After reading the communication, Felix inquired to what province the prisoner belonged, and being informed that he was of Cilicia, said: "I will hear thee...when thine accusers are also come.And he commanded him to be kept in Herod's judgment hall."The case of Paul was not the first in which a servant of God had found among the heathen an asylum from the malice of the professed people of Jehovah.In their rage against Paul the Jews had added another crime to the dark catalogue which marked the history of that people.They had still further hardened their hearts against the truth and had rendered their doom more certain.
Few realize the full meaning of the words that Christ spoke when, in the synagogue at Nazareth, He announced Himself as the Anointed One.He declared His mission to comfort, bless, and save the sorrowing and the sinful; and then, seeing that pride and unbelief controlled the hearts of His hearers, He reminded them that in time past God had turned away from His chosen people because of their unbelief and rebellion, and had manifested Himself to those in heathen lands who had not rejected the light of heaven.The widow of Sarepta and Naaman the Syrian had lived up to all the light they had; hence they were accounted more righteous than God's chosen people who had backslidden from Him and had sacrificed principle to convenience and worldly honor.
Christ told the Jews at Nazareth a fearful truth when He declared that with backsliding Israel there was no safety for the faithful messenger of God.
They would not know his worth or appreciate his labors.While the Jewish leaders professed to have great zeal for the honor of God and the good of Israel, they were enemies of both.By precept and example they were leading the people farther and farther from obedience to God--leading them where He could not be their defense in the day of trouble.
The Saviour's words of reproof to the men of Nazareth applied, in the case of Paul, not only to the unbelieving Jews, but to his own brethren in the faith.Had the leaders in the church fully surrendered their feeling of bitterness toward the apostle, and accepted him as one specially called of God to bear the gospel to the Gentiles, the Lord would have spared him to them.God had not ordained that Paul's labors should so soon end, but He did not work a miracle to counteract the train of circumstances to which the course of the leaders in the church at Jerusalem had given rise.
The same spirit is still leading to the same results.A neglect to appreciate and improve the provisions of divine grace has deprived the church of many a blessing.How often would the Lord have prolonged the work of some faithful minister, had his labors been appreciated! But if the church permits the enemy of souls to pervert the understanding, so that they misrepresent and misinterpret the words and acts of the servant of Christ;if they allow themselves to stand in his way and hinder his usefulness, the Lord sometimes removes from them the blessing which He gave.
Satan is constantly working through his agents to dishearten and destroy those whom God has chosen to accomplish a great and good work.They may be ready to sacrifice even life itself for the advancement of the cause of Christ, yet the great deceiver will suggest to their brethren doubts concerning them which, if entertained, would undermine confidence in their integrity of character, and thus cripple their usefulness.Too often he succeeds in bringing upon them, through their own brethren, such sorrow of heart that God graciously interposes to give His persecuted servants rest.
After the hands are folded upon the pulseless breast, when the voice of warning and encouragement is silent, then the obdurate may be aroused to see and prize the blessings they have cast from them.Their death may accomplish that which their life has failed to do.
