I ran into an interesting new word yesterday: “oubliette” (oo-blee’-et)
It comes from Latin through the French language.
It is a dungeon, an underground prison chamber, which is accessed through a trap door in the ceiling.
Some of these oubliettes were at the bottom of a descending spiral staircase.
As the prisoner was being forced down these stairs, eventually he’d come to a spot where there were no more steps, and he’d just drop down into his cell.
Usually that meant that he’d never come out alive.
There is a sense in which life is a descending staircase into an oubliette.
With each step, the only thing that we know for sure is that particular step.
Beyond that there is nothing but darkness.
And for those who are unsaved, eventually there is only one more step before everlasting darkness.
After plunging into THAT dungeon there will never be an escape.
But then there is that very old illustration of a father trying to teach his little daughter about faith.
He was working in the dark, damp basement – a place the little girl had always feared.
She came to the top of the stairs and called her dad, hearing his voice but not seeing him.
He could see her just fine, because she was standing silhouetted in the doorway.
As he soothingly talked to her, she was convinced to jump toward his voice, even though she couldn’t see him.
When she jumped, just as he promised, her dad caught her.
The only injury she received was a whisker burn after he planted a big kiss on her cheek and praised her for trusting him.
The descent into that oubliette is a picture of the life of unbeliever – the non-Christian.
The father and the child is a picture of the life of the believer.
Paul says several things in these verses which preach a sermon about the Christian life.
Tonight I’d like to use six adverbs to try to show you.
See if you don’t agree with me.
Like it or not, life is a journey, a pilgrimage, progress, a going.
It is impossible to stand still in life.
As I preached a couple of months ago, we are in the stream of life.
We can try as hard as possible to stand still, while the river takes its toll on us.
Or we can swim; we can try to swim across the river, swim down-stream, or up a little way.
This coming Saturday, the Little twins will be celebrating their graduation from high school.
This is something worth celebrating; it is an important milestone; the conclusion of another chapter.
A few weeks ago, their sister graduated from college; another great milestone.
Then come other important events like marriage, the birth of the first baby, the first important job.
And then there are the steps in decline: bi-focals, that knee-injury which ends your sports, debilitating disease.
Life is constantly moving, and you and I are moving with it – continually.
Paul had decided long before he left Ephesus for Macedonia that he was eventually going to Jerusalem.
So he had gone to Philippi and Thessalonica, Berea and Corinth.
When he couldn’t sail from Cenchrea, he walked back through Macedonia and sailed from Neapolis.
Everywhere he went it was with the intention of passing through the next city on to Jerusalem.
Paul was not content to stand on the shore of life or wade around in the shallows at the water’s edge.
He knew where he wanted to go.
One of the benefits that comes as a result of Bible study, is patience and tolerance of the infirmities of others.
It does me good; it doesn’t just make me FEEL good; it does me good to read Bible experts who miss the obvious.
John Gill, bless his heart, contradicts every other commentator that I studied, in his understanding of the words “bound in the spirit.”
Although I agree that he was bound by the Spirit, Gill said that is what verse 22 says, and there I must disagree.
Who am I to try to correct the Bible which I believe to be the preserved Word of God?
It doesn’t say that the Holy Spirit purposed that Paul should go.
There were however some of the things that I had brought to your attention a week ago.
There was the desire to bring a financial gift to relieve the suffering and poverty of the saints there.
There was a desire to report back to his home church in Antioch.
And there was a burden in his heart to preach the gospel to the throngs who would be in Jerusalem for Pentecost.
Was the Holy Spirit not a part of this unhesitating and relentless desire in the spirit of Paul?
Of course the Holy Spirit was a part.
You and I should have an itinerary, a plan for our lives, but one which has been soaked in prayer.
We should have a few short-term objectives, and some long away goals as well.
But, since we are Christians, they should not have been made apart from a desire to know God’s will.
It should be our desire to bring glory to our Saviour, in whatever we do with our lives.
When two people get married they ought to make some serious vows before God and their family.
One of those vows usually says something about faithfulness in poverty and wealth, sickness and health.
Every once in a while I read about someone who marries a person whom they know to be terminally ill,
But usually when people marry they are young and healthy and strong, and with the world at their feet.
But youth quickly becomes middle-aged, strength wanes, and health comes and goes.
“Now I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there.”
Actually, what Paul said is only partially true.
With his eyes and with his mind, he didn’t know what was going to befall him there.
But he could have added that he knew that the Lord was already there waiting for him.
He could have said that “all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
He could have said that he was jumping into the darkness, but he was confident that the Lord was there to catch him, because he had heard the Lord’s voice.
Christians are supposed to learn to walk by faith, not by sight.
That means that we should walk the way that Paul walked, with confidence – in the Lord.
In Philippians he exhorted: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
because of the peace that he possessed in Christ Jesus.
Paul didn’t know the specifics about what was going to befall him in Jerusalem,
but he knew some of the generalities.
Remember that when we looked at Paul’s rearranged journey back through Macedonia, and then at Troas,
I said that those unexpected visits were extra special blessings,
Somehow in church after church, the Holy Spirit was letting people know that when Paul got to Jerusalem there would bonds and afflictions awaiting him.
Ah, for the good old days when just about every church possessed some saints with gift of prophesy.
Would we know how to use those gifts today? Would we use that information wisely?
I ask those questions, because Paul knew, generally speaking, that there was trouble ahead,
Would we?
But getting back to us:
We don’t know what the Lord has in store for us in the future.
But we do know what there is before us potentially: bonds and afflictions.
What sort of afflictions? Sickness?
What sort of bonds? Mortgages, children, elderly parents?
We know, but then again, we don’t know what lies ahead.
But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself,
so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”
The Lord had given to Paul a ministry, and he was going to complete that ministry no matter what the cost.
I think that it was last Wednesday that I entitled our message “On time for Pentecost.”
I gave you a few possible reasons for his desire to make that trip and why he wanted to be there on that great festival day.
One of them was so that he might have the same opportunity that Peter and the others had on the Pentecost of Acts 2.
In addition to the thousands of Jews from around the world who had come to Jerusalem to study and live,
who were there at the command of God to celebrate the Feast of Weeks.
Wasn’t Paul saying “I want to be in Jerusalem ‘so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.’”
Of course, the Lord has not given each of us the same ministry.
For example, few of us are preachers. But we are all ministers of the Lord in some fashion or another.
We have our areas of service.
What a shame to have been given 70 or 80 years and not to have used that time as the Lord intended.
Paul was a preacher, and he was determined to be in Jerusalem for another opportunity to preach.
He lived obediently.
But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself,
so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”
In the race of life, it’s not about who crosses the finish-line first. It’s about finishing well.
Paul’s goal in life was not to have 10,000 notches on his spiritual gun handle.
His goal was expressed by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 25:23: