Going scriptures to the New Testament, the book of Acts chapter 24. If you are a visitor we encourage you to follow the reading and to keep your Bible open in front of you for the exposition of God's Word. The book of Acts in the New Testament chapter 24 from verse 9 following the accusation by the Sanhedrin against Paul as summarized by the orator Tetullus where we now come to the reply of the Apostle Paul and the subsequent events. Verse 10 of Acts 24, when the governor motioned for him to speak, Paul replied I know that for a number of years you have been a judge over this nation so I gladly make up, so I gladly make my defense. You can easily verify that no more than twelve days ago I went up to Jerusalem to worship. My accusers did not find me arguing with anyone at the temple or stirring up a crowd in the synagogue or anywhere else in the city. and they cannot prove to you the charges they are now making against the way which they call a sect. I believe everything that agrees with the law and that is written in the prophets and I have the same hope in God as these men that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and men. After an absence of several years I came to Jerusalem to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings. I was ceremonially clean when they found me in the temple courts doing this. There was no crowd with me nor was I involved in any disturbance. But there are some Jews from the province of Asia who ought to be here before you and bring charges if they have anything against me or these who are here should state what crime they found in me when I stood before the Sanhedrin unless it was this one thing I shouted as I stood in their presence it is concerning the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today then Felix who was well acquainted with the way adjourned the proceedings When Lysias the commander comes he said I will decide your case. He ordered the centurion to keep Paul under guard but to give him some freedom and permit his friends to take care of his needs. Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla who was a Jewess. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, that's enough for now, you may leave, when I find it convenient I will send for you. At the same time he was hoping that Paul would offer him a bribe, so he sent for him frequently and talked with him. When two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. But because Felix wanted to grant a favor to the Jews, he left Paul in prison. Thus reads the living and abiding word of God, thanks be to his name. Amen. Now we have come to the closing chapters of the Book of Acts in our lengthy studies through this great portion of the New Testament Scriptures. And in these chapters, as you will readily recall, the events of the stages of Paul's last journey to Rome are steadily being recorded. Over the last two Sunday mornings we have seen in a remarkable way the evidence of God's sovereignty in the life of his faithful and consecrated servant. Guarding Paul's life in every hazard and every circumstances till all the purposes of God will be fulfilled. in him and for him. And in the course of this all manner of things out of Paul's background have been used to preserve the life of Paul for God's glory. The fact that he was a Pharisee as we have seen and the fact that he was a claimant of Roman citizenship. All of these varied strands and others from the apostles background were gathered together and woven into a most marvelous tapestry of God's purposes for his servants. So that none of these strands, not any of them, were insignificant and unimportant. And as we have seen there should be a great encouragement to God's servants still who are under various kinds of trials and difficulties in their Christian lives today. But God is able to work out his purposes for you. As you are consecrated to his service and desire above all else that your life might be used like the apostles for the glory of God alone. Now we have come this Sunday morning to the amazing scene of Paul before Felix and Felix before Paul. So he has brought before the governors Felix in this chapter, Festus in the next chapter, Agrippa in chapters 25 and 26 so that some of the greatest dignitaries in the ancient world might hear from the lips of the Apostle the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And you know as you come to these closing chapters of Acts, my beloved friends in Christ, they read almost like a modern thriller or a novel because they contain some of the most fascinating episodes in all of Paul's life. and they are full of action and drama and pathos and sheer excitement like some television serial that leaves you hanging with the question on your lips, what will happen next? Is this the end of Paul's career? Will the authorities finally silence this man and his witness? And you're almost in breathless suspense as you end one chapter and begin another one. As you await as it were, the next remarkable episode from Paul's life. And you see that's how we are to view these chapters beloved. Not as some stale account of history past. as Paul now stands before the governor Felix and makes answer for his Christian faith. Now two things stand out and we're going to look at them in order this morning as they occur in the text. There is Paul before Felix. Now do you notice how chapter 24 began in our reading as we read it a few moments ago that five days later the high priest Ananias went down to Caesarea with some of the elders and a lawyer named Tatalus Now there's several things to notice very quickly before we come to the heart and the meat of this passage this morning and draw out some of its lessons for ourselves as Paul stands before Felix in verses 1 to 23, it's a lengthy passage. There is for instance first of all the Sanhedrin Now you remember that Paul had stood before this august body in Jerusalem only days before and convinced that he would have no justice in the midst of men whose minds were so closed to the truth of the gospel and so biased against the Lord Jesus Christ. He had cried out with that great shout, I am a Pharisee. And it is upon the cause of the resurrection that I stand to be judged before you this day. And so had created a division in the Sanhedrin between the Pharisees who believed devoutly in the resurrection and the Sadducees who denied it. and it is evidently before a delegation of the Sanhedrin that Paul again now stands on trial for his life but in Caesarea and in the presence of the Roman governor Felix within five days of being in Jerusalem which indicates the importance with which the Sanhedrin viewed the matter of Paul and the troubles that he was alleged to have caused. And even the high priest, you notice in verse 1, came down with that delegation, again highlighting the importance of the occasion. And in the midst of that delegation, you notice secondly, there is an orator called Totalus. now he was evidently a very shrewd and able lawyer and from his name which is a Latin name and from certain Latinisms that occur in the text of his speech we may well feel that he was not Jewish but was a Latin himself and perhaps even a Roman but what does stand out in his speech in verses 2 and following you will notice is that he was very well versed indeed in the ways of Roman law. You notice how the speech begins with the flowery praise of Felix and the inscription of honourable titles for him and the assurance of brevity in the matter that is now to be brought to the governor's attention. All of this is characteristic of a Roman law court scene. And for you who are Latin scholars, his opening speech is called a captatio bene volentiae, that is to say, a seeking of goodwill. But I'm afraid there's a falsity isn't there in it as you look at those words there in verse 2 concerning Felix. really it was sickening flattery and Calvin is correct in saying of this passage that such sumptufuge is always the sign of a bad conscience because the truth of the matter you see was this that the peace that Felix was said to have secured and the reforms that he was said to have executed in the nation were almost a figment of the imagination because Felix was known in that age for his own brutality and selfishness and sheer ruthlessness with which he had put down several insurrections in Palestine with such barbarous brutality that rather than his name being held in honour among the Jews it was held in horror by the Jewish populace. So there was Totalus, but then there was Felix. And he was a former slave, as Josephus tells us in his account, who had risen to high position through the recommendation of his brother Pallas, who was a close friend of the Roman Emperor Claudius. And Felix was a man of unusually mean temperament, and very cruel and abandoned in his character. A man who had ample experience through his military rule of the province of Syria, in all kinds of plots and intrigue and bloodshed, all to strengthen his own position and prospect in the Roman Empire. A man totally and entirely self-centered and self-consumed. And the Roman historian Tacitus tells us of him that he wielded the authority of a king in the spirit of a slave in cruelty, lust and debauchery. And you can see this in the wife that he took, Drusilla, whom he took from her lawful husband at the age of 18 and seduced her away from him and made her his own wife, his third wife with whom he now lived in open adultery. No wonder Josephus tells us that only several years after this incident of Acts 24 this man was recalled in shame to Rome and was only saved from his misdemeanors of government and the sentence upon them by the influence of his brother Pallas upon the new emperor Nero who had come to the throne. And such was the court before which Paul now stood. The Sanhedrin to Tullus with his flowery speech and such a man as Felix and Paul appearing for his wife. Now there are two things I want you to notice, the first quickly and the second in greater length. There is first of all Tullius' accusations in verses 2 through 9. Now if you look at that passage as you have your Bible open in front of you, you see that there are three accusations, none of which was strictly true at all. There was, for instance, first the charge of sedition. At the beginning of verse 5 we have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. In the King James Version the language is even stronger, he is a pestilent fellow. And it was a very clever charge, mark you, calculated to get immediately the attention of Felix. Because Palestine was filled at that time with assorted agitators, it was in fact a seething cauldron of unrest. And Paul says to Tullus, is such a one as this, a troublemaker, a pestilent fellow, an agitator of the Jews against Roman government. And it amounts almost to the charge of treason, a very serious charge on which to be brought before a Roman court, a disturber of Roman peace, the Pax Romanum. And the second charge follows swiftly in verse 6. He even tried to desecrate the temple, the charge of sacrilege. The allegation that he had profaned the inner courts of the temple by introducing a Gentile into those forbidden areas. And in the middle of the charges comes the real one, do you notice? The real charge is not sedition, serious as that is. nor sacrilege serious as that is to a Jew but sectarianism in verse 5b he is the ringleader of the Nazarene sect now this you see is the real issue sandwiched between the other two as if to conceal it as so often happens when Christians are a reign before the world and evidently the early church was known as the sect of the Nazarenes and evidently Thomas knew that with Felix long reign as military governor over the province of Syria he was bound to have come across the sect of the Nazarenes and if you look at verse 22 indeed Luke says of Felix that he was well acquainted with the way another description of the Christian faith but here is the sect of the Nazarenes a group of dissidents evidently without official recognition and Paul the leader of them and by implication they are disaffected and rebellious and in summary the charge is that there stands before you a man who is politically dangerous and not the sort of person that Rome could afford to tolerate and protect And you see in it the fulfillment of Jesus' words, don't you? When he said in John 15 that a servant is not greater than his master. If they have received my word, they will receive yours. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you. And as he said in John 16, they shall put you out of the synagogue and the day is coming when men will think that they do God's service by putting you to death. And these are the solemn charges that are now arraigned against the consecrated life of the great Apostle Paul. Now look secondly at Paul's reply in verses 10 through 21. You know, his speech shows an astonishing ability to speak effectively according to every different situation. The more I read the book of Acts, beloved, the more astonished I am at the versatility of this man. who is equally at home in addressing a small group within a house, worshipping the Lord, or standing in the midst of a riot, able to hush a whole riotous crowd as he lifts his manacled hand in the air and speaks to them. and now on trial for his life before a Roman court. He is able so perfectly to adapt to every changing situation and with great force and dignity he answers for himself, meeting insincerity and falsehood point by point with devastating clarity as he simply states the facts. Do you see that? Is there a charge of sedition? Am I a troublemaker? Why I wasn't there but one week in Jerusalem I preached to no crowd, I provoked no discussion, I created no disturbance and indeed the very purpose of my coming there was bringing alms, money for the needy a purpose totally removed from the other. Is there the charge of sacrilege? Why, he says, if I did something wrong in the temple where are those Jews from Asia that alleged I did that to bear testimony in this court? And you see it was a very serious thing in a Roman court for someone who had witnessed a wrong and protested it not then to appear in evidence to the charge. But do you notice, and this is the main point beloved, the third and main charge is sectarianism. The real issue, cloaked in these other things, that he is the ringleader of the Nazarenes and how he answers it. Now grasp this beloved, this one point from his trial, if you grasp nothing else, the real issue was the gospel. The real issue was the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is always what stirs up the extraordinary hatred and venom of unregenerate men against Christian people. I admit, he says, verse 14, that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the way which they call a sect. That's the center of the charge. That's the most important thing. Now look at it carefully, because it has a powerful application to ourselves and to the church today. You see, it's a fearful thing to me still to see today how the unregenerate mind rationalizes its opposition to the gospel. It's the same thing that's going on today. He is a sectarian. dangerous, outlandish, freakish. He's on the lunatic fringe of religion. And so it leads that person to dismiss the gospel and its claims and its proponents. Now do you notice how Paul is so careful to answer that charge as we must be careful to answer it and to meet it. On the contrary he says, I confess, homologo in Greek, Paul's confession of faith. And there are four things. I worship the God of my fathers. I agree with everything that belongs to the law and the prophets. I have the same hope in God as these men. I strive always to keep my conscience clear. And what he's saying you see, is not that this is just his personal declaration of faith, but he's insisting that this is the confession of the whole people of God. He worships the same God as they do, these Jews. He believes the same truth as they do. He shares the same hope of the resurrection, both of the wicked and the just. And he cherishes the same ambition to have a clear conscience before God as they should. In other words, he is not an innovator, but loyal to the ancestral faith. and Christianity is not a fact or an heretical doctrine or on the lunatic fringe of religion but it stands squarely in the mainstream of Judaism when it is true to itself and his worship and his faith and his hope is identical with the scriptures This is the way that is in continuity with the Old Testament for all the prophets and the psalmists bore witness to its fulfilling in the person of Jesus Christ. Now do you see what I'm saying to you in our own situation today? Who are the people of the way today? The people of the way today are those who are evangelical Christians. They are the children of Abraham. They are of the way who find their roots in the law and the prophets. Evangelical Christianity is in the mainstream. It's not a sect. Everything else is sectarian. Now that's the message that I think the Holy Spirit would have us grasp this morning from the defense, the mighty defense of the Apostle Paul. We need this witness in our generation. Think of it in three areas. At the level of the common man for instance. Common experience. The man who says, I live up to my light. I try hard to be a Christian. I was brought up in the church and all this talk about the need to be born again and made new in Christ Jesus becoming a new creation in him. This is not Presbyterianism. This is sectarianism. This is not, he says, Methodism. This is on the lunatic fringe of religion. And the answer that you and I must give to that man and that woman as we witness to them is, my dear friend, you have not gone back nearly far enough. Because behind Presbyterianism is the great work of the Reformation of the 16th century and behind it is the work of the apostles of the first century all of whom gave united testimony that evangelical Christianity is in the mainstream. And what you believe is really sectarianism. The gospel that Luther preached. The gospel that Calvin preached. The word that Knox brought to Scotland. The mighty flaming ministry of George Whitefield in North America. The sustained didactical teaching of Jonathan Edwards. All of these are in the mainstream of Christianity and all else is sectarian. You must meet it at the intellectual level, my dear friend, remembering the great truth when you read some snide journalistic book or article that mocks the doctrines of the evangel and says, a sec, And you need to be able to reason against it by saying, our roots go back into the whole of scripture and I believe all this, do you? And my conscience is clear before God is yours. And we need to meet it, you know, at the level of church life as well. You know, some of us get very disturbed, don't we? When all we have in this church is preaching and study of the Bible. and the worship of God but of course that's not all we have fellowship and we do have other activity but we need to strengthen those activities but sometimes we're ashamed of what we have in the church and we apologize for the reformed church and for reformed preaching and reformed worship and we forget that we are in the mainstream of biblical Christianity and that's what matters We're not a sect, but we're in the mainstream of the whole counsel of God. Oh may God give us grace to grasp that. Am I clear that my faith, my church, my gospel is not some sectarian thing that I need to be ashamed of, not some innovation and aberration that I need to apologize for. but is the faith of Christ based on the whole of scripture and it alone is apostolic Christianity. How can I ever be ashamed of that? And I say to you perhaps who are this morning, are you angry at the things I say? Are you even now resisting it and saying, oh there's other ways? Are you sure my brother, my sister, that it's not God that you are fighting against as they were fighting against it in their accusations against the Apostle Paul? Paul before Felix. Now look you and more quickly Felix before Paul in verses 24 to 27 we must finish out this chapter Now Felix had heard an eminently truthful and transparent defense and he was moreover a man as I reminded you from verse 22 who had a rather accurate knowledge of the way, the Christian faith in other words. partly because he was married to a Jewess because Drusilla was the daughter of King Agrippa I and the brother, I'm sorry, the sister of King Agrippa II whom we'll come across in chapter 25 and 26. She was a Jewess. But probably in those days it was impossible to live in Palestine and Syria as the Roman governor without coming into contact with the Christian faith. which is a testimony to the way in which the gospel had spread in the first century and Paul had listened to this eminently transparent and truthful defense and could easily have decided the case for there was nothing against the Apostle except that he was a clear and conscientious Christian and that as yet was no crime in the eyes of Rome though it became one later and he should have been freed immediately, but policy, note you, dictated Felix's course, not justice. He feared displeasing the Jews and he temporized and excused the judgment and said, well, I'll wait until the commander, Claudius Lysias, appears to substantiate the charges more fully. And Paul is kept under house arrest, but mark you, there is a remarkable opportunity for Paul to preach the gospel in these circumstances because only a few days later our text tells us Felix in company with his wife Drusilla sent for the Apostle and he spoke to them about faith in Jesus Christ and upon the subject you notice of righteousness self-control and judgment to come most remarkable themes in that exalted company. And his words came home far more closely than either Felix or Drusilla would ever have wished as he spoke powerfully on these themes in the presence of a couple that were living in open adultery. And as he compelled Felix the Roman judge and governor to review before his very eyes a life of shameless conduct beneath the searchlight of an awakened conscience. He was little prepared for the many sides of the truth which the Holy Spirit brought to light in that conversation that bore down irresistibly into Felix's own soul. And as they touch the lives of this couple powerfully, as Paul reasoned evidently out of the scriptures concerning righteousness and temperance and judgment to come. Now look you, righteousness is one of the great words of the gospel, isn't it? Conformity to right. Above all, rightness before God which he demands of every one of us. both inward conformity to his holy law and outward conformity in our daily conduct. God demands such rightness from his creatures and it is the one thing they lack and the one thing that they cannot attain to by their own efforts no matter how hard they try. Such purity of character comes not by the way of nature my friend and do not seek it that way but it comes by the way of grace and already you can see Felix is uncomfortable And then on self-control the apostle reasons, chastity, temperance, continence in the use of this world's gifts and pleasures. Self-control of the whole man. Restraint of every evil passion, inclination and desire that is contrary to the holy will of God for your life. Bring it under mastery. the opposite of self-indulgence. And you know it's astonishing, isn't it, that Paul dares to say to this man living in open adultery, whose life is one long catalogue of self-indulged pleasures, the life you are now living, Felix, is not the life God created you for. This is not God's purpose with you, but something higher of you he demands and can produce in you as he gives you a love of his righteousness found in Christ by grace alone. Think of it. And then judgment to come, what boldness, before a judge of men like Felix, a day of reckoning coming, when all will be judged before the holy throne of God. Nothing more sure than this, says Paul. the very essence of all Jesus' own teaching about the future, that men at last must stand before God and give account of themselves. Now listen as I finish. The tragedy of Felix should make us weep. Why? Because he dilly-dallied. He prevaricated. He trembled and was afraid and with good reason and said to Paul, that's enough for now. You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will call for you again. You see, Paul had spoken to him about righteousness and self-control and the mastery of fleshly appetites to a man in whose life righteousness had but a small part, if any. self-control not prominent in a man who had persuaded his wife to leave her lawful husband and judgment to come all too much a reminder of that judgment before which he would be summoned on earth to answer for his misdemeanors of government. before the Roman Emperor, still less was he ready to face the last accounting. Felix, tangled in a web of his own weaving, considered that the time was not convenient to cut himself boldly free and by the grace of God become a new creation in Christ Jesus. And that's the tragedy. Is it the tragedy of your life this morning? As you move inexorably nearer the judgment day, you think that you can put off the opportunity. Not this morning when the Holy Spirit speaks to my conscience, but another time. Ah, listen. Is it not precisely Felix's situation? No wonder he trembled. But the tragedy is, though he heard Paul often again as we read at the end of the passage, and they communed together, never again did Felix tremble before the Word of God. And that's why one of the ancient writers upon this passage says, Ah, infelix Felix! Oh unhappy Felix, because his name means happiness. Oh infelix Felix. You know, as I finished this morning, this passage, as some of you are probably aware, has inspired one of the great hymns, not in our own hymn book currently by Philip Bliss, Almost Persuaded. And one of those stanzas says, listen, Seems now some soul to say, Go spirit, go thy way, Some more convenient day, On thee I'll call. In the light of this coming judgment, my friend, before the solemn assizes of God this morning, I beg you not to dilly-dally anymore or prevaricate. Not to say another time will come to hear his voice. Another time I'll send for God or the preacher. Another time. Not now. Because for Felix this was the last time his conscience was awakened. And you this morning, do you say all I've said is evangelical? Claptrap? Some other occasion? When I've more time? When I'm older? What if the judgment be tonight? I press upon you the folly of Felix, the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ. See to it, see to it my friend, that you repent and bow before the kingly Jesus, ere it is too late. and then there will be joy in heaven before one because of one sinner who repents. Let's pray. O gracious Father, we're thankful for this message both from the defense of the great apostle Paul and from his proclamation of the gospel before the trembling Felix. Write these lessons upon our minds Bring them into our hearts. May they be upon our consciences. That the word of God, quick and sharp, like a two-edged sword, may pierce us, in order that it may then heal us of all our sins. Through Christ we pray. Amen.