Paul, the missionary, had a pattern which he tried to follow whenever he entered a new city.
The first thing that he would do was to make contact with the Jews of that community.
Sometimes it was a thriving synagogue.
If this didn’t occur then he would meet with the leadership and set up an appointment to talk with them.
In Philippi this meant introducing himself to a group of women as they gathered for prayer along a local river bank.
But Paul would try his best to first present Christ Jesus to people who were looking for the Messiah, and when that avenue was closed, he would then turn to the Gentiles.
Sometimes his Jewish ministry would be blessed of the Lord, and sometimes he would be more successful with the heathen, and then sometimes there wouldn’t be any “success” at all.
Of course, when Paul arrived in Rome, it was not in the way that would have been his first choice.
He had no liberty to travel about the city and to meet anyone, because he was under house arrest.
So he apparently sent Luke and Aristarchus to find the small Jewish community and to invite them to come to see him.
Despite the fact that Rome was the metropolis of the world, it may have had a small population of Jews.
The fourth Emperor of Rome was Claudius, who was relatively tolerant towards the people of Israel.
But then something happened which changed that, at least as far as his capital city was concerned.
Do you remember the first time that we met Aquila and his wife Priscilla?
And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers.”
Some of those people had become Christians, having been converted on that first, great Day of Pentecost.
During the intervening years, the Roman Jews had apparently begun arguing over the question of Jesus of Nazareth.
And in an attempt to maintain peace, in the year 49 A.D., Claudius ordered all the Jews, Christian and non-Christian, out of the city.
The Roman historian Suetonius wrote that Claudius “expelled the Jews from Rome, who were continually making tumults, being moved thereunto by one Chrestus,” – Christ.
Whether or not Aquila, the tent-maker, was also a trouble-maker we can’t say, but when he settled in Corinth he met Paul.
Neither is it known for sure if the couple were Christians before meeting Paul.
Well, Claudius died about 5 years after the expulsion of the Jews, and the 17-year-old Nero became Emperor.
In 64 AD, about ten years later, much of the city of Rome was consumed by a fire.
It is now believed that Nero set fire to his own city in order to rebuild it in his own image,
and there was a horrific slaughter of the saints of God.
Only about twelve or fifteen years had passed since the Jews were expelled,
It is unlikely there had been enough time for a large number of Jews to return to Rome.
And, as we have read, he explained how HE had come to Rome.
I think that verse 20 basically summaries what he told them on that first visit.
“For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”
I also think that this verse can be reduced to two words: chain and hope.
Can’t these two words be used to summarize the Christian life in general?
He is a sinner because his father was a sinner, just as his grandfather & his very first father were sinners.
Or you are a redeemed & forgiven sinner by the grace of God & through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
But in either case you are sinner, because you were born into a race of sinners.
“We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.”
“All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
“If we say that we have not SINNED, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
As far as the penalty for sin is concerned, it is buried under the atoning blood of Jesus, the sacrifice.
As far as God the father is concerned, our sin has been negated by the righteousness of Christ.
But as along as we live in these bodies, we do so as saved sinners with the potential of sinning once again.
And Paul knew this when he wrote to the Romans:
God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
Christians, as sinners in the flesh have a propensity, a proclivity, an affinity, a strong tendency for sin.
And unless we constantly fight against it by yielding ourselves to the Lord, we will continue to sin.
There are CHAINS OF SIN about our wrists.
And a second kind of chain is one that we have been mentioning now for a couple of months.
There is the chain of THE WILL OF GOD.
For the Christian, the will of God is as comfortable as a well-made and perfectly fitted shirt.
But we are still bound to the decree of God.
But above all of these, he was there because it was the will of the sovereign God that he be there.
But there was a third kind of chain about Paul’s wrist, binding him to a soldier and forcing him to remain in his own hired house.
It was the chain of the hatred of Israel and the power of Rome.
Paul had done nothing to harm the people of his nation:“I have committed nothing against the people.”
“Men and brethren, I have committed nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers.”
While it is true that he taught the Gentiles that they had no obligations towards the ceremonial laws of Israel, he was as diligent as most other Jews in his own obedience to those laws.
And even though the Chief Captain of Jerusalem didn’t think that he was guilty of any crime,
Because the Jews were so fixed upon his execution, he felt compelled to appeal to Caesar.
He was there to defend himself from malicious and erroneous charges.
We will come back to this tonight, but Christians wear the chains the hatred of the world.
We are considered infidels because we don’t worship the same gods as the unbelievers.
We are considered lunatics because we agree with the Lord that sin is sin.
We are considered snooty, snobbish and thinking that we are better than everyone else because we strive to live holy lives.
But we – “reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
This business of the “hope of Israel” can be kind of confusing coming from someone who is a Christian.
What is Paul trying to do, hide from the fact that he was worshipper of Christ Jesus? Not at all.
Like it or not, Christianity is all about the “hope of Israel.”
What do you suppose those Jewish leaders thought when Paul referred to this hope?
There are several Old Testament scriptures which might have come to their minds.
For example there is Jeremiah 14:1-9 – “The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth.
And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.
Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.
Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.
And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass.
O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name’s sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee.
O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?
Why shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not.“
The Hope of Israel is a person – the Messiah, the Saviour.
And as verse 9 shows us, the Hope of Israel is the LORD, Jehovah.
Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.
O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin, throughout all thy borders.
And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.
Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.
A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.”
The sins of Israel had made them estranged from their God; they needed a Saviour.
That Saviour is called the Hope of Israel, and His Name is the LORD – Jehovah.
And the Christian knows that Jeremiah was talking about Jesus of Nazareth.
And if you think that this, it is just a little ironic:
He was there because of his defense of the very heart of their religion.
But those were just the drapings, covering and enhancing the true soul of their faith.
It was actually all about the Lord, the King of Kings.
And it’s ironic that he was then in Rome – in chains – having to explain that fact to the Jews themselves.
Paul was in Rome with chains on his wrists because of the Hope of Israel.
He had been preaching throughout the world that Jesus of Nazareth is the Hope of Israel.
This, of course, was something that the leadership in Jerusalem refused to accept.
During Jesus’ ministry among them, he proved over and over again that He was the anointed one sent from God the father, for no man could do the things that he did except God was with Him.
His miracles proved that Jesus was the Messiah, but they said that he used the power of Beelzebub.
His words and His teaching was unlike anything that men on earth could deliver.
But after they killed him and when He arose from the dead,
that it was too late for them to turn back.
Paul had earlier been one of those who denied that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.
He had been a hater of Jesus and a persecutor of the Christians, but when the Lord confronted him, he collapsed in surrender to Jesus, formerly of Nazareth and now King of Heaven and Earth.
And from that time that Paul had been plying the seas and cris-crossing the continents sharing the Gospel, the good news, about Jesus Christ.
“The Hope of Israel has come and I have heard his voice and learned His message.
“And not only that – the Hope of Israel has graciously chosen to become the Hope of countless Gentiles as well.”
They also didn’t like the fact that the Hope of Israel could also be the Hope of the rest of the world.
But this means that the Hope of Israel – the Saviour of Israel – may also become your Saviour.
Just as it was with Israel in the days of Jeremiah, you and I are sinners.
Without a Saviour we have no hope; but we need a Hope; we need Christ Jesus.
The way in which Christ saves is through His sacrificial death on the altar of Calvary.
Have you ever been there?
Have you ever wept there – wept over your sin and under His love?
And neither is the Hope of Israel the Saviour of every member or attendee at every Baptist church around this world.
Are YOU absolutely sure that He is your Saviour and Hope?