As I read & re-read this scripture, I could not come up with an adequate expository message for this evening.
We have looked at some of the more difficult statements, and we’ve already made a couple of applications.
It’s not that there aren’t more good points to be made and learned, but they don’t sermonize very well.
Of course, he was not in the Holy of Holies, into which only the High Priest could enter & only once a year.
And he was not in the Holy Place where the Golden Altar of Incense and the Table of Shewbread were.
Beyond that there was the Court of the Women, and between it and the court of the Gentiles, there was the Beautiful Gate.
I also have about half a dozen diagrams of the Temple grounds, but again, they don’t agree.
And I don’t know for sure where Paul was when he was attacked, but I would guess that it was in the Court of Israel.
And which were the doors that were shut: between the Court of the Gentiles and the Women, outside the Court of the Gentiles, where?
“And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut.”
Remember that there were tens of thousands of people in Jerusalem for the celebration of Pentecost, and the Temple was probably packed with worshippers.
When the Asians started shouting about pollution and attacking Paul, immediately there were thousands of people to echo their cries.
It is not hard to believe that all the city was immediately shaken.
Dozens of people took Paul and dragged him out of the Temple; probably completely out the Court of the Gentiles.
They didn’t immediately start beating him or trying to kill him, because his blood would have defiled the temple even more.
I think that it’s kind of interesting that these same Greek words “took” and “drew” were used when Paul and Silas were taken in Philippi.
“And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.”
Those people had every intention of killing Paul, and they didn’t care about the Roman consequences.
But just to the north of the temple grounds was the Castle of Antonia, in which the Roman army was housed.
There were two bridges or steps between the outer Court of the Temple and that Roman garrison.
Undoubtedly, because of the volatility of the situation, there were soldiers overlooking those thousands of Jews down below.
And almost as soon as the riot began the Claudias Lysias, the Roman Chief Captain, had his troops pouring down those steps and forcing their way to wherever Paul as being dragged.
When the Chief Captain demanded some sort of explanation, the mob was unable to give it to him.
“And some cried one thing, some another, among the multitude: and when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle.”
His first guess was that Paul was the Alexandrian who had recently been claiming to be some sort of Messianic prophet.
“Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers?”
Undoubtedly to capture that man and to present him to Felix, the Governor, would have been quite a feather in his cap, so Paul was bound with two chains and physically lifted up and carried over the crowd.
But if he really was that man, it would have been unlikely that the Jews would have been trying to kill him.
One of the things which still needs to be highlighted is there in verse 29 – “they supposed.”
How many of the world’s atrocities and evils, how much retaliation and vengeance has been vented upon others based upon incorrect suppositions?
How many times have you listened to the rumors, gossip and accusations of people, and you reacted to them before you did any investigation and found out that those people were wrong?
How many times should you have apologized to someone because of suppositions, but you didn’t and in the process you just made things worse?
THOSE men were the law-breakers in this case, not Paul.
Those people should have been brought before the judges, not Paul.
And just a little bit of investigation would have prevented all this.
I don’t remember if I told you the title to last Wednesday’s lesson, but it was: “The More Things Change…”
I tried to point out that the charges that were laid against Paul, were basically the same that he had laid against Stephen.
And when you stop and think about it, they were essentially the same that were laid against Christ.
“This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, & the law, & this place.”
I even pointed out that Jeremiah and other Old Testament prophets were attacked and arrested for the same sort of reasons.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The title for tonight’s message is “The More Things Change . . . (Again).”
Whether or not Paul should have been in the Temple trying to be a blessing to those 4 men, there he was.
He was not doing anything to defile the temple or to corrupt the worship of the Lord.
In fact he was attempting to do exactly the opposite: showing his long-time respect for that place.
But in the midst of his peaceful attempt to worship Jehovah he was attacked.
Soon he was preaching the precious gospel of Christ.
On one occasion while in Caroline County, Virginia, in a private home as he was preaching, an Episcopal priest came into the service.
According to an account by Lewis Little:
When done singing he proceeded to prayer.
In it he was violently jerked off the stage; they caught him by the back part of his neck, beat his head against the ground, sometimes up, sometimes down, they carried him through a gate that stood some considerable distance, where a gentleman gave him something not much less than twenty lashes with his horse whip.
After they carried him through a long lane they stopped in order for him to dispute with the parson.
The parson came up, gave him abominable ill language, and away he went with his clerk & one more.
Then Brother Waller was released, went back singing praise to God, mounted the stage and preached with a great deal of liberty.
One took hold of one hand and the other of the other hand so that between friend and foe poor Waller was about to lose both arms.
The hurt remained with him for many weeks.
They met in a field by a river side, where prayers were made, and a sermon begun, when the chief officers of the town, with many followers, came and interrupted their worship.
The owner of the field warned them [the town rowdies] to depart out of it, if they would not be peaceable; but they refused to go.
One of the Baptist ministers desired them to act like men, if they would not [act] like Christians;
and even by the powers we were at war with; and began to open the divine warrant therefore:
upon which an officer said, “Don’t quote scripture here!”
Joshua Morse became a child of God in the early days of the Rhode Island colony and began traveling about preaching the gospel.
When he was but 18 and preaching at Stoningham, he was interrupted, arrested and ordered to be beaten with ten lashes.
Charles Sommers’ history says that Morse was often knocked down by the wicked fists of religious leaders while he was praying and preaching.
On one occasion he was dragged around by the hair of his head.
I’ve told you a couple of times about some of the events which resulted in the beating of Obadiah Holmes,
But permit me to reiterate.
William Witter lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, north of Boston.
John Clark, Obadiah Holmes and layman John Crandall, had to make a long, dangerous and expensive trip from Newport to Lynn.
On July 20, 1651 in Witter’s home 4 or 5 others joined the three visitors for a private worship service.
Into that private residence, where the servants of God were worshiping the Lord, the evil constables of apostate religion burst in and arrested the preachers.
This may not have been in a worship service, but it was just as innocent.
As Chileab Smith lay in his bed the morning of November 8, 1771, an officer of Hampshire County broke into his home and served him with a warrant for his arrest.
Smith was charged with, of all things, counterfeiting.
The authorities ransacked his house, shop, barn, fields, and belongings, looking for evidence.
His small apple orchard, like his son’s, was uprooted and burned and his dry goods stolen.
Even though no evidence was found, Chileab Smith was shackled and transported to jail.
It was clear that his real crime against Massachusetts was that he was a “principle member of the Baptist church,” in Ashfield, in the County of Hampshire.
Baptist Historian Isaac Backus received this letter:
“I have heard something of the trials among you of late, and I was grieved till I had strength to give up the case to God, and leave my burden there.
And now I would tell you something of our trial.
Brother Hill and Sabin were brought there next night.
We lay in prison thirteen days, and then were set at liberty, by what means I know not.
But, O the condescension of Heaven!
Though I was bound when I was cast into this furnace, yet was I loosed, and found Jesus in the midst of the furnace with me.
O, then I could give up my name, estate, family, life and breath, freely to God.
Now the prison looked like a palace to me.
I could bless God for all the laughs and scoffs made at me. O the love that flowed out to all mankind!
Then I could forgive, as I would desire to be forgiven, and love my neighbor as myself.
This church hath appointed the 13th of November to be spent in prayer and fasting on that account.
These from your loving mother, Elizabeth Backus.
On one occasion in Culpeper County, while he was praying after a preaching service,
He chose the latter alternative, and after a few days he was incarcerated in Culpeper.
A doctor and the jailer conspired to poison him.
When drunken rowdies were placed in his cell to harass him, he led several to trust in Jesus Christ.
During this time, he wrote letters which he headed “from my Palace in Culpeper.”
This resulted in the salvation of many souls who heard his letters read as well as those who heard him preach.
He said, “My prison then was a place in which I enjoyed much of the divine presence; a day seldom passed without some signal token and manifestation of the divine goodness toward me.”
Even while he preached out of prison, he continued to be threatened with beatings and dunkings.
On one occasion two women conspired to poison his family, which nearly resulted in Ireland’s own death,
He bore the burden of ill health as a result of this maltreatment until his death May 5, 1806.
Then the Lord saved him, and he began serving Christ in the commonwealth of Virginia.
While preaching in a private house, a man rode into the yard and tried to disrupt the service.
He declared that he had come to cowhide the preacher (whip him, I assume).
If I have to go out after him, I will give him one of the worst whippings he ever had in his life.”
In 1771 William Webber was dragged from the platform as he was preaching Christ in Middlesex County Virginia and was jailed for 45 days.
On September 2, 1774 Isaac Backus received the following letter:
Mr. Backus, I understand that you are collecting materials for a Baptist History, in which you propose to let the public know how the Baptists have been oppressed in Massachusetts Bay.
This is to let you know that in the year 1768, in a very cold night in winter, about nine or ten o’clock in the evening, I was taken prisoner, and carried by the collector in the town where I live, from my family, consisting of three small children, in order to be put in jail.
The reason why I refused paying it before, was because I was a Baptist, and belonged to the Baptist Society, in Haverhill, and had carried in a certificate to the assessors, and I suppose, according to law.
who came headed by the sheriff, Amos Mulliken, at a time when Mr. Smith was to preach a sermon in our house, at the request of my husband,
and warmly contended with him, and threatened him if he did preach. Mr. Smith went to begin service by singing notwithstanding the noise, clamour, and threats of the people.
but all his endeavours to silence them were in vain.
Upon which my husband desired Mr. Smith to begin public service; which accordingly he did, and went through then without further molestation.
Archibald Alexander, a prominent Presbyterian, gave this account of a worship service over which Amos Thompson and David Thomas presided:
“The Reverend Amos Thompson, was a man of gigantic frame, but not in the least inclined to corpulency.
While Mr. Thompson was at prayer, a company armed with bludgeons entered the house, and took their position just before the pulpit; but when they saw the brawny arm and undaunted appearance of the preacher, they became alarmed and permitted the service to go on to its conclusion.
I ought to have stated, that at the close of his discourse, Mr. Thompson addressed himself directly to these men.
He, concluded by saying, that although he was a preacher, and a man of peace, he held it to be right, when attacked to defend himself, which he was ready and able to do.
When the meeting was ended, he went out of the house and inquired for the captain of the band.
Being led to the spot where they were collected, he approached this man, and asked him to go aside with him.
A stout, bold-looking [man] walked off with him toward the woods, on entering which he appeared to be panic-struck, stopped, and raised his club.
Thompson said, “Fie, man, what can you do with that?” and in a moment wrested it out of his hand, adding that he intended no violence, but that if so disposed, he could hurl him to earth in a moment.
Thomas received no further molestation.”
While attending the preaching of William Fristoe, the Lord convinced him of his salvation, and he began preaching the Truth.
On one occasion, while standing on a makeshift stage on the property of Mr. Stephen Hall of Mundy’s Point, Lunsford read his text and began to preach, when a group of men with pistols and staves got up and prepared to attack him.
But some of his friends ran to a nearby fence and broke it apart for weapons themselves.
A bunch of the enemy climbed up on the stage, but the added weight caused it to collapse, and in the commotion Lunsford escaped to the house.
He was pursued, and the enemy tried to break in, but failed to do so.
Eventually one of the more educated of the mob, asked permission to talk to the preacher, which was granted.
As they talked together the man came under great conviction over his sin, but as far as we know he never repented.
In 1778 David Barrow and Edward Mintz received an invitation to preach at the house of a gentleman who lived on the Nansemond River near the mouth of the James River.
They were informed upon arrival that they might receive rough usage, and so it happened.
“A gang of well dressed men came up to the stage, which had been erected under some trees, as soon as the hymn was given out, and sung one of their obscene songs.
They then undertook to plunge both of the preachers.
Mr. Barrow they plunged twice, pressed him into the mud, held him long under water, and came near drowning him.
The whole assembly was shocked; the women shrieked, but no one interfered because about twenty stout men were engaged in this activity.
There once was a day, about 2,050 years ago when the Apostle Paul was quietly trying to please the Lord in the Temple at Jerusalem,
But his worship was interrupted by the wrath of a group of misdirected religious zealots.
And the Baptist people which followed in the steps of Paul have received similar treatment ever since.
This evening I’ve tried to show you just a few examples of that kind of treatment which occurred on these shores within the last 300 years.
Indeed, the more things change, the more they stay the same.