Footsteps #436. The command was given to take Paul back to his dungeon, and the cover closed above the messenger of God. However, the door of repentance closed forever against the emperor of Rome. Soon Nero was to suffer the retributive judgment of God for both the executions of the Apostle Peter and Paul. 

Not long after executing Paul, Nero sailed on his famous expedition to Greece, where he disgraced himself and his kingdom by contemptible and debasing frivolity. Returning to Rome with great pomp, he surrounded himself with courtiers and engaged in scenes of revolting debauchery. In the midst of this revelry, a voice of tumult was heard in the streets. A messenger was dispatched and returned with the appalling news that Galba, at the head of the army, was marching rapidly upon Rome. The Senate had already declared Nero “an enemy of the state.” The insurrection had already broken out in the city and the streets were filled with an enraged mob, which threatened death to the emperor. 

In his time of peril, Nero, unlike Paul, did not have a compassionate and powerful God on whom to rely. Fearful of the suffering and possible torture, he fled, even afraid to take his own life. His hiding place was soon discovered and as the pursuing horsemen drew near, he summoned a slave to his aid and inflicted on himself a mortal wound. Thus perished the cowardly tyrant (marking the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty) at the early age of 32. AD 68 began the year of the four emperors, beginning with Galba and ending in AD 69 with Vespasian as the new Emperor. Vespasian’s son Titus, (who was the heir apparent), is the one who destroyed Jerusalem in AD70. 

When Nero had ordered Paul to be taken back to his dungeon, he wrote the second letter to Timothy, that no doubt by now you have read. He asked Timothy to come before winter when the shipping lanes would be closed. He asked for his cloak (4:13) because he knew his dungeon would be very cold in winter. Whether Paul got his cloak and scrolls, and whether Timothy got there we do not know. 

During Paul’s final trial before Nero, the emperor had been so strongly impressed with the force of the apostle’s words, that he deferred the decision of the case, neither acquitting nor condemning the accused servant of God. But the emperor’s malice against Paul soon returned. Exasperated by his inability to check the spread of Christianity, even in the imperial household, he determined that as soon as a plausible pretext could be found, the Apostle should be put to death. Because a Roman citizen could not be tortured, he was sentenced to be beheaded. Paul was taken in a private manner to the place of execution and thus ended the life of Paul.