Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1970
“Persuading them concerning Jesus.” Acts 28:23.
WHEREVER Paul is, he has but one errand and whenever Paul preaches, he has but one subject. Once at Athens, when he addressed the Areopagus, he seemed to wander a little from his main point and no special good followed, but this experience bound him all the faster to the Cross, for he afterwards said to the Corinthians, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” The Cross of Christ was his one theme. He henceforth hammered on the head of this one nail. Whatever faculty, ability and power he had, he turned its whole current into this one channel and cried, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.” Brethren, we have not strength enough for a dozen things. We have not even strength enough for two. What little vigor we have, let us use it all in one direction—let us say, “For me to live is Christ.” You could not have dropped into Paul’s lodging at any time during the two years that he was at Rome before the emperor liberated him, without hearing him preach of the “things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ. Every arrow in his quiver was aimed at the one target and he knew how to hit the white of it each time. “This one thing I do,” he said. His motto was—All for Jesus, and for Jesus only.
This one topic the Apostle brought forward in different ways. When addressing the chief men of the Jews in Rome, observe that he expounded, testified and persuaded. These three methods were necessary among the people of those days and they are the wisest that can be adopted to bring men to Christ even now. We must expound., set forth, explain, make clear the Gospel. We must tell men what the Word of God means in the plainest possible language, for they need to know what it is that the Revelation from Heaven has really declared. The more of true exposition the better! We must also testify. We must bear witness to the effect which the Gospel has had upon our heart and life. The telling out of our personal experience is a means of Grace to our hearers. Paul was known to describe his own conversion. He told the story of how the Lord appeared unto him on the way to Damascus and he did this so often that Luke and others, who were his companions, must have heard it several times. Indeed, it was a tale so worth the telling that none could weary of hearing it!
Paul knew that personal witness-bearing has a great weight upon the minds of men and, therefore, he was not afraid of being accused of egotism, for he knew that he did not preach himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord—and the narrative of his conversion was not intended to honor himself at all, but to glorify that blessed Christ who out of Heaven had spoken to him and called him to be a chosen vessel to bear His Word to the Gentiles. There is much force in such a personal testimony. Oh, that you and I, after having explained the Gospel, may always be able to tell out something from our own experience which will prove it! Men love, when they hear of a medicine, to meet with a case of care and, in the same way, when they hear of religion, they desire to hear from persons like themselves what that religion has done for them. Brethren, we should speak of Jesus in a happy, grateful, earnest manner and commend him as a Savior to our fellow sinners. Yet this was not all, our Apostle was not satisfied simply to expound and testify—his heart was full of love to his countrymen and, therefore, he persuaded them. He entreated, he besought, he implored his hearers to turn to the Lord Jesus
Christ!
As Paul was speaking to Jews, he fetched the arguments of his persuasion from their own Holy Books. I have no doubt that he had spread out on the table before him the Books of Moses and the various rolls of the Prophets. To these he continually referred his Jewish friends. We cannot, this morning, go into that argument, neither is there need, for you are not Israelites and you are already well acquainted with that mode of argument. Paul must have been a master in that
line of things. I think I hear him now explaining to them concerning Jesus as He appeared in Melchisidec—that was a wide subject! Hear him open up to them the justification of Abraham by faith and then the allegory of Sarah and Hagar and the two Covenants. I should have liked to have heard him speak of Isaac and Ishmael, and of Jacob and Esau and the electing love of God as seen in those memorable instances!
With what rapture would Paul speak of the sacrifices, reminding them that, “without shedding of blood there is no remission,” and pointing them to the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than that of Abel! How he would then open up to them the meaning of the daily offerings, the mystery of the Day of Atonement, the sacred teaching of the entering in of the High Priest within the veil! How earnestly would he remind his brethren that the continual repetition of the sacrifices was a sure evidence that they had not made the consciences of the offerers clean from a sense of sin, or they would have ceased to be offered! How heartily would he direct their minds to that one Sacrifice which Jesus presented once and for all when He bowed His head in death! I think I can hear him turning to that memorable passage in Isaiah which so much engaged the attention of the Ethiopian eunuch and, opening up to his audience the Person and suffering of the Lord Jesus who was led as a lamb to the slaughter for our sakes—and for us was stricken, smitten and afflicted.