Acts 28:4 And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom… The natives of Melita, seeing what they did, and ignorant of this prisoner's crime, and with their rough notions of the Divine government of the world, rushed to the conclusion that they were looking on an example of God's vengeance against murder. It was in vain that such a criminal had escaped the waves; a more terrible death was waiting for him. These men misinterpreted natural law into vengeance; yet there is a proneness in man to judge so. We expect that nature will execute the chastisement of the spiritual world. Hence all nature becomes to the imagination leagued against the transgressor. The stars in their courses fight against Sisera. The wall of Siloam falls on guilty men. The sea will not carry the criminal, nor the plank bear him; the viper stings; everything is a minister of wrath. On this conviction nations construct their trial by ordeal. The guilty man's sword would fail in the duel, and the foot would strike and be burnt by the hot ploughshare. Borne idea of this sort lurks in all our minds. We picture to ourselves the specters of the past haunting the nightly bed of the tyrant. We take for granted there is an avenger making life miserable. In the incident of this text, and the opinions expressed, we find the thoughts of vengeance which are cherished by those who do not know the true God. Superstitions are usually akin to truth, and contain within them some measure of truth; but they are exaggerations, fashioned 50.y men's fears, which too often wholly distort and misrepresent the truth. Estimating the superstitious fears and sentiments of these "barbarous people," we note that they were - I. RIGHT IS THEIR OPINION THAT WRONGDOING NEVER ESCAPES PUNISHMENT. Their idea was that Paul was a criminal, guilty of some great crime, and justice was pursuing him; if he had escaped the doom of shipwreck, he could not get away from the avenger, who now struck at him in the viper's bite. Explain the early notion of the blood avenger, and the classical ideas associated with the Furies. It is important that men should have a deep and unquestioning conviction that the guilty never escape; but it does not seem to be absolutely and constantly true so far as this life is concerned. Show the moral and social importance of the assurance that punishment must follow sin, and impress that God's revelation wholly confirms the testimony of natural religion. II. THEY WERE WRONG IN THIS, THAT VENGEANCE IS A MERE THING. They thought of it as a force ever working, blindly indeed, but certainly. If baffled in one way, it set about gaining its end in another. When heathen ignorance is changed to Christian knowledge, we find: 1. That the thing which we had called vengeance is but one of the modes of the Divine working. 2. That mere calamities - the things that we call accidents - are not necessarily Divine vengeance (see our Lord's teaching, Luke 13:1-5). 3. That God's wrath on sin need not find its entire expression in this life, seeing that he has all the ages to work in. This our Lord figuratively expressed when he said, "Fear him who can cast body and soul into hell." 4. That God's avengings, being those of a holy Father, can never rest satisfied in the suffering of the sinful creature, but must go on to secure the creature's redemption from the sin which issues in the suffering. Blind vengeance can rest in the destruction of the criminal. Fatherly love can never rest save in the recovery of the prodigal child. And God alone can be trusted with the avenging work. "Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. |
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