And when he had tarried among them more than ten days, he went down unto Caesarea; and the next day sitting on the judgment seat commanded Paul to be brought. And when he was come, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood round about, and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove. While he answered for himself, Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended any thing at all. But Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me? Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar's judgment seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest. For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar. Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? unto Caesar shalt thou go.
Paul Appeals to Caesar
Beloved of the Lord......Today
just happens to be the last Sunday in the Church year. Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent,
and not long after is our blessed Christmas.
This last Sunday is a good opportunity to be reminded Christ will soon
enough return. There will be a Second
Coming when He will deliver us from all evil.
He will come to us as a Savior and Deliverers, a Champion to rescues us
in the nick of time. But He will only
come as an angry Judge to those who hurt persecuted His dear children. Jesus said, "He that is not with Me is
against Me." Knowing Him who love
you first then, you dear believer don't have to fear those powers that be. Those governors of this world and her
Caesar's, are tiny kings, small rulers who might parade around with pomp and
circumstance, yet "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord
shall have them in derision." This
means God will confuse them and mix them up.
Their plans to erase the Church will never succeed. "Then shall he speak unto them in his
wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of
Zion."
You are Zion, dear believer and Christ
is your King of Grace, but He is their King of Power, though they know it now. He rules over you with grace and tender mercy. He doesn't come to punish you, save, deliver,
and rescue you from all evil of body and soul.
But as for your enemies, even those wicked kings and rulers, He stands
over and above them with a sword to smite and slay them at will if they hurt or
harm His sheep. But as for you who continue
to believe and trust in Him by His grace, as Luther said He's by our side upon
the plain. He is our Captain and
Champion in this spiritual war which Jesus has already won. Exodus 15 says, "The LORD is a
man of war: the LORD is his name."
You are not alone in this battle against evil rulers, but He is your
Captain, a Man of War standing next to you, even living within you by faith. Jesus therefore said, "Abide in me, and
I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the
vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me." Jesus also said, "As the Father hath
loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love." We continue in this love simply by faith in
Him who loved us first. Trusting in Him,
we see this battle which is set before us has already been won by Christ Jesus,
the Captain of our Salvation. That's why
First Thessalonians 5 says, "But let us, who are of the day, be sober,
putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of
salvation. For God hath not appointed us
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or
sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together,
and edify one another."
I. Obedience, not rebellion. Once again in
our lesson today, Paul was falsely charged with evil by the Jews. We notice in Paul's first answer or defense,
he states he has not broken the laws of the Jews, nor profaned the temple, then
he says "nor yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at
all." This means Paul had not
broken any laws of the state. Offend
here means to sin or err. As a citizen
of the State, namely a Roman citizen, Paul's conscience was clear.
Why is it so important that we as
Christians obey the laws of the land, as Paul did? First let it be said, where the love of
Christ lives in the heart, there is also love of His Word. Once there is faith, we see the law of God is
good, though we are yet evil. We don't
in any way rely upon the law to take us to heaven, but the law now becomes by faith
a rule or guide in our life. Hence,
"I delight in the law of God after the inner man." Knowing we are freely justified by the blood
of Christ, we keep God's laws out of love for God and neighbor. One of God's laws is that we obey the laws of
State. We cannot be lawless rebels and
disobedient, yet at the same time teach others to keep obey the laws of the
land. Thus if we break the laws of the
state, yet we call ourselves Christians, we teach this world Christ is not
really their Savior, for we ourselves who confess Him are hypocrites.
What is worse, if we rebel against the
powers that be, we defile our conscience so that it burns like a hot iron. Instead of rebellion, we should keep a good
conscience NOT so that we are worthy of salvation, but in order that we don't
lose it. An evil conscience then is one
which becomes hardened in sin without repentance and faith. For example, if we go against our conscience so
that it is defiled, such will ultimately cause us to let go of Christ. If we know we've done evil since our
conscience is guilty, soon enough we begin to justify our evil rather than
confess it. One becomes hardened in sin
so they switch from repentance and faith to impenitence and unbelief. When the evil conscience plagues us however, what
we ought to do is confess and admit our sin to God, asking forgiveness for Christ's
sake. God for Christ's sake does not
want guilty sinners to be afraid for Him, but come unto Him. Jesus said, "Him that cometh to Me I
will in no wise cast out". We come
to Him because He promises forgiveness.
We need not be afraid of Him because He comes with grace and
healing. The only remedy then for a
guilty conscience is Christ and His absolving Gospel which absolves all that we
feel guilty about. Hebrews 10:22
therefore says, "Let us draw near with a
true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." In the Gospel message of Christ our guilty
conscience finds peace knowing God with His blood has sprinkled upon our hearts
forgiveness for all sins. The Gospel then
declares all guilty sinners forgiven, and such gives the guilty conscience
peace. Even our bodies are washed with
pure water.
Again such forgiveness causes us to
love and obey God's laws, even His law that we obey our Caesar. First Peter two therefore says, "Submit
yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the
king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the
punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well
doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty
for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men.
Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king." By obeying every ordinance of man, God's honor
among men is preserved. By our obedience
to state, we teach that the law itself is good and beneficial to us and peace
is maintained.
We serve man by such obedience, for the
sake of their own salvation. We do not
want to lead souls to hell by our disobedience, but we want to lead souls to
heaven by our obedience. Nor does it
matter if certain "powers that be" are corrupt. God gave us the phrase "the powers that
be" not "the powers that be….unless they be corrupt." God knows well there are corrupt powers on
earth, and who in any position of authority is not already corrupted by
sin? What father or mother is not corrupt
by sin, yet God gave them a position of authority. Shall we teach our children to rebel because
their parents are corrupt? Doesn't God
says, "Children, obey your parents in all things: for this
is well pleasing unto the Lord."
Col. 3:20 God then is never
glorified by rebellion, nor our excuses to rebel, but He is only glorified by
our faith in Him, and "let us not love in word only but in deed and truth." If or rather when the powers which be are
corrupt, we glorify God by obedience in faith, trusting that though they be
evil, God is yet good, His ways are higher than our own. And just as Paul as a citizen of state
appealed to Caesar, so we by faith appeal to our eternal Caesar above, namely
Christ the King of kings and Lord of lords.
When the powers that be are corrupt, such should indeed move us to pray
more fervently and more often "For kings, and for all that are in
authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and
honesty. For this is good and
acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the
truth." Yes, above all things we
should pray for the repentance of those rulers who don't believe, remembering
Jesus said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute
you; That ye may be the children of your
Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
II. Separation of Church and State. We as Christians
then live in two states at once. We are
citizens of this State called the United States of America, but we are also
citizens of heaven while living on earth.
Philippians 3 says our citizenship "is in heaven; from whence also
we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body." As citizens in two
arenas, we must always separate Church and State. Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the
things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." While there isn't enough time to cover all
the bases of separation between Church and State, briefly the State rules by a
series of laws which affect our body. The
Church however rules by the Word of God alone, and this Gospel Word moves and
guides our soul without force.
"Love is the fulfilling of the law". The Word creates faith and love, so the
believer willingly does what is right and in agreement with the Word. We obey all the laws of the land by faith and
love for God and neighbor, and we disobey only when such defiles our
conscience. Moreover, as Christ by His
blood has absolved our guilty conscience, so we preach Christ and His grace,
that the guilty conscience of our enemy be absolved also, and Christ become
their Friend and Savior.
This brings us to our last point. If our State commands us to do something
against God's Word, we by our conscience which is bound to the Word, must not
obey. If they command us to abort our
children, use birth control, or stop preaching against homosexuality or Islam,
we are bound by the Word to disobey, which is to obey God above man. As citizens of the State let us remember our
Constitution is the highest law of the land, above every President and member
in Congress. If any law compels us to do
what is against our Constitution, we need not do it. We appeal to our earthly Caesar here by means
of the court system, all the way to the Supreme Court if need be. If they fail there, as Paul's Caesar did, we
commit our life and keeping to God, as Paul did even in the hands of the
State. Remember Paul said, "if I be
an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to
die." If the State wrongly puts us
to death when we are innocent, we glorify God by being martyrs for Christ. It is also true Christians may by their own
conscience decide differently, yet each keeps their clear conscience. In the Civil war there were Christians in the
south who sided with the states, for the Constitution grants certain state rights,
and there were Christians in the north due to the Constitutions rights of
federal power. Both sides who kept their
conscience clear through Christ are as one in heaven now. What does all this mean? It means dear believer, regarding the laws of
state be sure to keep your conscience clear.
As members of State your Constitution is your Caesar, but God also says
"the powers that be are ordained of God." Obey all laws so your conscience is not
defiled, remembering your highest law comes from Christ, "Love thy
neighbor as thyself." Likewise do
not rebel but obey, yet obey only in faith allowing no man to be a lord over
your conscience.
Finally, though our present State is now in a very dismal state, and
persecution may well be on the horizon, do not despair for Christ is by your
side upon this plain, and "Lift up your eyes for your redemption draws
nigh" As Paul said, so say we
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept
the faith: Henceforth there is laid up
for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall
give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his
appearing." Amen.
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