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Acts 23.12-22 PodcastConspiracy (12-15)

Well, justice is a slow process! Too slow usually! It is especially slow when it doesn’t seem like it will end in our favor.

Justice was certainly too slow for the group of Jews who hated Paul’s guts so much that the falsely accused him of a capital crime. They had hoped that the Romans would see Paul as the instigator of the riot, flog him severely, and then execute him, but it wasn’t turning out like they wanted. Coincidentally, the Romans were protecting Paul by holding him in their military barracks until the commander could figure out exactly what was going on.

As the Jews waited to see what the Romans were going to do, they felt like Paul was slipping through their fingers. So, two mornings after Paul’s hearing with the Sanhedrin, a group of forty of them conspired together and came up with a plan to kill Paul on their own. Their plan went something like this:

“Let’s get the Sanhedrin to petition the Roman commander on the pretext of wanting more accurate information about the case, and just before he gets to the hearing, ‘Pow!’ some of us will stampede the soldiers who are protecting him, and the rest of us will kill him.”

Now I think we can all agree that this plan wasn’t very original, but at least it seemed like it would work. Usually when planning a murder, effectiveness is more important than creativity anyway. So they get certain members of the Sanhedrin on board (probably all Sadducees because at least some of the Pharisees were sympathetic to Paul) and they are ready to go!

There is another important observation that we have to make about this conspiracy. These Jews hated Paul and his Christian message so much that not only were they willing to risk their own lives to kill him but they also made a vow to each other not to eat or drink anything until they killed him. This was a very serious commitment they are making. I don’t know about you, but whenever you see me take a vow not to eat and especially drink until I do something, you can be darn sure it’s serious.

Now to help us understand the magnitude of their desire to murder Paul, I would like us to think about this: In just the United States every year there are 17,000 murders. That is 47 murders a day. I have either read or heard about some of these conspiracies and some of them are downright creative, but I can’t think of a single murder story in modern history where the murderer hated the victim so much that he or she fasted from food and drink until they carried our their plan. Murder today just isn’t what it used to be! The Bible gives us a lot of good reasons for fasting, but murder isn’t one of them. These people really wanted Paul dead!

Coincidence (16-22)

Now since these forty Jews were risking their own lives to kill Paul you can bet that they went to great lengths to keep their conspiracy confidential. That is why it is so coincidental that someone from outside their secret society would find out about their plan and tell Paul. What is even more coincidental is that the one person who caught wind of their evil plot just happened to be Paul’s nephew. How ironic is that? Up until this point in the story we didn’t even know that Paul had a sister, let alone a nephew. Paul’s sister and nephew play such an insignificant role in the story that Luke doesn’t even name them.

What were the chances of Paul’s nephew even being in Jerusalem? What were the chances that he of all people heard the conspiracy? If someone else would have heard about this, it may never have made it back to Paul. What a coincidence indeed!

Furthermore, it is coincidental that Paul’s nephew was granted access to visit him considering there was so much turmoil surrounding Paul. We wouldn’t expect visitation rights to be granted to such a high profile prisoner, but apparently he was granted permission to enter the barracks and speak with Paul. The fact that he was a close family member may have had something to do with this, which adds even more irony to the fact that it was Paul’s nephew that found out about the plot.

Once his nephew clued him into the conspiracy, Paul called for one of the centurions and ordered him to take his nephew to the Roman commander. Here is another coincidence. A prisoner doesn’t just give orders to an officer, but Paul did! And without argument or complaint, the centurion immediately obeyed and took the boy to his commanding officer.

Now you tell me—when does this actually happen? Officers simply don’t take orders from prisoners! My wife doesn’t even take orders from me! But in this case, it is a major coincidence that the centurion took the boy to his commander.

And if you think that all of this is coincidental, just wait until you see how the commander responds to the boy. It was no small thing for a Jewish boy to even have an opportunity to speak to a Roman military commander. We would expect him to be gruff, crude, and at the very least annoyed to listen to someone of such low status, yet the text says that he “took the boy by the hand”, “drew him aside”, and asked him, “What is it you want to tell me?” Well, they may as well have rolled out the red carpet since the commander treated the boy like royalty. Wow! What a coincidence!

But wait, it gets even better! After Paul’s nephew told the commander about the Jews’ conspiracy to take Paul’s life, we would expect the boy to quietly slip away and try to stay out of trouble, but that is not what he does. Look at verse 21! The boy orders the commander “Don’t give in to them.” Now he didn’t realize that young Jewish boys, with absolutely no authority, just don’t tell the most powerful person in Jerusalem what to do. A private just doesn’t give orders to a general! In essence, but the boy commanded the commander!

The commander could have and probably should have severely punished the boy for what he said and the way he said it, but surprisingly the commander almost thanks the boy. He at least treats him with respect and concern in verse 22 when he dismissed the young man and even cautioned him by saying, “Don’t tell anyone you have reported this to me.” Now this is a coincidence!

When I read this passage and see all of the coincidences in it, I can’t help but think about all of the coincidences that I have experienced throughout my life. When I was seventeen years old God revealed that he wanted me to be a pastor but I didn’t have any resources to go to Bible school. It was quite a coincidence that my pastor’s brother moved back to our hometown from Louisiana later that summer and told me about Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, a Bible school where donors pay for 100% of your tuition. Coincidentally, I applied and even though my grades in high school were sub-par, I was accepted.

Coincidentally, during my sophomore year at Moody I just happened to meet a beautiful young woman named Jennifer Bayard. Coincidentally, a week after we graduated, she became Jennifer McConnell. After this, I coincidentally won a couple of scholarships whereby I could afford grad school at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston.

Coincidentally, one Friday evening in May of 2003 I was sitting at my desk writing a paper. My wife was out of town and I was bored out of my mind. It just didn’t seem right to be doing homework on a Friday night, so I randomly started browsing job-placement websites on the internet. I know it sounds like an exciting way to spend a Friday night, but believe me when I say, “You’re better off just going to the movies.” But at least in this case I experienced another coincidence when I saw an opening at the Franklin United Church in Franklin, VT. I had never heard of Franklin before, but I was intrigued by the description of the church and community.

Coincidentally, I called about it without consulting my wife first, which again, I would not recommend. One thing led to another and a month later we interviewed and six months after that I became the pastor of this church on January 1, 2004. As you can see, I have experienced a lot of coincidences in my life!

How about you? Have you ever experienced a coincidence? As you think back through your life, can you see instances where you were at the perfect place at the perfect time? Can you see how one minor difference could have changed the whole direction of your life? Where you live, your marriage, kids, career, and every other aspect of your life has been shaped by thousands of these little coincidences! Do you see them?

Before I conclude, I should point out one more coincidence in this passage. I think it is rather ironic that God isn’t mentioned anywhere in this text. All of these amazing coincidences take place, and God is nowhere to be found. Paul’s nephew just happened to overhear the Jews’ plot to kill his uncle. He just happened to be granted access to Paul. The centurion just happened to take the boy to the commander, and the commander just happened to take orders from the boy. All of these coincidences happened and God wasn’t even there!

Do you believe that? I hope not! Just because God isn’t explicitly mentioned doesn’t mean that he wasn’t there. This passage reminds me of the Book of Esther in the Old Testament. Do you know that throughout all ten chapters of the Book of Esther, God isn’t even mentioned once? None of the Hebrew words for God—“Adonai”, “Elohim”, or “Yahweh” are ever mentioned in Esther. This is why a number of people in the early church questioned the divine inspiration of the book of Esther. How can you have a whole book of the Bible that doesn’t even mention God? For the same reason that Luke doesn’t mention God in this text. He wants to show us that even when we don’t see God in the forefront of our lives, he is always orchestrating the events from behind the scenes.

I guess now is the time for my confession. I need to let all of you know that I have set you up this morning. I led you to believe that coincidences happen in life, but the truth is that there is no such thing as coincidence! Please hear me when I say: There are absolutely no coincidences in life! On the contrary, God orchestrates and directs every aspect of our lives. He is totally sovereign and in complete control of everything. His providence guides every minute and seemingly meaningless detail of our lives. Everything we experience in life happens to us for a reason!

Did you really think that the events in this passage happened by coincidence? No way! Was it a coincidence that the commander protected Paul all along? No way! God directed all of this!

Was it a coincidence that my pastor’s brother moved back just in time to tell me about Moody Bible Institute? No way!! Was it a coincidence that I met and married Jennifer after we graduated? Absolutely not! This was God’s plan for my life before I was ever born! Was it a coincidence that we moved to Boston and I was so bored one night that I ran across a description of this church and eventually came here? No way! This was God’s plan for my life and yours too!

Do you think anything in your life has ever happened by accident or coincidence? No way! Every triumph and tragedy, every sorrow and surprise, and every distraction, disappointment, and delight we face in life has been planned and orchestrated by God.

Well, I am sorry that I set you up that way, but I felt like we would all learn the lesson better if I did. With God there is no such thing as a coincidence!

I don’t know what is going on in your life today, but I do know that it is neither an accident or coincidence! God is completely in control of your life, even if it doesn’t seem like it. And always remember—even when you can’t feel God’s hand, you can always see his fingerprints!