STUDY THEME: TRANSFORMED ATTITUDES 1-13-02
"ENEMY TO ADVOCATE." ACTS 8:1-3, 9:1-30
FOCAL PASSAGES: ACTS 9:1-2, 3-9, 10-16.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO ACTS 9.
The conversion story of the man who is known as the Apostle Paul is the most famous conversion experience in Christian history. Three times Paul repeats the story of his conversion in the book of Acts. These three accounts certify to the importance of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. In addition to this account in Acts 9, Paul spoke this same testimony to the Jerusalem mob that tried to kill him in Acts 22:1-21, and to Herod Agrippa II in Acts 26:1-29. You will want to read other referrals in 1Cor. 15:8-10; Gal. 1:10-17; Phil. 3:4-9; and in 1 Tim.1:12-16. His is the classic tale of the possibility of change, for Jesus changed Paul from his enemy to his advocate.
In order to understand the main character in today’s lesson, let’s go back a few years to the background or formative years of Saul of Tarsus. He tells us in one of his Epistles that he was born there, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamine. Both his father and his mother were Hebrews; there was no mixture in his blood. Timothy was born of Greek and Hebrew parents, but not so Saul. Tarsus, a Greek city,, was the great university city of the time. Saul was named after the first king of Israel. Although he claimed Roman Citizenship, which he inherited from his father, he was also Jewish.
At about fourteen years of age his parents were anxious that he should not pass under the Hellanizing influence of Tarsus; so they did not send him to the university there, but to Jerusalem; and he was brought at the feet of the great Pharisee Rabbi Gamaliel. He received his early religious education from his father and mother, Hebrews, not Saducees, but Pharisees; and then he was sent to Jerusalem to complete that education at the feet of Gamaliel, one of Israel’s greatest teachers of the day. The boy had spent his play-time in a Greek atmosphere, and had gained his earliest impressions there. This man, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee, was also a Hellanist. The godly revered teacher, Gamaliel, was utterly unable to eradicate the poetry and passion of Greece, for Saul had been too long in Tarsus.
With all this in mind, we turn to our story. It gives the account of the apprehension by Christ of the man who was to be His spiritual instrument in carrying His Gospel to those cities under the influence of Greek culture. The choosing of the Holy Spirit is not capricious. Briefly then let us look at the man to be apprehended; at the apprehension itself; and at the man after the apprehension.
There are previous glimpses of the man to be apprehended in the eighth chapter of Acts. He is there seen minding the clothes of the men who are hurling the stones upon Stephen. Acts 8:1-3 says, "And Saul was there, giving approval to his death. But that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the Apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and woman and put them in prison. This persecution was the most severe threat believes had faced to this point in the church’s brief history.
In His closing moment on earth, before Christ ascended back to heaven, he spoke to his apostles in Acts 1:8 and said "—ye shall be witness unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Time had passed but there was no movement of the church to obey this command. Now the persecution dispersed the disciples to the then known world. The apostles remained in Jerusalem.
Let’s back up to Acts 6:8-9 to see that Stephen’s conflict was with the Hellenists, not with the Hebrews. Stephen’s fight was not with Pharisees. Stephen’s fight was with Sadduceeism. Saul probably heard that great defense of Stephen; and all his Pharisaic sympathy would be with Stephen. Saul was not fighting against a strange turmoil of mind, in which mental questions, inquiries, wonderings, amazement, mingled. Yet like some wild animal he made havoc of the church.
Acts 9 begins where Acts 8:3 left off. Saul continued breathing out threatenings and murderous threats, for Saul arrested and imprisoned men and women. Later he said in Acts 22:4, "I persecuted this Way unto the death." And again in Acts 26:10 "When they were put to death, I gave my voice against them." Saul pursued believers from house to house and from city to city. He relentlessly sought them out. He threatened them and made good his threats by imprisoning them, beating them, seeking to make them blaspheme, and voting for their death.
Saul was not content to confine his persecution to Jerusalem and Judea. He heard that there were disciples of Jesus in Damascus, and although it was six day’s journey from Jerusalem, he went to the high priest. He was a man of loyalty—he sought out the permission and approval of the High Priest before he acted. He wanted letters to Damascus to the synagogue giving him authority to bring the followers of the Way bound unto Jerusalem. Damascus was not in the same government district as Jerusalem, but the high priest apparently had been given some authority over synagogues there. Saul could not rest until he had gone to Damascus to continue his persecution against followers of Jesus.
What was Saul seeking to accomplish. He later wrote in Gal.1:13 that he wanted to destroy the church by doing every thing possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Why was Saul filled with such hatred for Jesus and His followers. He was a zealous Pharisee, and the Pharisees were opposing believers after the death of Stephen. The early believers offended the Sadducees by accusing the Sanhedrin of the death of Jesus. For a while, Pharisees such as Gamaliel were content to wait and see what happened; however, the preaching of Stephen aroused Pharisees such as Saul. Stephen attacked not only the veneration of the temple but also the right traditions of the Pharisees. His implication that Christ wanted a worldwide mission also disturbed the Pharisees.
Jesus had predicted in John 16:2 that those who persecuted and killed His followers would think that they were serving God. That was surely true of Saul of Tarsus. He was deeply religious man of great zeal for his religion. He said in Phil. 3:6 that he considered the persecution of Jesus’ disciples to be a mark of his zeal. The followers of Jesus seemed to threaten Saul’s beliefs, and thus he sought to destroy them. In the process he said evil things against Jesus and His followers, and he said in 1 Tim. 1:13 "Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor, and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance."
One of the clear lessons of Vs. 1-2 is the folly and evil of
self-righteousness and pride. Saul was so self-righteous and proud that he did
all these terrible things against the Lord and His people. In his book "Mere
Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote a chapter on "The Great Sin. "There is
one vice of which no man in the world
is free; which every one in the
world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people,
except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves…The essential
vice, the utmost evil, is Pride….it was through Pride that the
devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice: it is the
complete anti-God state of mind."
Saul was an enemy of Christ and the church. Paul the apostle wrote in Romans 5:10 that all sinners are enemies of God, who need to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Some people are vocal opponents of God and the church. Many are not openly hostile, but they are separated from God by their sin---the most deceptive of which is self-righteousness.
Saul was on his way to Damascus in Syria, to do the Will of God---or at least what he thought was God’s will. He had devoted his life to the study of the books of the law. He now saw the followers of Jesus as the number one threat to his faith, and he didn’t care if it was man or woman, if they professed faith in Jesus then he would deal with them and deal with them harshly.
In this passage we have the most famous conversion story in all history. We must try as far as we can to enter into Saul’s mind. When we do we will see that this is not a sudden conversion; but it is a sudden surrender. Something about Stephen lingered in Saul’s mind and would not be banished. How could a bad man die like that? As he persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem he had to ask himself what secret these simple people had which made them face peril and suffering and loss absolutely serene and unafraid.
The journey to Damascus only made matters worse. It was about 140 miles from Jerusalem to Damascus. The journey would be made on foot and would take about a week. Paul’s only companions were the officers of the Sanhedrin, a kind of police force. Because he was a Pharisee, he could have nothing to do with them; so he walked alone; and as he walked he thought, because there was nothing else to do. The way went through Galilee, and Galilee brought this Jesus to mind even more
The tension in his inner being tightened as he came near Damascus. Damascus was one of the oldest cities in the world. Just before Damascus the road climbed Mount Hermon, and down below lay Damascus, a lovely white city in a green plain, "A handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald," so someone had called her.
The first phase in the apprehension of Saul was that of a great light shining round about him out of heaven, above the brightness of the sun. Then came the inquiry. A voice spoke, not in Greek, but in the Hebrew tongue. "Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou Me?" It was a voice out of heaven, out of the light asking him, a man on earth, why he persecuted the One Who spoke. What a strange thing, what a startling thing! "Who art thou Lord?" cried the astounded Saul. Oh, the revolution, the convulsion, the upheaval in the soul of Saul. Then came the most arresting thing. The voice replied: "I am Jesus, Whom thou persecutest." Then there broke upon Saul’s consciousness the great truth that Christ and the church were one.
When the light came, and the voice spoke, prejudices went, and all the antagonism that created the fever heat of his hostility ended. He was in the presence of supremacy, and he admitted it as he said, Lord! Then came the revealing words, "I am Jesus of Nazareth." The Jesus that Saul thought dead was alive. He Jesus that he thought disgraced was at the center of heavenly glory. The Jesus that Saul hated spoke to him in the language of ineffable love. And in that moment the long battle was over and Saul surrendered to Christ.
In Vs. 6 Saul asked, "what wilt thou have me do.Lord" He was then commanded to do one thing and that most simple: "Rise, go into the city and, wait." So into Damascus he went a changed man. And what a change was there! He who had intended to enter Damascus like an avenging fury, was led by the hand into that city, blind and helpless as a child. He who had come armed with official authority to end the Nazarene heresy was led in blind, the blind slave of Jesus Christ.
Those were wonderful days, the three days and night that the blindness continued! We are not surprised to read that he ate and drank nothing. What happened in his thinking. In the Philippian letter he wrote "What things wee gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ." He was finding the balance of things. What things were gain, I counted loss! I think through those three days of blindness and fasting, he was taking stock of thesituation, and every hour there came to him a new consciousness, not of loss, but of gain. Each of us need to take a new audit from time to time of our relationship to Christ. We still need to make a full commitment of our selves to Jesus. Maybe we too should ask, "Lord, what wilt thou have me do?"
In the last verses we left Saul blind and fasting. At the close of the following verses we shall leave him with the scales fallen from his eyes, seeing. We left him speechless. We shall now hear him in the midst of the Jews of Damascus, preaching and proving that Jesus is the Christ.
This paragraph presents us with three pictures. The first is that of Ananias and the Lord Jesus. The second is that of Ananias and his dealings with Saul. The third is that of Saul in the synagogues.
Beyond a doubt Ananias is one of the forgotten heroes if the Christian church. If it be true that the church owes Paul to the prayer of Stephen, it is also true that the church owes Paul to the brotherliness of Ananias. Paul’s reputation had gone before him. Ananias is named as a disciple, and nothing more. He held no official title. He was not an apostle. Yet there came to Ananias the message from God that he must go and help Saul. He is directed to the street that is called "Straight." This was a great street that ran straight from the east to the west in Damascus, and still does.
When that message came to Ananias it must have sounded mad to him. God said to Ananias, "Go and help the man who came here to throw you into prison and who would have liked to murder you." Yet notice that Ananais first words are "Brother Saul." What a welcome was there. It is one of the sublimest examples of Christian love and Christian forgiveness. That is what Christ can do. In Christ Saul and Ananias, the men who had been the bitterest of enemies came together as brothers. What Ananias did to help Saul is found in Vs. 17-18 and in Acts 22: 13-16. Ananias was used to open Saul’s eyes. He then baptized Saul and assured him of the cleansing of his sins. He also delivered to Saul the Lord’s commission to serve Him.
The commission of Saul is found in Vs. 15-16. It focuses on three factors in Saul’s life. For one thing, Saul was a chosen vessel unto the Lord, who had chosen him and now called him to fulfill the divine purpose for his life. Saul’s energies were to be redirected for the cause of the Lord rather than against Him. Second, his mission was to bear the Lord’s name the before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. Saul’s mission to the Gentiles later emerged in Acts 22:21 as his primary mission. Third, he was to learn how great things he must suffer for the Lord’s name’s sake. The one who once was the church’s most vehement persecutor would now be the one who would willingly accept persecution for the sake of the name….In nothing is his conversation more clearly illustrated than in his transformation from persecutor to persecuted.
Paul continually was amazed and grateful about two aspects of the grace of the Lord toward him. For one thing, he was thrilled and motivated by the forgiveness of his great sins; second, he was thankful that the Lord had entrusted to such a sinner the mission of serving Him, by telling others of God’s love. He wrote in 1 Timothy 1: 12-15, "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners---of whom I am the worst."
I hope you have taken time to read Charles (Chuck) Colson’s book, "Born again." He was asked, "How do you se yourself in that—that ambitious, hard driving perfectionist—as having changed in the years since your conversion? He wrote, "God doesn’t give you a whole set of new gifts when he converts you. Paul the zealous persecutor became Paul the zealous propagator of the faith. We’re all like that. God simply redirects our gifts and priorities. My priorities before were power, wealth and fame; today I believe they are knowing and loving God, my relationship with my family, which has become much more meaningful to me, and my desire to serve the Lord.
Many of us might say, "If I saw a light and heard a voice like Saul did I would respond just as he did". I’m not so sure of that, because we have already heard the voice of God. In some way God has called each of us to obedience, to surrender our lives to Him. And yet we have neglected God’s eternal voice that calls out to us.
Once we have heard God’s voice it is up to us to "pay attention"; to respond to that call. To turn our hearts toward God, confess and repent of our sins and accept Jesus Christ into our hearts as Lord and Savior that our lives might be transformed.
NEXT WEEK FROM EXODUS CH. 1 & 2 WE WILL EMPHASIZE THE SANCTITY OF LIFE; FOCUSING ON THE PROBLEM OF ABORTION. A.V. DAUGHERTY 1-13-02.