The Lord of the Exit Strategy Text: Acts 22:17-21
Introduction: Divine Interruptions and Marching Orders
We live in an age that prizes personal autonomy above all else. The modern man believes his life is his own story to write, his own path to forge, his own destiny to create. He makes his plans, sets his goals, and expects the world, and sometimes even God, to fall in line. But the Christian life is a life of glorious interruption. It is a life where our neat and tidy plans are frequently and wonderfully upended by the sovereign designs of a God who knows the end from the beginning. The Apostle Paul, standing here on the steps of the Antonia Fortress, is giving his testimony to a bloodthirsty mob, and at the heart of that testimony is a story of a profound, life-altering, divine interruption.
Paul had a plan. After his dramatic conversion on the Damascus road, he eventually returned to Jerusalem. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee, trained at the feet of Gamaliel. His plan, no doubt, was to leverage that resume for the cause of Christ. Who better to persuade the Jews in Jerusalem than the former chief persecutor? He knew their arguments, he knew their mindset, he knew their leadership. It was a perfectly logical, strategic, and reasonable plan. And it was a plan that God intended to shatter completely.
This is a critical lesson for the church in every age. We make our five-year plans, we do our demographic studies, we craft our mission statements, and all of this can be good and wise. But we must always hold our plans with an open hand, ready for the Lord to step in and say, "No, not that way. This way." God is not a consultant we bring in to bless our pre-approved agenda. He is the commanding officer who issues the marching orders. And sometimes, those orders are to leave the very place we think we are most needed, to abandon the strategy that seems most prudent, and to go to a people we might not have chosen. This passage is about the absolute sovereignty of Christ over His mission. He determines the messenger, the message, and, most importantly, the mailing address.
Paul is explaining to his enraged countrymen why he, a loyal Jew, became the apostle to the uncircumcised. He is not making an excuse; he is presenting his credentials. And his credentials are a direct, non-negotiable command from the risen Lord Jesus Christ. This is not Paul's career choice. This is his divine conscription. And in this, we see a foundational principle of all Christian service: our effectiveness is not determined by our personal passions or strategic sensibilities, but by our simple obedience to a sovereign Lord.
The Text
"Now it happened when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I fell into a trance, and I saw Him saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your witness about Me.’ And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves understand that in one synagogue after another I used to imprison and beat those who believed in You. And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was being shed, I also was standing by approving, and guarding the garments of those who were slaying him.’ And He said to me, ‘Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”
(Acts 22:17-21 LSB)
A Vision in the Temple (v. 17-18)
We begin with Paul's account of this pivotal experience.
"Now it happened when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I fell into a trance, and I saw Him saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your witness about Me.’" (Acts 22:17-18)
Notice the setting. Paul is in the temple, praying. This is not the act of a man who has rejected his Jewish heritage. He is in the very heart of Jewish worship, communing with the God of his fathers. It is here, in this place of devout worship, that God gives him a command that will define the rest of his life. God often redirects us not when we are in rebellion, but when we are most earnestly seeking to serve Him.
He falls into a trance, an ecstatic state, and he sees the Lord Jesus. This is a post-ascension appearance of Christ, a direct revelation. And the message is not a gentle suggestion. It is an urgent, immediate command: "Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly." The Greek word for "hurry" implies haste, a sense of emergency. This is not a leisurely relocation; it is an evacuation.
And the reason is given with stark clarity: "because they will not accept your witness about Me." This is a sovereign declaration of judicial reality. The Lord does not say, "Give it a try, and if it doesn't work out, then leave." He states it as a settled fact. The door in Jerusalem is closed to Paul's ministry. This is a hard word. We believe in a gospel that can save anyone, but we also believe in a God who, in His sovereign justice, can and does give people over to the hardness of their own hearts. Jerusalem, the city that killed the prophets and stoned those sent to her, was now, in the mystery of God's providence, being passed over. The light was being moved elsewhere.
This is a direct blow to any man-centered view of evangelism. Our task is to bear witness faithfully. The results are in God's hands. God knew that the very people Paul thought he was uniquely equipped to reach were the very people who would implacably reject his message. God knows the soil. He knows which ground is rock and which is fertile. Our job is not to argue with the divine farmer, but to sow where He tells us to sow.
A Logical Objection (v. 19-20)
Paul, in a moment of stunningly honest dialogue, objects. He argues with the Lord, and his argument makes perfect human sense.
"And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves understand that in one synagogue after another I used to imprison and beat those who believed in You. And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was being shed, I also was standing by approving, and guarding the garments of those who were slaying him.’" (Acts 22:19-20 LSB)
This is not insolence. This is the reasoning of a passionate evangelist. Paul is essentially saying, "Lord, my testimony is tailor-made for this city. My conversion is so dramatic, so public, that it cannot be ignored. They all know who I was. They know I was the tip of the spear in the persecution of the church. When they see me, the chief persecutor, now proclaiming you as the Messiah, surely that will be the most powerful argument possible! My very presence here is a sermon. They saw me hold the coats for Stephen's murderers. My transformation is undeniable proof of Your power."
From a human perspective, Paul's logic is flawless. It is the kind of strategic thinking we would applaud in any missions committee meeting. He is identifying his target audience and leveraging his personal story for maximum impact. He is saying that his resume of sin makes him the perfect candidate for this particular mission field.
But this reveals a subtle danger. We can sometimes believe that the power of the gospel lies in the cleverness of our strategy or the drama of our personal testimony. Paul's testimony was indeed powerful, but its power was not an independent variable. It had power only where God decreed it would have power. God was about to teach Paul that the efficacy of his witness was not located in his backstory, but in the sovereign commission of the one who sent him. God did not need Paul's strategic insights. He required Paul's obedience.
The Sovereign Commission (v. 21)
The Lord's reply is breathtaking in its brevity and its absolute authority. He does not debate Paul. He does not dismantle his argument. He simply overrides it with a command.
"And He said to me, ‘Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’" (Acts 22:21 LSB)
The conversation is over. The command is simply "Go!" The logic is settled by divine authority. "For I will send you." The "I" here is everything. It is the Lord of the harvest who directs His laborers. It is the King who deploys His ambassadors. Paul's argument, as logical as it was, was irrelevant. The determining factor was the will of the sender.
And the destination is specified: "far away to the Gentiles." This was the great mystery that had been hidden for ages but was now revealed, that the Gentiles were to be fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Ephesians 3:6). Paul's mission was not to be a localized effort to persuade his old colleagues in Jerusalem. It was to be a global mission to the nations. God's vision was bigger than Paul's. Paul was looking at one city; God was looking at the world.
This command establishes the central trajectory of the book of Acts and of redemptive history. The gospel is breaking out of its Jewish cradle and is going to the ends of the earth. And it is doing so by divine, sovereign decree. This was not a backup plan because the "Jewish mission" failed. This was the plan all along, prophesied throughout the Old Testament. The Messiah was always intended to be a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6).
It is this word, "Gentiles," that causes the mob to explode in fury just a few verses later. This was the offense. Not just that Paul preached a crucified and risen Messiah, but that this Messiah was for the nations, on equal terms with the Jews. The idea that God's covenant blessings would flow out to the unclean Gentiles was anathema to their nationalistic pride. But God's kingdom is not a tribal religion. It is a global empire, and Christ is its king.
Conclusion: Your Jerusalem and Your Gentiles
This passage forces us to ask some hard questions of ourselves. Where is our Jerusalem? What is the place, the people, the project that we are convinced is the most logical and strategic place for us to serve God? We all have one. It is the mission field we have designed for ourselves, the one that perfectly fits our gifts, our background, and our passions.
And we must be willing to hear the voice of the Lord saying, "Hurry and get out." We must be willing to have our well-laid plans vetoed by a higher authority. Perhaps God is not calling you to the ministry that seems most impressive or most logical. Perhaps He is calling you to a place that is "far away," a people group you feel unequipped for, a task that makes no human sense.
The Christian life is not a democracy where we get to vote on our assignment. It is a monarchy. Christ is Lord, and that means He has the right to send us wherever He pleases. He might send you across the ocean, or He might send you across the street to that neighbor you have been avoiding. He might call you out of a comfortable career into the uncertainties of full-time ministry, or He might call you to be a faithful witness right where you are, in a job you find difficult.
The issue is not the location, but the Lord. The question is not whether our plans make sense to us, but whether we are obeying His commands. Paul's greatness as an apostle was not forged in his strategic brilliance, but in his radical submission to the one who met him on the road and redirected him in the temple. He argued for a moment, but then he obeyed for a lifetime. He went. And because he went, the world was turned upside down.
Our commission is the same. To go where He sends us, to speak what He gives us to say, and to leave the results to Him. For He is the Lord of the harvest, and He is the one who will send us far away, or tell us to stay, all for His glory and the advance of His unconquerable kingdom.