Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Acts 26:30 - 26:30
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Observe here, How Agrippa, Festus, and the whole company, acquit the innocent apostle in their judgments and consciences, yea, with their tongues declare, that he deserves neither death nor bonds; yet at the same time that they acquit him, they discharged him not, but he is left in his enemies' hands, and at last put to death by the Gentiles.
But how, may it be said, was God's promises fulfilled then, I have appeared unto thee, to make thee a minister and a witness, and will deliver thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I now send thee? Act_26:16-17
How did God deliver him from the Gentiles, when he was at last delivered into their hands, and put to death by the Gentiles?
Answer, As long as the wisdom of God saw it fit and convenient for the purposes of his glory, and as a real mercy conducing to the apostle's good; as long as it was a true and beneficial deliverance, so long God wrought deliverance for him; nay, rather than fail, in a miraculous manner, no chains could bind him, no iron gates nor prison walls confine him. But when he had finished his course, run his race, fought the good fight of faith, and done the work which God set him about, it would not then have been a deliverance, but a real detriment, to have been kept longer from his reward.
Now might the apostle say, Give me my robes and my crown. God now made his word good to the apostle, to deliver him from the people and the Gentiles by making death his deliverer and deliverance.
Thus faithful is God in his promises to his people. He will deliver them in six troubles and in seven, in every danger, in every difficulty; but when death is the best deliverance, they shall have it as a covenant-mercy and blessing; for all things are ours, if we be Christ's, whether life or death, 1Co_3:22.