trembled but did not repent. The Apostle was left bound two years while greedy Felix, with itching palms, waited in vain for ransom money.1- While Paul had friends who “ would have plucked out their own eyes, and have given them to him” (Gal. 4 :15 ), he would not allow them to indulge a dis honest kindness. Between the time Paul spent imprisoned in Caesarea and the additional months he was held in chains in Rome, at least four long years crawled by. Yet, it was these years which proved to be the most fruitful and long-lasting. Six Epistles: Gala tians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, II Tim othy and Philemon found their way out o f a Roman prison to bless the world. Confronting the Carnal and ttaekslidden Difficult and dangerous as it was to confront a stone-hard pagan world from without, this was not so heart-breaking as to find carnality and back sliding in some o f the very churches that his per sonal labors had fathered. Paul could preach to the lost and offer the Water o f Life with a glad heart, but to those who had tasted, who had drunk o f saving Grace, who turned back to the wilderness from which they had escaped to become entrapped in sins and be led astray by false teachers, he could only grieve and “ travail in birth again” (Gal. 4 :19 ). Carnal Corinthians and gullible Galatians were the worst offenders. The first was guilty o f moral wrongs13 and factional fights,14 the second o f re verting to past errors.13 From his persecutors, Paul could take “ forty stripes save one” and men tion it only in passing, but where there was dis sension in the ranks o f his beloved brethren, a stepping-off the Rock into the quick sands o f de ception, this not only struck a sword o f sorrow to his heart, but twisted the blade in the wound. Confronting a Pagan W orld Today No less today than in the days o f the great Apostle do we face an increasingly pagan world o f religion, vested interests, intellectual snobbery, corrupt government and unchristian church-mem bers who stray lustfully after “ Baalam” or who are attracted to clouds which hold no rain and shadows which contain no substance. Neverthe less, like this Apostle to an empire, “ Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not” (Gal. 6 :19 ). R eferences: 1. (Luke 2:7) 8. (I Corinthians 1:23) 9. (Acts 17:18, Phillips) 10. (Acts 17:32) 11. (I Corinthians 4:10) 12. (Acts 24:25-27) 13. (I Corinthians 5:1) 14. (I Corinthians 3:1 -3) 15. (Galatians 3:1-3) Hale H. Means is Minister of Visitation at the First Bap tist Church, Long Beach. pjg] SEPTEM BER, 1969 2. (Galatians 6:11, Phillips) 3. (II Corinthians 12:7-8) 4. (Acts 19:19) 5. (Acts 16:16-24) 6. (Acts 19:24-29) 7. (I Corinthians 6:10)
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