"They
urgently requested Festus, as a favor to them, to have Paul transferred to Jerusalem,
for they were preparing an ambush to kill him along the way." (Acts 25:3)
Paul, the
apostle, has been in prison for 2 years in Caesarea. He had been taken there
because the Jews had planned to ambush and kill him in Jerusalem. Here we are
two years later and they still have the same plan. It makes me wonder what
happened to the group of men who took a vow to neither eat nor drink until Paul
was dead. Hmmm...
This reminds me
that truthfully the Enemy has few tricks. He has just become quite proficient
at using those few. He will distort truth. "When Paul appeared, the Jews
who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many serious
charges against him, which they could not prove." (Acts 25:7) Governor
Felix’s take on it however, was, "When his accusers got up to speak, they
did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. Instead, they had
some points of dispute with him about their own religion..." (Acts
25:18-19)
The enemy will
distract us from our mission. Paul was not to be distracted. God had told him
that he would go to Rome, so when the opportunity arose, Paul appealed to
Caesar.
The enemy will
divide. The early church was threatened with division early on. The issue of
widows not being fed had the potential to divide. Paul's conversion had the
potential to divide as many did not trust him. The issue of Gentile believers
had the potential to divide. The good news is that in each of these instances,
the Body of Christ came away in unity and agreement.
The enemy will
dissuade and discourage. I can imagine that sitting in prison for 2 years was
rather discouraging. Yet God was in control and He had a plan. Paul just needed
to wait patiently and faithfully. In the mean time, God gave him some unique
opportunities to share the gospel.
It seems that
each of us has our own areas of susceptibility, but the arrows in Satan’s
quiver are not many. By God's grace, we need to learn to recognize them and fix
our eyes on Jesus. As a good
friend, who is now in Heaven, used to remind me often, we need to keep looking up; keep kneeling
down; keep reaching out.
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