Trial at Caesarea
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of sedition and treasonable conduct. The governor would not gratify
them by unjustly condemning a Roman citizen, neither would he give
him up to them to be put to death without a fair trial. Yet Felix knew
no higher motive than self-interest, and he was controlled by love of
praise and a desire for promotion. Fear of offending the Jews held him
back from doing full justice to a man whom he knew to be innocent.
He therefore decided to suspend the trial until Lysias should be present,
saying, “When Lysias the chief captain shall come down, I will know
the uttermost of your matter.”
The apostle remained a prisoner, but Felix commanded the centu-
rion who had been appointed to keep Paul, “to let him have liberty,”
and to “forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him.”
It was not long after this that Felix and his wife, Drusilla, sent
for Paul in order that in a private interview they might hear from him
“concerning the faith in Christ.” They were willing and even eager to
listen to these new truths—truths which they might never hear again
and which, if rejected, would prove a swift witness against them in the
day of God.
Paul regarded this as a God-given opportunity, and faithfully he
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improved it. He knew that he stood in the presence of one who had
power to put him to death or to set him free; yet he did not address
Felix and Drusilla with praise or flattery. He knew that his words
would be to them a savor of life or of death, and, forgetting all selfish
considerations, he sought to arouse them to a sense of their peril.
The apostle realized that the gospel had a claim upon whoever
might listen to his words; that one day they would stand either among
the pure and holy around the great white throne, or with those to whom
Christ would say, “Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.”
Matthew
7:23
. He knew that he must meet every one of his hearers before the
tribunal of heaven and must there render an account, not only for all
that he had said and done, but for the motive and spirit of his words
and deeds.
So violent and cruel had been the course of Felix that few had ever
before dared even to intimate to him that his character and conduct
were not faultless. But Paul had no fear of man. He plainly declared
his faith in Christ, and the reasons for that faith, and was thus led to
speak particularly of those virtues essential to Christian character, but
of which the haughty pair before him were so strikingly destitute.