Actes 28:20

For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.

The chain of Paul

1. A disgraceful monument for his blinded people.

2. An honourable sign for the faithful servant of God.

3. A precious comfort for all who suffer on account of the truth. (K. Gerok.)

The chain and the hope

I. The chain.

1. It was painful to flesh and blood.

2. It involved no disgrace to Paul.

3. It manifested the hatred of the Jews to Christ.

4. While Paul wore it he was saved, as a Roman prisoner, from the murderous intentions of his enemies.

II. The hope. It was--

1. The Scriptural and Christian realisation of the expectation of the Jews.

2. The sustaining motive of his own life.

3. The chief source of comfort to his heart.

Learn:

1. You may have bonds, affliction, poverty, etc.

2. Have you a good hope? (Biblical Museum.)

The chain and the hope

I. The chain. This was the most immediately noticeable thing about the apostle. He was ever conscious of it. He lifted it as he spoke. He refers often to his bonds. As a Roman citizen, he felt the indignity of wearing them. As a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, he rejoiced in them. His chain was a hindrance--

1. To his work among the Jews. He felt obliged to explain why he came to them in fetters. He spoke with great carefulness, and yet with the deepest earnestness, for he well knew that in the eyes of the Jews, let him plead as he would, that chain, and the Roman guard to whom its other end was locked, made a most powerful argument against him and the gospel.

2. To his work as the apostle to the Gentiles. He was here in the centre of the pagan world. He had seen the paganism of Antioch and Ephesus and Athens and Corinth. It had made his heart sink. It is touching to read the effect upon his heavy heart of the coming to him of the little delegation of Christians from Rome. “He thanked God and took courage.” How much underlies here! Paul was reminded that, notwithstanding all obstacles, Christianity had succeeded in planting itself even in Rome. But now, arrived in the capital, how his despondency must have returned upon him. He gained such a view as he had never had of the wealth and power and majesty of the pagan world. And where were the Christian forces to array against this omnipotence of the world? A little hidden Church, and a man with a chain.

II. The hope. Paul reminded his visitors of the Messianic hope.

1. It was the hope of Israel. As he spoke of it to King Agrippa, it was “the hope of the promise of God made to the fathers,” etc. The only difference was that they looked for His first coming, whereas Paul believed that He had come once, and so was looking for His second coming and the completed redemption of Israel.

2. The hope of the world. There is no other hope for a sinful man or a sinful world; but in the Cross is hope. It is the world’s light in darkness.

III. The chain and the hope. Let us not look at the hope apart from the chain, or at the chain apart from the hope.

1. Paul sought to be led by the Spirit. Whithersoever He should direct, the servant of the Lord would go. The Spirit had led him to his chain, which fact gave him a peculiar feeling. His chain was sacred. He was the prisoner of the Lord. The Roman blacksmith had clinched the rivets; but an unseen presence had superintended the work. Was he not, then, in the best possible place to declare his message of hope--in Caesarea, on shipboard, in Rome? He who binds the messenger releases the message, for the Word of the Lord is not bound.

2. It is the hope that makes the chain bearable and serviceable. Paul had proved that a man chained can do as much as he can unchained, if he is the Lord’s prisoner. His chain had not narrowed his influence on shipboard. So soon, at Rome, he was already at work. If he could mot go to others, they could come to him. Thus he was sure of at least one man, day and night, to whom he could hold up Christ as the hope of the Roman as well as the Jew. He improved the opportunity to such purpose that his bonds fell out to the furtherance of the gospel. Blessed bonds, when the Lord had bound him.

3. If we only have the hope of the gospel, and make it our purpose in life to declare it, it will matter very little to us that we are led sometimes to chains. Is it not a privilege if we may lift a chain and testify, “For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain”?

Conclusion:

1. The world is enchained by sin, and doomed to chains of darkness.

2. In Christ is the true hope for men in sin.

3. That sinners in chains may be delivered, Christians must be willing to be in chains. (G. R. Leavitt.)