CPC Special - "Put That on Master Charge" (Philemon) - Dr. Haddon Robinson

3:00 But it's a delight to be here. I am disappointed. I came from Boston to the West Coast filled with all of the propaganda about the warmth and the sunshine. It's as bad here as it is back there, but it's nice to meet you. Have you ever thought about the mail system in the ancient world? I don't think it's one of your great concerns, and it isn't worth thinking about because they didn't have a mail system. Some of the mail was carried by the army, the dispatches from the Roman government, and as the troops went from place to place, they carried the dispatches. And some other mail was carried by the merchants. As they went from city to city to sell, buy their goods, they made a little money on the side by carrying the mail.

3:56 But most of the mail in the ancient world was very, very personal. If you wanted to send a letter to somebody, you found somebody going in the general direction to which you wanted your letter sent. And then you would sit down and write your letter and then prevail upon that person to take the letter with them. And then you sat back and waited. And often after that letter of yours crossed raging seas, robber-infested highways, you felt quite fortunate that your letter reached its destination at all. In our day, we're into email and overnight delivery. Most of us would be very frustrated by a system like that. And yet there were folks who carried the mail for the Apostle Paul. There are folks like Stephanatus and Achaicus and Fortunatus who carried his Corinthian correspondence, Etikicus who carried a letter to the church at Colossae, Epaphroditus who carried a letter to the church at Philippi, and then there was a woman by the name of Phoebe who carried the most important letter Paul ever wrote, the letter he wrote to the church at Rome.

5:13 Most of these people are unheralded heroes of the faith. If it had not been for their faithfulness and dependability in carrying the mail, we might not have had the New Testament as we have it today. But for the most part, we don't notice them. We can hardly pronounce their names, don't expect to remember them. And yet there is one mail carrier in the New Testament that had an entire letter written about him having to be a thief and a runaway slave, but he was also the man who carried Paul's letter to Philemon. The story behind this letter, buried in the back of your New Testament, sitting on the doorstep of the book of Hebrews, seems to be something like this. Philemon was a wealthy landowner in the town of Colossae.

6:08 and sometimes, someplace, he met the leader of the Christian faith, a man by the name of Paul. It was possible that he met him down in Ephesus because Paul had never visited Colossae, and Ephesus was about 125 miles away. But wherever they met, Paul told Philemon the good news about Jesus Christ, and Philemon became a Christian. Philemon was set up a breeze by that newfound faith, and so when he got back to Colossae, he and several others established a church that met in his home. We think of Philemon as a man of wealth for two reasons. One is he had a house large enough to take care of a small congregation, and secondly, he owned slaves.

7:03 We talk about slavery in the first century. we're not talking about slavery as we experienced it in the united states in the 19th century it was very very different but one of the marks of a man or woman who was a person of wealth is that they had slaves servants to do their bidding and one of the slaves in philemon's household was a young man by the name of anesimus now anesimus didn't like being a slave he felt he was pushed to the sidelines when he wanted to be a major player in life and so he decided he'd change his condition and one day when phileban and the family were gone onesimus got into the house and stole everything he'd get his hands on took the jewelry the money or anything else that wasn't tied down put them in his knapsack and he went off to rome reason i think he went to rome was that it was a distant city, 1,500 miles from Colossae.

8:06 It was also the capital city. All of the highways in the nation led to Rome. It was a great throbbing metropolis with strangers crowding its gates. And like any great city, it was a place where human vermin could home and sting in comparative safety. And so I'm sure that if Mesimus thought if he could just get to Rome, he could hide himself, and hide his crimes in the anonymity of the crowd. And he got there. I guess for a while, he had a wild time, women, wine, song, all the attractions that a great city has for a young man from a small country town.

8:51 And then I imagine that one day he's out at the Coliseum. He's watching the chariot races, and he's sitting next to a man who begins to ask him why he came to Rome. Messimus gave him a very evasive answer. He was there to see the sights. He was there to do a little business.

9:14 The man who became a new friend said to him, look, there's a man here in Rome you ought to see. His name is Paul. He's a much-traveled man. the dust of almost every Roman road is on his sandals, and he's an educated man. You could become a scholar just brushing up against him. No, you ought to meet him. Not an easy man to meet. Happens to be under house arrest, but if you would like to meet him, I think I could arrange an appointment.

9:48 We don't know exactly how it happened, but we do know that while Paul was under house arrest in the capital city of Rome, he met Onesimus. And Paul told Onesimus the good news about Jesus. And Onesimus, too, became a Christ follower.

10:08 That's the amazing thing about this story of ours, this good news. It appeals to all kinds of people. The same message that appeals to a scholar sitting in a library at a great university also touches the life of a farmer in the third world country working his field with worn out tools. The same gospel that can touch a woman in society set in San Francisco who deals with their problems going to the bar at the corner of the living room can also touch a young woman slinging drinks in a bar in the downtown part of the city reggie kipling in his poem the ladies said that the colonel's lady and judy o'grady are both very much the same under the skin and that's where this message does its work I mean down deep, under the skin where all of us are pretty much the same under the skin where we have the secrets that we have not even shared with closest friend things that we know that we would hesitate to talk to a psychiatrist about but under the skin that's this good news does its work and it worked in the life of Onesimus.

11:47 When he came to Rome, he was part of the problem, but after he became a Christian, he was part of the solution. When somebody was under house arrest in Rome, he was usually put in the third story of a building and he'd be chained to Roman soldiers 24 hours a day. And Rome provided no amenities. The prisoner was responsible for getting his own food, getting his own clothes. And so I gather that Onesimus must have been a gopher for Paul. Anything he needed, he'd go out in the city, get it, bring it back. And the two of them became very close, as close as a father and a son. I knew one day I can imagine that, and Esmer said, Paul is something I've got to tell you.

12:47 Well, what is it, Onesimus? Well, you see, I come from a town in Asia Minor, a little place called Colossae. Paul says, I know about Colossae. Well, you see, there's a man back in Colossae, his name is Philemon. And Paul says, you know Philemon? I didn't know you knew Philemon. Why? I told that old guy about Jesus Christ. I know Philemon. Look, when you go back, you tell Philemon what's happened to me. I'm sure he'll... Nesma said, wait a minute, Paul. I don't think that Philemon's very interested in seeing me. You see, when I left Colossae, I left in a hurry. Truth is, I robbed him blind. I took everything he had.

13:40 And that's how I financed my trip here. Paul, I spent it all. And you know as well as I do that the law of the Roman government says that if a slave runs away from his master, it could be a capital offense. And Paul, I'd like to go back. I mean, I'd really like to make it right. But when it comes to being crucified for it, I'm not quite sure I'm up to that.

14:10 Paul says, well, you do have to go back. But I tell you what I'll do. I'll write a letter for you to Philemon. And I think when Philemon reads your letter, everything will be all right. And so sitting there under house arrest in Rome, Paul sat down and scribbled this brief letter to his friend. Philemon.

14:38 I'm sure Onesimus put that litter in a very safe place, and then he headed back. I think he got back faster than he had come. He didn't particularly want to go to Colossae to meet Philemon, but he got back. You can imagine him coming up the long road to the house, and Philemon's sitting on the roof, enjoying some breakfast, capturing the morning breeze. and looks up and says, you know, that looks like Onesimus. He's got that same limp, but he wouldn't dare come back. So he goes back to finish his food, and he looks up, and it is. It's Onesimus. And so he leaves the roof, goes down the stairs. He's about to seize Onesimus, about to put him under arrest. And Onesimus says, before you do anything, here's a letter you've got to read.

15:32 I promise you I won't run away, but please read the letter. And so with one eye on Onesimus and another eye on the letter, Philemon begins to read. Paul. You seen Paul Onesimus? Yes, I saw him in Rome, left him a few weeks ago. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus Is Paul in jail again, Onesimus? Yes, he got in trouble down in Jerusalem and pled his case to the Caesar and he's waiting to hear his case Timothy, our brother to Philemon, our dear friend and fellow worker isn't that nice of Paul?

16:27 and to Afia, our sister. I take it that Afia was Mrs. Philevan, and so I can imagine it. Philevan turns and says, Afia, Afia, come out here. There's a letter from Paul. She comes out. She's drying her hands, and suddenly she sees him, and she says, young man, how dare you come back here? What did you do with that brooch that you took? My mother gave it. My grandmother gave it. And Philemon said, honey, we've got to restrain ourselves until we read this letter.

17:06 To Aphia, our sister, and to Archippus, our fellow soldier. I take it that Archie was their son. And to the church that meets in your home. And then Philemon reads down the letter until he comes to what we have as verse 10. And he says, I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. I can imagine Philemon saying, Onesimus, I think Paul thinks you've become a Christian. I didn't think anybody could pull the wool over Paul's eyes. until I know he knows what you've done. I'm not much impressed by these quick conversions.

18:00 Formally, he was useless to you. That's saying the least. But now he has become useful both to you and to me. The name Anesimus means useful. And so Paul's playing on the name. He said, before he wasn't Anesimus to you, but now he is Anesimus. Now he's useful to you and me.

18:24 And I can imagine Philemon saying, well, that remains to be seen. But then he reads down the letter to verse 17. So if you consider me a partner, welcome Anesimus, you would welcome me. And if he's done you any wrong, and he has, or he owes you anything and he does, you charge that to me, to my account. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. So it was out, wasn't it? Paul knew all about what Onesimus had done. Yet he writes to Philemon and says, Philemon, I know he's wronged you.

19:20 I know he's stolen from me, but whatever he owes, you put that on my account. And when I come, I'll pay for everything he has stolen. And that, in part, is an illustration of what's in this good news about Jesus Christ. Because what Paul did for Onesimus in paying a debt that Onesimus could not pay, it's what Jesus Christ does for women and men who put their trust in him. He pays a debt to God and to his holiness that we can't pay. When Nicholas I was the Tsar of Russia, he used to visit his outposts dressed as an ordinary soldier disguised as a captain, a lieutenant.

20:21 He'd give the password and he could inspect his outposts and folks didn't really know who he was. In one of the outposts there was a young man, the son of a friend of the emperor, who was in charge of the funds for that post. It was his task to pay the soldiers, pay for the provisions they used. It was a lonely place and as soldiers have done for centuries, the young man began to gamble. At first he dipped into the funds of his own, but then after a while he began to use some of the funds entrusted to him by the government. He always intended to pay it back, you know. One night he'd get a great winning and he'd be able to pay it back. But then news came from the second section, the secret police of the emperor, that the next day they were going to come to inspect the books of the post.

21:30 a young man went back to his room and he took the books from the shelf and took out a piece of paper and figured out how much he should have had and he took the gold from the safe and then counted out how much he actually had wrote it down and subtracted it was an enormous amount more than he had ever realized more than he could possibly pay. And he knew that when the messengers of the second section came the next day, they'd find what he had done, they'd arrest him, and he and his family would be disgraced. He just couldn't face that. And so he decided that he would take his own life.

22:23 He decided that at midnight it would all be over. So he took a revolver from a drawer of his desk and put it there and then took some vodka from another drawer. He sat drinking and staring at those figures on the page and almost absentmindedly he picked up a pen and he wrote a sentence, a great debt, who can pay? And the answer was nobody. He wished it had been different, but he decided that at midnight he would take his life and put his head down and the vodka, working with his grief, somehow lulled him to sleep. It was during that day that Nicholas had come to visit the outpost.

23:20 In the evening before he retired he noticed a light in the distance and so curious he went and knocked on the door, got no answer, he opened it and looked in and he saw the young soldiers slumped across the desk, saw some gold pieces. So he came behind the soldier and looked at the books and then looked at those figures on the page in that pathetic sentence a great debt who can pay he figured out what had happened he was about to arrest the young man until he realized that the boy was a son of a friend of his and so nicholas picked up the pen on the desk and wrote one word then took a signet ring and stamped it on the page went out into the night an hour passed too a young man awoke when it was past his midnight hour he picked up the revolver determined what he was going to do he'd do quickly and he was about to pull the trigger but he looked down and he saw those figures saw that sentence a great who can pay it and underneath was the name Nicholas.

24:48 He knew that name, and then there was the mark of the signet ring. And he realized somehow, someway, Nicholas had come. And Nicholas had guaranteed his debt. So he put the books back on the shelf, the gold back in the safe, and laid down in the cot and waited for the morning.

25:16 And the next morning, true to his word, Nicholas left to the last gold piece, all that that boy had stolen. One word spoke peace to that young man's aching heart. It was the name Nicholas.

25:37 And when I was growing up in New York City, I didn't know much about God or theology. I knew this, that if God were holy, and even halfway holy, and I had to meet him, I didn't have a ghost of a chance. Somebody told me the good news. and one word spoke peace to my aching heart. It was the name Jesus. As the hymn writer put it, Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left its ugly stain. He washed it white as snow. So what Paul did for Onesimus, what Nicholas I did for that young soldier, Jesus does for every man or woman that comes to put their confidence in him.

26:38 He pays the debt and they are free. As I say, that's half of this good news. But there's even more. I can imagine that after Philemon read the letter, he said to Onesimus, Onesimus, Paul says he'll pay your debt. That's good enough for me. You go on out and get with the slaves, get a good night's rest, and you go out in the field again and it's all over. was Appiah who said, honey, I don't think you read the letter closely. It says there, if you consider me a partner, welcome Onesimus as you would welcome me.

27:26 Honey, if Paul were here, would you send him out to the slave quarters? You know I wouldn't do a a thing like that. Well, it says right there, welcome Onesimus as you would welcome me. Honey, I think that means we are to do for Onesimus what we would have done for our friend Paul. And I can imagine that. I can imagine Apia taking Nesimus up to the guest room, saying, Nesimus, I never thought I'd be showing you this room, but is there anything you'd like for dinner? Nesimus said, I never thought I'd be telling you this, Apia, but I heard about your lamb stew. to try it we don't know exactly how it happened but we do know that something like that did happen and Onesimus was accepted as they would accept their friend Paul over in the book of ephesians in chapter 1 about verse 6 in the king james version there's a little phrase that says we are accepted in the beloved in the New Testament over 140 times when the Bible or when Paul is talking about folks like us who are Christians it says we are in Christ we are in him it is the major way in which the New Testament refers to those who are Christ followers and what it's saying is this that when you became a Christian, you put your trust in Christ, you were not only forgiven, you were accepted in God's beloved.

29:23 And all that God would do for his beloved son, he does for those who put their trust in him. We're accepted in the beloved. It's hard to believe that it was over 50 years ago that I went out to the West Coast to take a bribe. I'd met Bonnie, my, by the way, I wish you could meet her. People who know her think a lot more of me. But I had gotten engaged and I had never met her folks. So I was going out to not only get married but to meet my parents in love. I took a train from Chicago to the west coast and then down the coast to Albany, Oregon. And Bonnie was there to meet me and we drove out to the house on 4th Avenue.

30:26 I remember Bonnie knocked, and Mom Vic opened the door, and Bonnie said, Mother, this is happening. I thought her mother hit her disappointment quite well. She said, Come in, come in, Haddon. Good to see you. We sat, we talked for 15 and 20 minutes, and she said, You must be hungry. I'll go fix you something. And besides, we have a refrigerator filled with food out there in the kitchen. and any time you want something to eat, you just help yourself. I mean, I've been there, what, 20 minutes? I had to run out of the refrigerator.

31:06 And then Mom Vic said, after we had a bite to eat, she said, you know, we have a room downstairs. We think it's the nicest room in the house, especially in the summertime. It's cool, it's dark, wonderful place to sleep. And as long as you're here, that's your room. So I took advantage of it, went down, flopped on the bed. Been there, what, less than an hour. I had the refrigerator, the best room in the house.

31:37 After I had a nap, Bonnie's dad came down, and we met, we talked. And he said to me, you kids are going to need some wheels while you're here, and cars out front, mom, mother, and I don't use it much. But here, you take the keys, and any time you want to go, It's filled with gasoline. You take off. I've been there two hours and I had the refrigerator, the best room, and the family car. You just can't beat that. I've often wondered, though, if I'd gone to Albany, Oregon and I hadn't met Bonnie, I mean, you know, just going through town. I'd go to that big house at 430 West 4th Street. You know, I'd knock and Bonnie's mother would open the door and I'd say, I'm Haddon Robinson. She said, well, so what?

32:30 And I know if I told her I was hungry, she would scrape up a sandwich for me. They were generous people. I don't think I would have gotten inside to that choice bedroom. But if I did, I can imagine Mom Vic saying to Dad Vic, honey, I don't think he's dangerous, but get the constable, get him out of here. What made the difference? Well, the difference was that when I went to Albany, Oregon, The Vicks welcomed me because I was accepted in their beloved. everything they would do for Bonnie, they would do for me.

33:17 Her position in the family became my possession. She was a daughter, I became a son. Her possessions became my possessions, everything that she owned, I owned. Her privileges became my privileges. I was accepted in the Beloved. and that too is part of this good news.

33:44 When you become a Christian, when you come to put your trust in Christ, you are forgiven. I mean, fully, finally, freely, forever, you're forgiven. Something else. You're accepted in God's beloved, and all that God the Father will do for his beloved son, he does for those who put their trust in him. Amen.

34:16 Near. So very near to God. Nearer I cannot be. The love with which God loves his son is God's love for me. Dear, so very dear to God, dearer I cannot be. The love with which God loves his son is God's love for me and for you and you and you when you come to put your trust in him. I tell you, that's good news. And that's the best news.