The Acts of the Apostles 87

Subtitle:  Hesitation in the Place of Decision

Acts 24:22-27.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on November 17, 2024.

We pick up the story in Caesarea, where Paul has been accused of multiple things by the leaders of Jerusalem before Governor Felix.  Paul has also given a defense.

Today, we have the response of Felix to them.  Let’s look at our passage.

Felix delays his legal decision (v. 22-23)

Felix tells Paul and the Jerusalem leaders that he is going to delay making a decision until commander Lysias can come to Caesarea.  We will look more at this later.

Yet, Luke points out several things that are worth considering.

He tells us that Governor Felix has “quite accurate knowledge” of The Way.  This term that the Christians used to refer to themselves is a shortened form of The Way of the LORD (specifically Jesus).  Thus, Felix is quite familiar with the Christians and the source of friction between them and the Jewish leaders.  He is not a Christian himself.  However, his wife (who will be introduced in verse 24) is the daughter of Herod Agrippa I.  He is the one who died suddenly from intestinal worms in Acts 12.  She had been married to a king of an area between Damascus and Syrian Antioch.  However, Felix fell in love with her beauty and talked her into leaving an unhappy marriage behind for a life with him.  Though the Herodians were not godly people, they were intimately aware of Jewish religion and politics over the last 60 years.

This helps us to understand that Felix is not an out-of-touch Roman who merely observes Jewish life and culture.  Rather, he is immersed in it from being married to a Herodian woman.

Though Felix had “quite accurate knowledge” of The Way, this doesn’t mean that he had a true understanding of it.  He is as much in darkness as the Jewish leaders in front of him.  This is where we must understand that accurate knowledge of the Bible and Christianity is not enough to save a person.  Felix doesn’t understand what God is doing with these Christians.  You could say that the Pharisees and the Sadducees had a quite accurate knowledge, and yet, they chose to interpret everything in a self-serving way.  None of them understood Jesus and God’s power through Him in this world.

We need to spend time in the Word and studying history, but one thing is more important, a relationship of faith in Jesus.  We must come to know Jesus through the Holy Spirit so that we can be led by Jesus through that same Holy Spirit.  Yes, the Spirit had led Paul to prison in Caesarea and multiple hearings and trials.  Yet, Felix needed to hear the Gospel.  Drusilla needed to hear the Gospel, and the imprisonment of Paul was a most likely way that it could happen.

The statement by Felix to wait for Commander Lysias signals that he is not impressed with either side and wants an “unbiased” opinion from the man who was on site during the dispute.  However, it is noticeable that Luke does not record any such subsequent arrival of Commander Lysias.  We see in this passage that Paul will be held for 2 years, during which time, it is impossible that either Lysias didn’t come to Caesarea or that Governor Felix did not go up to Jerusalem.  In other words, Felix is simply using this as an excuse to send both parties away without having mud on his face.

Luke records something important next.  Felix instructs the centurion to hold Paul, but to give him enormous liberty.  We are not told his living conditions: house arrest, palace holding cell, or dungeon.  However, we are told that he was allowed to have as many visitors as would come, and that they could provide for his needs.  This implies that Felix recognizes that Paul is not guilty of anything that Rome cares about.

During a time like this, a person could lose sight of the goodness of God in the small things while looking for certain big things.  Yet, Paul knows that God is using this time of incarceration for the purpose of promoting the Gospel, and for Paul’s own good (Romans 8:28-30).

We could say that this two years was all about God’s grace to a man (Felix) who didn’t deserve it.  But, of course, that is exactly Paul’s story.  He is the perfect man to stand before Felix and deliver the hope of the Gospel of Jesus.  However, this brings up another issue in which Felix delays.

Felix delays his spiritual decision (v. 24-27)

The prior knowledge that Felix had peaks within him an interest in Paul’s insider knowledge of this group called The Way.  He now has a captive speaker who can answer his every question.  He can chalk this up to gathering information that will make him a better governor, but there is more going on here than he knows.  God is putting the truth in front of him and giving him a chance to believe in Jesus, King Messiah.

These two years would be a window of decision.  God in His grace brings us into such windows of spiritual opportunity.  These are special times in which God’s truth is laid open before us.  If we delay a decision, the window will pass.  That doesn’t mean we can’t decide later.  However, the opportune time will have passed, and we are not guaranteed that such powerful influence will be present again.  Felix would later go to Rome.  Yes, there are Christians there, but he would be surrounded mainly by political Romans and Caesar.  Yet, the grace of God may bring us around to another window of opportune time, another chance.  None of us can know when we are in the last opportune time that we will have to choose Christ.  Choose him now while he is speaking to your heart!

We are told that Felix and Drusilla would come and question Paul further on matters of religion and this Jewish Messiah who is supposed to have been resurrected.  Paul particularly would be a fascination to them because he was a persecutor of these Christians himself.  Why did he really become one of them?  Their curiosity gained them a hearing of the truth of God.  Paul spoke of righteousness.  No one is righteous no not one, but Jesus the only Righteous One of God died on the cross to pay the price for our sins.  His righteousness becomes a cover for our lack of it.  Paul spoke of self-control, which is just another way of looking at righteousness.  Much of sin traces back to a lack of control over baser desires.  Paul also spoke of judgment.  All men are guilty before God, Jew and Roman.  Only those who put their faith in Jesus can be spared the judgment of God that is even now coming upon the whole world.

We must all face the judgment in two ways.  First, we will all individually die and have to give account before Jesus for our lives.  However second, there is a Day of Judgment, the Day of the LORD, when God will judge all the nations of the earth.  It will be a day of darkness and great fear for the kings and powers of the earth.  God will first pour out his wrath on the kingdoms of this world, and then He will send Jesus to take up the kingdoms of the earth.

In the midst of this discourse, Felix becomes afraid, terrified, and sends Paul away.  I am sure that he did a good job of hiding it, but he began to be afraid, uncomfortable, and feel like he needed to get out of there.  This is what is called the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  The word conviction points to an internal convincing of these things.  Felix realized that he was one of those sinners Paul was talking about.  He realized that his “righteousness” in the eyes of Caesar would not protect him from the wrath of an all-powerful Creator and the judgment of His right hand man, Jesus.  He senses his own guilt before God.  In the moment, he is given the grace of understanding his true condition.

Yet, God is not interested in only making people afraid of Him, feeling guilty and ashamed.  The proper response to guilt and shame is to repent, change your mind about Jesus and turn towards him in faith.  Yet, Felix punts the football of repentance and sends Paul away.  By sending Paul away, he also sends the Holy Spirit away, at least for the moment.  God’s grace will come around again and the conviction of the Holy Spirit may touch his heart again, but hearts can grow hard through repeated times of sending the Holy Spirit away and refusing to repent.

Paul may go away having failed to reach Felix, but it is not his job to “save” Felix, or make him believe.  Yet, Paul can now go to his cell and increase his prayers for the conviction that was happening in the heart of Felix.

Verse 26 lets us see that, even when the Spirit of God is working on a person’s heart, there is also temptation towards sin working.  The spirit of this world doesn’t want you to choose Jesus, and so, it works hard to get our eyes on something that is more gratifying to the flesh than spiritual salvation.

Why do people hesitate to embrace Jesus when they are convicted?  Repenting can “mess up” our lives and our positions in this world.  It may have messed up his marriage.  What would Drusilla think?  It could put his life in danger with Caesar.  Felix sent for Paul many times and conversed with him about these matters.  However, something else was working on his heart.

His heart began to hope for an offer of money from Paul.  It is a mystery that the heart convicted by the Holy Spirit can also be tempted by sin at the same time.  We might think of this like a wave.  As he lets the wave of the Holy Spirit’s conviction go by, a wave of ulterior motives sweeps over him.  Using your position to hold an innocent man out of the hopes of a bribe is a gross sin, a flagrant abuse of power.

The devil loves to use the desires of our flesh to douse the fire of the Spirit’s conviction.  He uses anything he can to keep us from repenting.  Thus, our hesitation gives more time and more strength to our lower nature’s desire for sin.  In fact, when a person under conviction yields to sin, they may feel a momentary sense of feeling better, as the conviction in their heart dissipates. 

This spiritual and legal delay goes on for two years.  Eventually, Caesar recalls Felix to Rome and puts Porcius Festus in his place.  This precious moment in his life will have passed.  Yet, the seeds are sown, both for repentance and for grosser sin.

God’s ability to reach our heart may not be nullified by delay, but it will be attenuated as our heart grows hard to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit.  Yet, even if we do respond in repentance, it must be kept fresh before the Lord.  We must daily walk with the Holy Spirit and let Him teach us how to live, how to repent.

The Church is severely infiltrated with people who are not repenting (if they ever did in the first place).  Large parts of its leadership have become antichrist, like the Pharisees and Sadducees of old.  The question to you and to me is this.  Am I a follower of the Spirit of God?  If so, then I may find myself in some difficult situations with other Christians claiming that I am a heretic and worthy of death.  In that moment, we will need to know that we are following Jesus, and not just a religion, the ideas of men, a system developed by those long since hardened to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

The world doesn’t need false religion.  It needs men and women who are trusting Jesus, not men.  It needs men and women who are in a relationship with Jesus through prayer and being led by the Holy Spirit.  This cannot be faked, though people do it.  That is what Felix needed that day, a man full of the Holy Spirit who could tell him his true condition.

I am not saying that the world and people will like it when we are led by the Holy Spirit.  But, it is what they need.  You may not see the end of the story.  Felix would leave before making a decision.  Paul may never see him again.  Yet, Paul was faithful to pour into the life of Felix for Jesus.  You don’t know the rest of the story of people that you speak to about Christ.  However, we must learn to be faithful to do what the Holy Spirit gives us to do and trust the rest to God!

Hesitation audio