Paul and Felix

“And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.” — Acts xxrv. 24, 25.

THEEE are in the Scriptures certain grand outstanding portions, which seem to bulk more largely and shine more brightly than the rest. In the Old Testament the

460. T’“chu”h i“”“Hm”-

twenty-third Psalm and the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah: in the Gospels the interviews with Nieodemus and the Samaritan woman, the parables of the sower, the shepherd, and the prodigal: in the Acts, the gospel preached to the Ethiopian by Philip, and to the jailer by Paul; the gospel preached to Felix here and rejected; — these are specimens of words that grave themselves more deeply on the memory of Bible students, and come up more frequently for use. “Not is it either unlike the ways of God or incongruous with the nature of the case that some points should excel in beauty and power where all is Divine. On the earth’s surface, some mountains rear their heads into the sky far above the valleys and the “little hills” that bound them, and some stars are superior to others in breadth and brightness. To recognise practically such pre-eminence does not disparage the body of revelation any more than the earth that bears the mountains, or the skies that hold forth the stars.

To a thirsting soul these notable portions are like wells by the wayside. The traveller drank from them in succession the first time he trod the path, perhaps fifty years ago; but if he is living still, and still on pilgrimage, with the same hot sand beneath his feet, and the same hot sun above his head, he will drink from each well-remembered spring as he passes it, with as much delight as on the first day he discovered its refreshing water. He will not turn away his head with the complaint, I have known these wells so long and tasted of them so often that I am wearied of them now. Therefore, spring, 0 wells, as long as there is a desert, and drink, 0 pilgrims, as long as you are thirsty; for the princes of the people digged them, — David and Isaiah, and Peter and John, and Matthew and Luke: and drink, reader, if thou art a wayfarer on the same path — drink at this spring in the desert yet once more as you pass.

Paid and Felix.

The governor, indolent, vicious, self-pleasing, postponed decision in Paul’s case, and after the trial relapsed into his pleasures. But the pleasures, long continued and not much varied, palled on the taste of the voluptuary. To relieve their languor, he and his wife Drusilla determined one day to hear a sermon from the distinguished preacher who happened to be their prisoner. Accordingly, a message is conveyed to Paul that the governor and his party desired to hear him concerning the faith in Jesus. This message sent to the prison is all the heavens different from the cry formerly raised in the prison,” What must I do to be saved V But Paul counts the occasion good, and determines to occupy his opportunity. Man proposes, but God disposes. What Felix begins in sport may end in earnest. The imprisoned apostle will endeavour to strike a blow for the kingdom of Christ in the high places of the earth.

The auditors on this occasion, although they occupied a high place in society, were both “of the baser sort.” They were stained especially with cruel injustice towards others and gross impurity in their own persons. These specific vices, well known to the preacher, determined no doubt the form of his discourse. When he speaks to a large miscellaneous audience whose characters he does not know, he must draw his bow at a venture, and hope it will hit some enemy of the King; but when, as in this case, he sees clearly his object, he will take deliberate aim. Accordingly, in making justice and personal purity the chief themes of his address, Paul was coolly covering his man. He preached to the times, and the place, and the people. Taking his stand generally on the eternal law of God, he selected the two specific aspects of it that cut directly into the consciences of his auditors. He will employ the law as a fire of coals piled on the hard ore of the governor’s heart, if so be he may make it flow down: if lie sees it melting, lie will quickly receive it into the mould of the gospel for pardon and newness of life.

It is a mistake to suppose that the discourse, so brieflyreported here, consists of three consecutive heads. Its logic is better than such an arrangement supposes. The sermon consisted of two heads and an application. The two heads, Righteousness and Temperance, are meant to hedge in the governor, so that his conscience cannot escape either on the right hand or on the left; and the application — the judgment to come — is sent forward like a flood of fire between these two walls to secure conviction, and utterly to slay the old man in the heart of that chief sinner. The division by the same apostle, in Tit. ii. 1 2, “Soberly, righteously, and godly,” is in substance the same, although the two main branches are given in the reverse order. With perfect clearness and precision Paul divides the law into two parts; first, its aspect outwards as bearing on other people; and second, its aspect inwards, as bearing on ourselves. Towards other men, it demands justness; within ourselves, it demands purity. These are indicated by the terms “righteousness” and “temperance” in the reported discourse.

Righteousness needs no explanation. It means what it says — rightness, justness, in thought, word, and deed towards all — towards God and towards man. Temperance, the other English word, needs to be defined. It is not employed here in the modern and narrow sense of mere freedom from all excess in the use of intoxicants. It means that, and more. Its classical and New Testament signification is much wider than that which it ordinarily bears now in our own language. It means freedom from all that defiles; it demands personal purity on all sides. In this case, although it did not exclude what we ordinarily mean by intemperance, most certainly the licentiousness of the hearers was much more prominently

Paul and Felix. before the preacher’s mind, and much more specifically designated by his word.

We know how Paul would bring home the word on both sides. He would keep nothing back. He strikes with a will. He thrusts the sword up to the hilt. He has no compassion; for he knows that compassion in this place is unfaithfulness to a fellow-sinner’s soul. Felix is compelled to listen; and, what is much more, Felix is compelled to listen with secret application of the dreadful word to himself. As the preacher advanced from point to point, the conscience of the governor, as the voice of God in his breast, murmured, Thou art the man. On the one side he is unrighteous; on the other he is impure; and when the judgment to come was pressed forward, he felt as if an angel with a flaming sword were approaching to destroy him, while he had no power to escape.

Felix is like a man chained to the ground in the middle of the Mount Cenis tunnel. Above, below, and on either side he is shut in. Without a figure, the barriers on all sides are nothing else and nothing less than the everlasting hills. While he is chained to the spot in that dark avenue, he looks along the gloomy telescope tube; and lo, in the distance, a red fiery spark, like a fixed star! It is like an eye, all-seeing and angry, glaring on him from afar. But as he gazes on it, he perceives that it is growing larger; and oh, horror! it is advancing. It is coming with express speed. It is the fiery engine rushing on — rushing over him!

Felix trembled; and well he might. He has reached that point in spiritual experience on which the Philippian jailer stood, when “he called for a light and sprang in trembling.” But, alas! he does not seek relief from the terror of conviction where the official in Philippi sought and found it. Instead of “What must I do to be saved?” it is, “Go thy way for this time.” Two men may be led by nearly the same path into those soul-pangs which accompany conviction of sin; and yet the two men may follow opposite courses in life, and meet opposite rewards in eternity. It is not how you fall into the pains of conviction that fixes your state, but how you get out of them. Not how you were wounded, but how you are healed, is the turning-point of the loss or saving of the soul. Instead of seeking healing in accepting Christ his Saviour, Felix sought ease by stifling the preacher’s voice — quenching the Spirit who spoke in the preacher.

But here a question occurs. As far as the report of the sermon goes, there is no mention of Christ, and no offer of pardon through his blood. Felix received on this occasion no such blessed word as that which was addressed to the jailer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” This difference is real, and it is remarkable. The reason of it when discovered throws a flood of light on Paul’s method as a preacher of Christ. He seems to have preached the law, and nothing more, to Felix and Drusilla; but he would have preached the gospel too, if they had permitted him. He began with the law in order to work conviction of sin, ready to apply the healing balm the moment that the conscience was touched. The sermon as far as it went was intended to inflict a wound; and the foolish hearer, when he felt the pain, interrupted the speaker, and lost his opportunity. Felix wanted to play at preaching; but Paul meant earnest work. Felix intended to amuse himself during a leisure hour; Paul tried to save a soul from death. Thus these two were at cross purposes. But we are sure from the whole character and life of the apostle that he would have offered free pardon in Christ to the chief sinner who sat before him, if he had not been abruptly silenced ere his work was done.