Good morning, my name is Trophimus! I am a Gentile from the great city of Ephesus in the province of Asia. I was converted to Christianity under the ministry of the Apostle Paul and have been his friend and fellow missionary worker ever since. I accompanied him on his trip along the Aegean coast all the way to Jerusalem. We were delivering an offering from the Asian churches to the poor Christians who were suffering in the Holy Land. I had never been to Jerusalem before and was anxious to see the city where my Savior died for me.

When we reached Caesarea we were warned that we would face persecution when we got there, but we had already faced persecution in Ephesus, so I wasn’t too worried. But I should have been! I had no idea that we would encounter such hostility. I thought mob violence like what we experienced there only occurred in Roman cities like my own, not in religious cities like Jerusalem.

Well, this morning I want to tell you the story of how Paul was falsely accused and charged, and how God used some very unlikely people to rescue him. I personally learned a lot from the experience and I believe that you can learn from it too. It is a story that must be told!

False Accusations (27-30)

My story begins when we first arrived in Jerusalem. We had a wonderful welcome by the Jerusalem church and their pastor James. We exchanged reports about our respective ministries and everything seemed fine, until James told us about the rumor that had spread all over the city that Paul had been telling Jews all over the world that the Law of Moses didn’t matter anymore. To prove the rumor false Paul agreed to go through the purification rites at the Temple and pay the expenses of four men so they could complete their Nazarite vow and have their heads shaved.

When the seven days of purification were almost completed, a group of Jews from my hometown of Ephesus, who were in Jerusalem the Pentecost feast, reaffirmed that rumor and spread a new one about Paul. They accused Paul of bringing me into the Temple precincts. Now Paul and I both knew that it was unlawful for a Gentile to go inside the Temple and that this offense was punishable by death. I didn’t even come close to going inside the Temple, but some of the Jews had previously seen me with Paul and assumed that I had gone into the Temple with him. Even if the accusation had been true, I should have been the one they apprehended, but they were obviously not concerned about me; Paul was the one they were after.

They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, all the while shouting that he teaches Jews everywhere to turn their backs on the Law. When they saw how much this infuriated the crowd, they heightened the hostility by falsely accusing him of bringing me into the Temple precincts.

Well, this accusation really got the crowd excited; they were ready to kill Paul right on the spot. This is when I learned how destructive false accusations can be. Lies can destroy a person’s life very quickly. There wasn’t anything Paul could have done to prevent what happened. He was simply trying to do the right thing, but these people really had it out for him.

I guess this is just the way it goes in a sinful world. Sometimes we will be persecuted for our faith and other times just because someone doesn’t like us. We may face false accusations and rumors because someone is jealous of us or simply because of something we have said or done. Have you ever been falsely accused of something? If so, you know how destructive it can be! It can ruin your reputation and sometimes you whole life. This false accusation almost ruined Paul’s life!

The whole city was aroused! People came running in from all over the place! So much screaming and shouting that you couldn’t understand what people were saying! It was mass chaos and confusion! Amid the hysteria I saw them take Paul and start to beat him while they drug him away from the Temple. I heard that the Temple police had shut and locked the gates of the sanctuary. In light of the false accusation me entering the inner court, they were very anxious to preserve the sanctity of the sacred space. They were also concerned about protecting the holy place from being desecrated by the ensuing violence of the crowd and by its possibly fatal outcome.

An Unlikely Rescue (31-36)

While the angry mob was fiercely attacking Paul and beating him to a bloody pulp, somehow news of the riot reached the commander of the Roman garrison who was stationed in the Antonia fortress. It was connected to the northwest side of the Temple outer courts. Within minutes the officers and soldiers appeared and began breaking up the riot. When the Jews who were beating Paul saw the soldiers coming they immediately stopped beating Paul because they knew that they were breaking the law by rioting. When I saw the soldiers picked Paul up off the ground and the mob stepped back, I knew that God had heard my prayer. Even though the commander formally arrested him, bound him in handcuffs, and chained him to two soldiers, I knew he was safer with them than he was at the hands of the Jewish mob. I’m sure the commander thought that Paul was a criminal who had committed some horrible crime, but regardless of what he had done, he had to be dealt with legally. When I saw Paul with chains on his hands and feet I remembered what the prophet Agabas had told us a week earlier—when he took Paul’s belt and wrapped it around himself as a visual prediction of what would happen to him. It happened just as he predicted.

Then the commander asked Paul who he was and what he had done to cause so much chaos. Paul was still trying to recover from the brutal beating he sustained, and before he had a chance to respond, the crowd started shouting all sorts of things: insults, vulgarities, and more false accusations. Since the commander could not get the truth out of anyone, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks.

When the crowd heard the commander’s orders and realized that their chances of finishing Paul off were slipping through their fingers, they threw aside their fear of the Romans and made one more push to get him. The soldiers had to lift Paul over their heads to get him up the steps and away from the crowd. They barely got him inside!

As the soldiers carried Paul inside the barracks and I whispered another prayer for his protection, I though about the profound irony of the situation. God used the most unlikely people to rescue him. It is amazing to think that Roman soldiers would rescue a Jewish missionary from the clutches of his own people, but I guess that is just how God works. He has always used unlikely people to accomplish his will on earth. Think about that for a minute: Has God ever used an unlikely person to minister to you? Maybe, like Paul, you were in a dangerous situation and God sent an unlikely person to rescue you. Maybe you were suffering from disappointment or depression and God sent an unlikely person to encourage you. Maybe you had some other kind of need and God used an unlikely person to provide for you! Can you think of an unlikely person who has ministered to you?

Or maybe it has been the other way around! Maybe you have been the unlikely person who has ministered to someone else. You might think that you are an unlikely candidate to minister to someone else, but God is likely to use the unlikely. I hope that when the opportunity arises that you will be that unlikely person. If God can use gruff Roman soldiers to deliver his servant, he can use you!

Another Unlikely Rescue

As I watched Paul disappear into the barracks and I heard the crowd chanting “Away with him! Away with him!” I couldn’t help but think about another unlikely rescue that occurred in this same city 25 years earlier.

The scene was very similar. There was a man who came into the city and was welcomed warmly, but a few days later he was the victim of vicious false accusations. Those lies led to a false arrest and mob violence. He, like Paul, was beaten to a bloody pulp, and the Romans came for him too, but instead of doing the right thing and standing for justice, they caved into political pressure and nailed his hands and feet to a cross and left him to die. Instead of the crowd shouting “Away with him!” they shouted “Crucify! Crucify!” No one came to his aid! No unlikely person tried to rescue him! Instead of the soldiers lifting him over their heads to safety, they lifted him onto a cross to die.

And so you ask, how was this an unlikely rescue? Well, it is a matter of who got rescued. You see, Jesus was not the one who got rescued; he was the unlikely one who did the rescuing. It is absolutely amazing to think that God would send his own Son to rescue us from our sins. The man who knew no sin became sin for us, suffered on the cross, and rose on the third day so that we could be delivered from the penalty and power of sin.

Yes, God’s own Son was an unlikely candidate to be sacrificed for our salvation. I know that this unlikely person has completely transformed my life; has he transformed yours? He will rescue you from sin and hell if you put your faith in him. I know that if Paul was here with us now, he would tell you the same thing. So, you see, in a way this was an unlikely rescue!

My name is Trophimus from the city of Ephesus and that is my story. I hope you will learn from it as much as I have. I hope that you will persevere through false accusations, realize that God uses unlikely people to accomplish his will, and always remember that Jesus is the unlikely one who can rescue us from our sins. Before I go, let me pray with you!