With just about seven days left on the vow that the four members of the church had made, Paul agreed to join them and to pay their expenses.
Before he could enter the inner grounds of the Temple, it was necessary that he offer a sacrifice of purification, which he did.
I’m sure that as he bought and presented the animal to be used to the priest, he was thinking about how it depicted his Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then for the next several days he spent quite a bit of time with the four brethren.
In fact, if I understand it correctly, he may have actually lived in the Temple during that time.
Doesn’t it make you wonder how those days and hours went?
When Paul tried to talk to those four men about the law and the sacrifices,
or did they cut him off and tell him that they didn’t want to hear him “criticize their law?”
Again, we don’t read about those men coming to the rescue, or the defense, of Paul.
They were probably right beside him when the mob grabbed him and he was dragged out of the Temple.
Another question that I have is about what must have been going through the minds of Luke and the rest of Paul’s Gentile friends.
They knew that God had prophesied of trouble.
They knew that the church was antagonistic towards Paul.
They knew that there were Asian and other foreign Jews in the city for the celebration of Pentecost.
They knew that their pastor was right in the middle of the lion’s den.
And there was nothing that they could do about.
How much anguish of soul was there in them throughout that week.
When the seven days of the vow were just about finished, some of the unsaved Jews from Asia recognized Paul.
The exposed fuse was then lit, and the power exploded.
“And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him,
Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place:
and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.”
What I’d like to do this evening is make a very brief survey of the charges that those men laid against Paul.
And then I’d like to point out that we’ve heard those kinds of charges before.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Like so many different peoples and cultures, the Jews thought of themselves as “the people,” as if they were the only people.
And Paul was teaching against “the people.”
This doesn’t exactly mean that he was teaching things contrary to what the Jews were teaching.
It means that he was teaching that they weren’t the only people.
The Jews believed that they were God’s only people.
They thought that to them only “pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came.”
As a result, they were convinced that they had a monopoly on eternity.
They not only thought that only they had any hope of a joyous afterlife, but they also thought that such a joyous life after death was guaranteed to them by reason of their heritage.
They were “the people” and they were the only people.
But here was Paul telling heathen people that they were good to go before God without becoming proselytes:
“Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
As we have seen, Paul was also teaching people that they the purpose of the law was not what the average Jew believed it to be.
He was telling both Jews and Gentiles that the law was only a mirror with which to see ourselves as hopeless sinners.
The Jews had been telling the world for centuries that through obedience to the Law was access to God.
Charge number three was that Paul was discouraging people from attending temple worship – “this place.”
I don’t doubt that the effect of Paul’s ministry did accomplish that, but that was not Paul’s intention.
Sunday night, Bro. Asmundson pointed out something to me which is rather obvious, but then he added a possible reason.
How many feasts were the men of Israel supposed to attend every year?
And how hard did he try to be in the Temple on the Day of Atonement? We are never told that he did.
Applying what we are taught in the Book of Hebrews, the reason for this is obvious:
And the Atonement has been perfectly accomplished in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
Paul had no reason to rush to Jerusalem for either of those feasts.
As we’ve said before Pentecost used to be called the “Feast of Weeks,” or the “Feast of Harvest.”
Pentecost, was a thanksgiving feast; a joyful feast; a festive feast.
It didn’t look forward to the sacrifice of Christ and salvation.
The final charge those Asians laid against Paul was that he had polluted the Temple by bringing in Gentiles.
Whether or not his accusers really believed that or not, I couldn’t say,
Now, let me show you that these kinds of charges had been leveled at the saints before.
Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.
And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.
Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God.
And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,
And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.”
How many times, after his conversion, do you suppose that Stephen blasphemed God?
That was a part of the accusation.
But he was a man full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom.
He had probably never even once blasphemed God since the day of his salvation.
In fact we sometimes wonder if to them, blasphemy against Moses exceeded blasphemy against God.
So Stephen was accused of uttering blasphemous words against Moses, ie. the Law of Moses.
How do you suppose that he did that?
By telling people that it was by grace through faith that sinners were saved, not by the works of the law.
He put the Law in its proper place in pointing to Christ, not in saving souls.
In other words he was guilty of preaching the same thing as Paul.
Then through their hired false witnesses Stephen was accused of blasphemous words against the Temple.
For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.”
Did Stephen actually say something like that? He probably did.
But how “blasphemous” was it to say that the Temple might be, or would be, destroyed?
Would have been equally blasphemous to say that the Temple of Solomon had already been destroyed?
By definition “blasphemy” is to speak demeaningly or disrespectfully about something.
But the Temple was only a building; it wasn’t eternal, and it certainly wasn’t a 4th member of the God-head.
To say that it would be destroyed wasn’t much different from saying that it needed a coat of paint.
However, I suppose that to say that “Jesus of Nazareth will destroy the Temple,” would irk those people just a little.
And yet, if they didn’t consider Jesus anything more than an impotent lunatic, what harm was there in that?
For these things, and the fact that his arguments were undefeatable, Stephen was executed.
And please keep in mind that among those who leveled these charges there was Saul of Tarsus.
In other words the things that he had said about Stephen were now being laid upon him.
Does Galatians 6:7 and the law of sowing and reaping come into play here?
Isn’t this one of the lessons of this passage?
Not only did this happen to Stephen and Paul, but there was another of the Lord’s saints who heard charges like these.
Not at all.
Christ was the “anointed” One – the set apart One – the Highest of the Saints.
Turn to Mark 14:55 – “And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none.
For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.
We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.”
However, what was the Lord’s teaching about the future of Herod’s temple?
And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you,
There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
Wasn’t He demonstrating the relative shallowness of the Law?
To the ears of the Jews, wasn’t He demeaning the Law and committing blasphemy?
And what did the Lord say about “the people”?
“I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”
That was certainly a reduction of status as far as the nation of the Jews was concerned.
So other than polluting the temple by bringing Gentiles into their midst, both Stephen and the Lord Jesus were charged with the same crimes as Paul.
In all three cases the charges were unjust, and the accusers in two cases even had to hire false witnesses.
But even if the charges were unjust, they were not exactly untrue.
And God had laid aside the Jewish nation and was calling and saving people out of the Gentile nations.
And as far as the Law was concerned, finally, the proper purpose of that Law was being declared.
What if we studied the prophesies of Jeremiah in the light of Acts 21; would we find much difference?
And what if we looked at Isaiah or Ezekiel?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.