most incorrigible.

We’re not going to see anyone converted whom the Lord doesn’t convert.

We don’t need the Lord’s assistance in the work of evangelism, we are the assistants.

Pray for the lost; pray for specific lost people;

pray for those who hate you; pray for those who are close to truth.

Pray regularly; pray often; pray fervently; pray humbly; pray beseechingly; pray importunately; pray.

And even though it might sometimes be embarrassing, tell the people for whom you have been praying that you are praying for them.

“And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”

Think about Paul’s desire.

I wouldn’t be so foolish as to tell you that JOSEPH didn’t want to be released from Potiphar’s prison.

And it would dumb to think that Paul didn’t want to get out of Caesarea.

The way that he raised his arms and jangled the chains between them reminds us that he wanted his liberty.

And the reason that he had appealed to Caesar was to get out of town.

But at this point in the conversation, he said that it was his prayer that Agrippa, Festus, Bernice and the others would be saved.

So even though he had personal needs and desires, it was not to himself that referred.

What would you endure in order to see the conversion of someone?

These are not rhetorical questions:

Would you go to jail if you knew that through it, your Philippian jailer would come to know Christ?

Would you be willing to be beaten and locked into the stocks?

Would you somewhat quietly remain behind those bars for two years or more?

What about those men in the Culpepper jail stretching their hands through the bars beseeching the lost to come to Christ, while wicked men with sticks and whips and stones broke and mutilated those hands?

And what if, not a single soul was actually saved, but in your evangelistic efforts, your efforts simply brought glory to the Lord?

Paul honestly and sincerely wrote to the Romans:

“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,

That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

In Exodus 32 Moses prayed: “and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin –; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.”

“And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”

The Bible interpreters tell us that the words “almost and altogether” are somewhat strange.

Jamison, Fausset and Brown say that they might mean “whether sooner or later.”

“Paul said, I would to God, that sooner or later you’d be such as I am.”

A. T. Robertson thinks that “almost and altogether” means “literally, ‘both in little and in great,’ or ‘both with little and with great pains’ or ‘both in some measure and in great measure.’”

But I’m going to have to skip these experts and agree with John Gill who restates the obvious:

It was the prayer and wish of Paul “that not only Agrippa, but that all that were present,

were not only within a little, or in some low degree,

but entirely, and in the highest and fullest sense, Christians, as he was.”

A couple of weeks ago we asked the question: was Agrippa sincere or facetious when he said,

“Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”

The experts are divided on that question as well, but it seems to me that Agrippa was totally sincere.

And Paul’s response was just as sincere:

“And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”

Did Paul say one thing or two?

It is my prayer that everyone here might “almost be a Christian.”

“Almost a Christian” is not the same thing as being “altogether a Christian,”

but it is infinitely better than being an atheist, a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Mormon.

Apparently, judging from Agrippa, to almost be a Christian is to believe the prophecies about Christ.

To almost be a Christian is to understand many of the facts about the earthly life of Christ.

To almost be a Christian is what usually happens when people attend church and Sunday School throughout their young lives.

To almost be a Christian is to grow up in a family where Mom and Dad are Christians, living the principles of the Word of God and teaching the Gospel.

To almost be a Christian is to know that people are praying for your conversion and regeneration.

It is a very good thing to almost be a Christian.

But to know the gospel is not the same thing as to have been saved through the gospel.

To have memorized a hundred Bible verses is not the same as to have experienced those verses.

To be able to explain the theology of redemption is not the same thing as to have been redeemed.

To be christened, or even to be immersed, is not what makes a sinner a saint of God.

It was not simply the prayer that Agrippa and Festus be “almost Christians.”

It was his prayer that they be ALTOGETHER like Paul.

Of course Paul was several different things.

And it is kind of interesting that he didn’t explain himself more fully.

He didn’t actually say, “I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether CHRISTIANS.”

Paul was an Apostle of Christ, but that was probably not his prayer for those men.

Paul was a servant of God, and although it should be every Christian’s desire that everyone they know be servants of God, before the child can run he needs to learn to walk.

“It would be wonderful, King Agrippa, if the Lord would call you to be a missionary to the Inca Indians, but it’s my prayer that above all else, you become a Christian.”

You see, Paul had no regrets for becoming a child of God.

Yes, he had been persecuted, but what did that matter compared to “the glory that should be revealed in him?”

And his persecution went even to the edge of death, if not actually beyond, but “to die is gain.”

He had been jailed on several occasions, but he had never been so free, prior to the day of his salvation.

It had been tough for him to be a Christian, but he would have had everyone he knew know Christ apart from the persecution that he endured.

Paul knew that what he possessed in Christ was greater than anything that King Herod Agrippa possessed in his royal position.

So it was Paul’s desire that Agrippa, Festus, Bernice and all the others present become children of God as he was.

And it should be our desire that the people whom we know become Christians as well.