READ: Acts 21:8-14
“Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I AM READY NOT TO BE BOUND ONLY, BUT ALSO TO DIE at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” – Acts 21:13
Most ministers today would consider going to prison as a kind of curse. In our society, it would be the lowest place to fall to. In fact, it would be almost impossible to direct any of us to prison. We would do anything to avoid prison.
But not so with Paul. He declared, “I am ready to go to prison in Jerusalem.” He knew that when he got to Jerusalem, he would not be staying at the Sheraton Hotel but he would be in prison. Even though prison is an evil thing, he went towards it and embraced it because that is what God wanted.
It would interest you to know that Paul wrote most of his letters while in prison. Two thousand years after the death of Paul, the churches he planted no longer exist. However, the letters he wrote from prison are being used over and over again. It is quite clear that it was when he was finally in prison that he began to bear eternal fruit.
Going around preaching and planting churches is a good thing. We would choose it above going to prison. But God wanted Paul to stop planting churches and to go to prison to testify of Jesus from there. God may want you to do something that hitherto you have labelled evil, bad or wrong!
Brothers, the wisdom of God cannot be compared to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All knowledge is found in God but not all knowledge is found in the [tree of the] knowledge of good and evil. “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).