Acts 21:13-14 Then Paul answered, What mean you to weep and to break my heart? for I am ready not to be bound only… I. COURAGE is, in some senses, a natural gift. No timid man by any effort of will can make himself physically brave. Men differ in their sensibility to pain. Great men — men whose career was singularly bold as politicians — have been found incapable of bearing an operation: they bare died with a wound unprobed. It was not cowardice: it was nervous temperament. There have been soldiers who lacked physical courage; they have had to lash themselves to a battle by the bare sense of duty or by the less noble dread of disgrace. We ought to respect tenfold a man who has triumphed over such obstacles. I respect even more the man who recanted his true creed to avoid the fire, and then in the death which at last he faced held his right hand separately in the flame as though to punish its weakness, than the readier and more instant resolution of his brave fellow martyrs, who "rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame" for truth. Paul said, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." And yet when did Paul ever shrink from danger? What a catalogue is that in 2 Corinthians 11. If Paul was not made for courage, at least he had learned it. And how learned it? The secret is told in a few words of the text. We have all heard of the strength which a weak woman will put forth in saving a loved child from flood or fire; of the bravery with which a wife will encounter perils for a husband, when his life or his honour is jeopardised. Such examples are not instances of changes of character: but they show the force of circumstances in raising character above its common level. Yet suppose now that this transforming cause were constant in its operation: would that love which has wrought wonders under sudden impulse be less powerful, if the demand upon it were perpetual? Love is stronger than death, than the fear of death, than the present sense of any pain however depressing or however agonising. Just such was that motive which St. Paul here indicates — that motive of which his life was the result — when he speaks of being ready to be bound and to die "for the name of the Lord Jesus." "The love of Christ constrained him." We are not called, in these calm easy days, to feats of bodily courage, but to moral courage. And where is it? Where, amongst us, is that ability to stand alone, to face an adverse world for the love of the Lord Jesus? Alas! in this aspect the brave are cowards, the strong weak, and the great little. We had rather "follow a multitude to do evil," than bear a taunting reproach or a disdainful smile. II. The apostle was brave, and therefore the disciples were SUBMISSIVE. "The will of the Lord be done." The words might be read either as a prayer or as an acquiescence. And it is only they who can use them as the one, who can rightly utter them as the other. It is a very common ejaculation, when all efforts are vain, "God's will be done." So speaks the mourner, when all hope of restoration has fled; the bankrupt, when his last card is played; the convicted criminal, when sin is found out. But in these cases it is not a prayer at all It means only, "Woe is me! for I am undone." Therefore let us try to pray the words. We have them in the Lord's Prayer. But who honestly wishes that God's will should be entirely done in him and by him? The same is a perfect man. What? No place left for that crooked practice, for that perverse temper, that pastime which I so much enjoyed, for that sin which I so much loved? No; I did not mean that: I did not quite wish that! Therefore out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thine own prayer — that prayer which thou hast said ten times this one day — condemns thee and finds thee out. Resignation is no virtue except so far as it is the product of obedience. (Dean Vaughan.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. |
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