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The Conversion of Saul Acts 9 NASV Pastor Kevin Koop, Cornerstone Bible Church January 10, 2010 Alright, we are going to take a look today at Acts, chapter 9. Really we’re going to take a look at a lot more than just Acts, chapter 9; and I’m gonna take a little bit different approach in our message today. Let me ask a couple of questions to begin with. Have you ever felt really unworthy of God’s love? I mean in a profound way. I think, as we talked about in our Sunday School class, I think we all in our head, when we really think about it and think about who God is and the magnificence of His creation, we can say I’m just not really worthy. But maybe there’s specific times that that is increased when . . . I don’t know about you, but maybe for me it’s when I’ve done something and I feel convicted about it. Anybody identify with me or am I all alone there . . . yeah, whew. And I know that what I’ve done is . . . it’s just not worthy of God putting His trust in me again or trying to use me again ‘cause I can mess up and I will again, and again, and again. And sometimes you just wonder about God’s love. Ever felt like something in your past is so significant that it might keep you from doing what God would have you to do? Like maybe you’ve gone too far for God to really use you, done too many things to be of use for Him. Anybody feel like that? Ever? Really? Yeah, a few. Today as we take a look at this passage and we see the life of Saul, we see the life of a person that we might from the outside think this guy’s gone too far. Okay? Let’s put it in today’s language. December 25, a holiday that we celebrate. It is a cornerstone, one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith. And an airplane flew into Detroit with a terrorist onboard with explosives sewn into his underwear—they’ve been calling him on Fox News the Underwear Bomber—intent on destroying that plane and killing a bunch of people. Why? Because he hates Christianity in America. He is an Islamic extremist. How many of us would expect . . . I mean, what if he were released by the authorities and just turned loose and he showed up in church Sunday morning right here and said I’ve decided to follow Christ. Would we trust it? Huh? Would we want him in children’s church? Would we want a special section for somebody like that? Think about, if you’re a Christian in a middle eastern culture—I don’t know, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, anywhere in those areas—and Osama bin Laden’s been hiding out for nine years or whatever it’s been now, and he shows up in your little church group—‘cause there are Christian churches all over—and says I’ve been converted. Would you want to pat him down? Or want somebody else to? To find out. Why? Because sometimes we have in mind that certain people just . . . we can’t fathom that God can get a hold of some people. I want you to understand, in the day in which we are studying the New Testament church in the book of Acts, that’s what Saul was. That’s who he was. He hated the Christian faith and was bent on destroying it in every way that he could. And then all of a sudden God gets a hold of him. And the Christian church had to be faced with those exact things. They didn’t want to receive him too well either. They were hesitant to trust, except for a person like Barnabas that came alongside and said I know the change; and he brings him in and introduces him to some of the people in the church. You see how hard that might be to accept Saul? Now, the change, the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus that we’re gonna talk about today, is evidently a very, very important part of what Luke is trying to convey. It’s so important, in fact, that in this account, the book of Acts, there are three different accounts of Saul’s conversion. It happens in chapter 9 that we’re gonna take a look at, verses 1 really through 30, through the end of the chapter basically. Also in chapter 22 Paul gives his own account before a Jewish mob that’s against him and opposing him; he tells what God did in his life. And then in Acts 26, verses 2 through 18, Paul gives a defense before King Agrippa and he tells the story of how God changed him. We’ll take a look at portions of each of these. They complement each other and kind of fill in details. One might leave out some part and another one might add that in, and so forth. We’re gonna take a look at some of those. But I want to approach this a little bit different today in that I want you to discover it with me. So I’m gonna ask questions. I’m gonna have you take a look at Scriptures, and I want us to find out what the Scripture is saying in response to these things—not so much from a preaching standpoint or a teaching standpoint, but from a group discovery standpoint. I don’t know how this is gonna work out on the recording because we’ll have people sharing. I’m gonna invite some of you to share some thoughts as we go through this and we’ll see what we can discover. Okay? First of all, turn over to Galatians, chapter 1. We need to find some things out about Saul ahead of time. We’re gonna take a look at Galatians a little bit and Philippians and some things in Acts. Galatians, chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. Paul was writing here and he says: For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. Okay. What does that tell us about Saul? What are some things that you see from those verses about Saul? Okay, he gives it his all. Even before he was a Christian, when he was serving what he figured was God in his Jewish faith, he gave it everything he had then; and when he was converted he gave everything to God as well and he served God wholeheartedly. Okay—very good observation. What else? Yeah, he wanted to wipe it out. He was a violent man. He would use whatever means . . . thinking again of the Islamic extremists, they justify jihad. It’s holy war. It’s justified because of their beliefs, right? What they believe says it’s therefore okay to act in a violent way to destroy anything that stands opposite that. That’s the way Saul was before he became a Christian. Okay? Violent. Wanted to destroy it. What else? (congregational input: ESV says “zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers,” not zealous for God or His ways but for the traditions.) Okay, now are traditions necessarily bad? No. But he was zealous for those traditions. He believed there was substance to them. What did he take stock in? He took stock in the traditions believing that he had it right. Okay? My understanding of God was handed down to me from some pretty wise people, perhaps father, grandfather, and so forth. But also a man named Gamaliel that he sat under who was an influential leader we saw back in chapter 5 who, remember when Peter and John were being accused and put on trial before the Sanhedrin and they were ready . . . they wanted to kill them, and Gamaliel stands up and says hey, guys, remember so-and-so, he had a movement and it fizzled out and then so-and-so had a movement and it fizzled out. If this is really of God we’re gonna be fighting against God, but if it’s not it’s gonna fizzle so let’s leave these guys alone. Evidently, Saul didn’t agree with his mentor—took a different view and said no, this Christian stuff is dangerous. We’ve gotta eradicate it; we’ve gotta wipe it out. Okay? What else do we see from these verses about Saul? He’s a rising star. “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries.” You didn’t become a leader in the Jewish faith just incidentally, and you certainly didn’t do it as a young man. You had to earn the respect of people. You had to do things that you were called upon to do. You had to be faithful in them and trustworthy. And he was attaining that level of trust and authority faster than most his age. Okay? It would have been like an elder in the church at 23. Okay? So he is growing radically in this sense in that Jewish faith and he’s advancing. Okay? Anything else? I like the word “former” in verse 13. For you have heard of my “former” manner of life. I think “former” ought to be an important word in the description of any Christian. We can’t really be . . . how do I put this . . . if there’s nothing former, if there’s nothing that passed away, I wonder what God changed in us. If we can look in the mirror and say, well, I’m just like I was before, not really any difference, are we born again? Is there anything new? I mean, you take a look at a baby that’s in the womb . . . that’s born . . . it’s birth . . . I mean, everything’s different. They were in the dark in the womb, now they’re in the light and they probably don’t like it very much. Everything’s changed. They begin to grow; they begin to develop; they begin to conduct themselves differently; they gain abilities over time. What’s changed since we got “born” spiritually. Hopefully, there’s been some change. Former things. Alright, flip over to Philippians—Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians—chapter 3. Other things about Saul. Here he’s writing to the Philippian church. Philippians 3, verse 4: Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. What do we know about Saul? He was a good Jew—there you go. Anything stand out? What do you think he means by verse 4? What does it mean to put confidence in the flesh? Okay, well-trained—confidence. These are the things that he put his trust in and then he lists them. He says look. If anybody’s got reason to be confident in the flesh, I do. And then he lists his long pedigree, his credentials. And these are things that would have been important and carried clout within a Jewish community. Circumcision on the eighth day—any good Jew’s gonna be circumcised on the eighth day. If that were the only thing he could state about himself, he’d just be one of many; but that was just one of . . . that was the first part. He started off his life right, right at the very beginning. Okay? Of the national of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews. What does that mean, I wonder. As to the law I was a Pharisee. I understood the law; I knew the law; I obeyed the law. Look at this one—as to righteousness, verse 6, which is in the law, I was what? (Input: blameless) What does that mean? Without fault. In what regard? (Input: obeyed the rules) How many rules? All of them. He probably knew exactly how many there were. I don’t remember . . . two! Love God and love others, right? No, he not only knew them, but he would keep track. I followed the law here; I obeyed the law here; I did what the law said here. You can’t find fault with me. You can’t pick up the book of Moses, the Law of Moses, and point your finger at me. Do you think it’s hard for people like that to get saved? Why? They put their confidence in their flesh, their own ability to measure up. What do I need somebody to die for me for? I’m pretty righteous on my own. Okay? I noticed something this morning. We were talking about Isaiah, chapter 6; and Dana read Isaiah, chapter 6 and he says: In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. And all these different things. And then later it says that he was undone. There was a point that we didn’t make in that discussion that kind of started it all off, and I believe it was in the year that Uzziah died. Uzziah was a king that had power, might, economic success. The nation succeeded under him and when that died, all of a sudden what he trusted in was gone and he looked to the Lord. Saul had to come to the end of himself, too. It wasn’t until he understood that his righteousness wasn’t enough that he could look to Christ to find righteousness that he needed. Okay? Sometimes it takes us a long way to go to get there because we have so much confidence in the flesh or we’re just plain good people. I think sometimes kids that grow up in the church and you know the Scriptures and you understand the Scriptures and that’s a very good thing; but sometimes you can do these things so much that it almost hinders you feeling a need for your own personal Savior. You’ve got to come to the end of yourself and realize that you can’t do it. Acts 22, flip back to Acts 22, verses 3 and 4. Paul says: I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today. I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons. Okay, what do we learn about Saul there? What does it mean when he says I was a Jew born in Tarsus? We talked a little bit about certain Jews. We talked about the Hellenistic Jews—remember there was the native born Jews that were born in Jerusalem and they kind of . . . like if there was a turf war they would say, you know, this is mine. I’ve got my place; I’ve always been here; my house has been handed down; and so forth. But then there were the Jews that were born outside. They’re still practicing Jews; they’re still Jews by nationality, but they’re raised in a different culture. That was Saul. He was raised in Tarsus of Cilicia. Okay? But he had all the training. Who do you think he would have identified with then around the Jewish area? Do you think he would have maybe identified later on with some of the Christians who were Hellenized Christians. They were raised outside but wanting to be a part of this Jewish faith. They would probably have an identity with them because he was raised in the same way. Okay? So he’s a Hellenistic Jew. What else do we see? We mentioned the teaching under Gamaliel—strict teaching of the law. At this point in time he’s being accused by the Jews. There’s a mob of Jews that are coming against him and he’s, like, hey, wait a minute. I’ve been as zealous as you ever were. He’s identifying with his accusers at that point in time. And he’s not necessarily saying that their zealousness is bad. “Persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons”—why would that be significant? Anybody? That’s definitely in his former life. Identifying with them. They’re trying to put him, persecute him, arrest him, stop him; and he’s identifying with them. But he’s even going further, I think, in saying I not only arrested men but I arrested women as well—I saw the whole thing as a threat. It’s not . . . in fact, when we look at Philip in chapter 8, Philip the evangelist, and he traveled and God used him mightily. Later on we’ll see Philip and he has four daughters who are prophetesses, the Scripture says. They prophesy, they preach. Saul recognized that it wasn’t just men in this Christian faith, the Way, that were influential or dangerous; it was women, too. And he wasn’t gonna restrict his attack just upon men. If it were just a Jewish faith or a Jewish sect, well, it’s only gonna have men that rise up; but in this Christian stuff there’s women that are influential. And we’ve gotta put stop to all of it. He says I went even further than you guys. I was willing to arrest women as well to put a stop to what they were doing. Okay, flip over a couple of chapters to chapter 26 of Acts—verse 4: So then, all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem; since they have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion. [Then skip down to verse 9, 9 through 11] So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme [What does that mean? To deny their faith. To deny that Jesus is the Messiah. I tried to get them to deny who He was and to deny their faith in Him.]; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities. Okay. So you got this guy. He sees this . . . I mean, think about the movement of the Christian church. This Jesus they had crucified, they thought had ended this movement. Jesus is dead. He’s in the grave. It’s all gonna fizzle out. And then all of a sudden these people that were His followers stop being afraid for some reason. Because, all of a sudden, Jesus is alive and they see Him alive. And if He can live than who can threaten me? If death can’t hold Jesus, then I want to follow this Guy. And they get more courage than they’ve ever had. Then the Holy Spirit pours out on them and 3,000 people get saved. Then Peter and John start performing miracles and healing lame people. And this movement gets bigger and it gets bigger and it gets bigger. And then they care for each other. The love of the believers is distinct from every place else. I mean, you see some of these things that Saul was saying about himself and it’s almost like he’s stepping on somebody else to climb the ladder. I’m rising above the peers around. But in this Christian faith it’s different. In this Christian faith they take care of each other’s needs. If there’s a need they’ll sell their property so they can meet that need. And there’s a unity that grows in there. And even when there’s problems and something’s manifest, they figure out how to fix it so they can provide for the needs, not only of those right there in Jerusalem, but those that are a little bit further away. They can make sure that they get taken care of. And he’s watching this. He’s watching the change, the transformation. And then Stephen comes on the scene and he’s having great effect and the church is continuing to grow. They scattered the church out of Jerusalem. In fact, it tells us that only the Apostles stayed there. So you’d think, if Jerusalem is the center of the Jewish faith and if Saul is zealous for the Jewish faith and protecting its turf, then you’d think he’d be rejoicing and saying, “We won! We kicked ‘em out. We sent them on their way. They’re not here anymore.” But then he starts getting word that over in Samaria they’re having revival. And in the outlying areas they’re having revival. And now, what we’re gonna have here, he’s going to Damascus. Why do you think he would go to Damascus—in chapter 9? Well, because a lot of the Christians, because of his persecution, were fleeing; and a lot of them went to Damascus. In fact, it will tell us that there were synagogues— plural. There were more than one in Syria. This is a foreign country, but there’s a growth that’s taking place. It’s not stopping this; and he sees this Way, the Christian faith, as such a threat to Judaism that’s it’s not enough to eradicate it from Jerusalem. I’m gonna go to other places and wipe it out, too. But that’s weird. It’s weird in that why would he have authority to go to a place like that? The passage will tell us that he had letters from the chief priests to go there. But this is a foreign country! How can he do that? Any thoughts? How can letters from chief priests mean anything in a foreign area? What do you think? Any ideas? Well, the Jews are living there, too; but what gives Saul the right to go into a foreign city and arrest people? Okay, it’s a synagogue. There’s a separation between religious authority, church authority, synagogue authority, Jewish authority, and governmental authority. How do you think Saul saw the difference? Which is greater? Yeah! It doesn’t matter where you are, if you claim to be a Jew, these are the laws. And I’m gonna enforce these laws and the priests are the ones who give authority, and they’ve given me the authority to come all the way over here, and I’m gonna drag you back. Evidently, the governments didn’t have any restrictions on extradition. (Input: And they probably recognized him as a Roman citizen so he could travel fairly freely.) Okay, he was a Roman citizen; but, I mean, to just go in and take somebody, extradite them, arrest them, take them back. (Input: Didn’t the Roman government recognize that there was a separation there, too? And as long as it didn’t enter into the sedition of the government.) Rome was pluralistic. They were willing to have different people have their religious faith and they weren’t gonna overstep their bounds—separation of church and state . . . oh, that’s our nation—sorry. But it’s the same kind of thing. They’re not gonna interfere in a church matter, a religious matter. And so he’s got this authority and he goes there. “I thought to myself, I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth”—verse 9. What does that say about Saul? When it says “had to”? Yeah, he felt obligated. If what I’ve been taught is right, if the Scriptures are right, if this is God’s way of establishing a church and order and all these things, then I must defend it. Is that any different than an extremist today? Really? Hmm. “I had to”—he felt obligated, furiously enraged, verse 11. I felt obligated, I was doing this thing; but he’s emotionally involved in it as well. When you really believe something, can you help being emotionally involved in it? I mean, when God does something in your life, what does it do to your emotions? You can’t help but be emotionally involved. When you see a threat to what you believe, don’t your emotions just rise up from within? And you want to defend? Right? How many of you guys saw the Fox News deal this week with Brit Hume. Okay, round table discussion—they’re talking about Tiger Woods. You guys know about Tiger Woods and all the stuff that’s been going on in his life, all the revelations that have taken place—and Brit Hume makes a statement: if I had to say one thing, one word of advice to Tiger Woods, it would be this, you need to turn to the Christian faith because Christianity offers something that Buddhism does not offer, forgiveness and cleansing in Christ Jesus. Boy did that stir up a commotion and get people upset. People are writing in. Fair and balanced? What kind of talk is that? Get that religion off the air. And he’s getting hammered by people. But he’s willing to take a stand because he believes it. But people that are of another faith, or of no faith at all, are like, hey, wait a minute, that’s an affront to me. That’s an attack on me. I don’t want to hear that stuff. Why? Their emotions rose up trying to defend against the onslaught of this Christian faith in a secular world and on a news station of all things. How dare you! You guys should look it up on YouTube. Go to YouTube and search Brit Hume and O’Reilly, because he got on the O’Reilly Factor and talked about this a little bit longer after that and it was a great testimony. He talked about how, if Tiger Woods would just come to find Jesus and talked about true conversion, what a change would take place in his life—what God can do. And he said the Christian faith is the only thing that offers that. That’s a great promise. What he had isn’t enough. Alright, Acts, chapter 9, verses 1 and 2: Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. So why was he going to Damascus? To arrest the Christians. And what was the term that he used to describe the Christians? The Way— think that’s significant? I think it’s a pretty good name. Jesus said, “I am the Way.” The Old Testament over and over and over again, God spoke through the prophets saying you need to turn away from your ways and follow My ways. The Way. How far is Damascus from Jerusalem? Got a map at the back of your Bible? About 120 miles, some have said 140—right in that range. That’s a long walk, right? By the roads . . . there’s a road system that would connect from Jerusalem up through Damascus and then down around to Mesopotamia, because that’s the fertile crescent—nobody wanted to travel through the dessert. And so they would travel up and around and there was a . . . also it connected up through the coastal ways and up and around into Celicia and some of the other countries there. If Christianity flourishes in Damascus, it’s a crossroads. And he, I believe, thinks if I can stamp it out there, I’ll keep it from spreading to all of these other places. He sees it as a crucial juncture, a place that we gotta stop this. So he goes there to Damascus, 120 miles . . . the roadways I heard, at least by some of the commentaries that I read, that the road distance would have been closer to 200 miles, ‘cause it’s not straight, it’s not gonna be as the crow flies. Okay? Verse 3: As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him . . . Look at 22, verse 6 as well, ‘cause it describes the same thing: But it happened that as I was on my way, approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me. What time of day was it? Okay—middle of the day. Verse 4 and 5, back in Acts 9: . . . and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. What did the Voice ask him? What did the Voice . . . he heard a voice? “Why are you persecuting Me?” What does that say about the church and its relation to Jesus Christ? Yeah, we read all the things that he was doing, what he was intent on doing, what he was trying to do, and Jesus said “why are you persecuting Me?” When you take a stand for your faith, Jesus takes personal offense. He counts it as against Him. Do you thing you can trust Him to protect you, to defend you and to stand . . . to cover you , to just protect you from what anybody would want to do against you. There’s nothing anybody can do to you that God does not take notice, ‘cause you belong to Him. You’re in Him. He takes very seriously His bride, His church, the Body. Okay? Why are you persecuting Me? And then Saul says, “Who are you?” He says, “I am Jesus, the one you’re persecuting.” All of a sudden, all of Saul’s authority pales, doesn’t it? Why? What does it matter that it’s Jesus? 'Cause Jesus was dead! He was in the grave! And now He’s talkin’! If he’s got authority over death, it counts a little bit more than the authority and the letters I got from the priests. Hello? And he realizes he’s fighting against God. Now, remember I mentioned Gamaliel said don’t battle against these people. If it’s not of God, it’ll fizzle, but if it is of God you’ll find yourself fighting against God. And I wonder if those words came right back to Saul at this moment. I told you! Don’t be fighting against these people, ‘cause you’ll be fighting against God. And now God, Jesus, is saying I’m alive and what you’re doing, you’re doing to Me. And he found out he really was fighting against God. Now, that goes against everything that he believed about what he was doing. He was sincerely wanting to serve God and desirous of serving God, and he was sincerely wrong in every part of it. Now, if God can get a hold of somebody like him, what about somebody in your life that’s not walking with God and you care about them? Is God able to get a hold of them? Even if they’re resistant and they don’t want to hear it from you. How many sermons had Saul heard already? He had probably heard Stephen and it didn’t get through to him even though many others got saved because of Stephen’s preaching. But he was set in his ways. His mindset was fixed and he knew what was right and so he’s not gonna buy into that stuff. He heard about Philip and he heard about all these things going on with Peter and John. But I’m not gonna submit to that; I’m not gonna turn around. But God can get his attention and He can get the attention of those that we love, too. And what changes does it make? Well, now, no longer am I gonna persecute the church. He seems to get saved right here on the spot. In fact, in chapter 26, verse 14—I want you to look at this verse, because in Saul’s testimony he adds another phrase. He says: when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” What’s a goad? Cattle prod, sharp stick. How is it used? Okay, poke them with a sharp stick. How hard would you have to poke ‘em? Pretty hard. They’re pretty dense aren’t they? That’s why we use electricity now—‘cause it gives more power and gets ‘em going in the right direction. Why would God say to Saul, “it is hard for you to kick against the goads”? What do you think that meant to Saul? Anybody? The word “hard” where it says “it is hard for you to kick against the goads”—it means rough and it means dangerous. It’s dangerous to kick against the goads? What would the goads be in Saul’s life up to this point? Okay, Stephen’s testimony. I believe God, by His Holy Spirit, had been trying to bring Saul to a place of conviction and He used things like that. He used the testimony of the Christians and how they lived amongst each other and how different it was, how unique it was. Goads—what other goads would have been in his life? How would God have been trying to bring him around? Because the purpose, from one of the other Scriptures that we read, was to get them to—what? Blaspheme, deny their faith, turn away. He would be willing to not arrest them, not try them, not vote for them to be killed if they would recant or deny their faith and turn away. Why? Because that’s the goal. The goal isn’t to kill people—that’s just one method to get them or one threat to use to get them to deny their faith. So that’s the goal. And when they wouldn’t do it what do you think that spoke to him? (Input: In the ESV it says “raging fury.” You read from the NAS “enraged fury.” I mean, he was really spitting—having a tough time anyway.) And yet that was probably the Holy Spirit speaking to him saying, Saul, there’s something more to this than you understand. Question: What were the goads in your life before you came to know Christ? Anybody? What were the things going on that God was speaking to you that you were fighting against—you didn’t want to hear? Anybody? Conviction, you felt inside yourself the law of God written upon your heart, your conscience fighting against you, you’re doing things you know are wrong, and you felt convicted about it. Okay. God uses that. That’s a goad. What else? (Input: Pride) Explain—what do you mean. (Well, I don’t want to be wrong, I want to be right!) Yeah, that’s a sharp pointy stick. In order to come to Christ there’s gotta be a surrender of pride, a surrender of what I trust in. Alright? What I have is not good enough. There’s a pride issue. Okay—what else? Anybody? (Input: For me it was just a willingness to let go of all that stuff and turn my eyes on Jesus . . . I knew what I was doing was wrong.) Okay, from your testimony—and I’ve heard it on a few different occasions before—there was one specific thing that really got your attention—your daughter. What did she say to you? (Input: She said, “I don’t know who this Jesus person is you’re talking about.”) How old was she? (She was three.) She was three and she said I don’t know who this Jesus is. God used her as a goad in your life to say, hey, look, you’re not raising your child right. Right? You’re not teaching your child to know who Jesus is. And that was a goad that got you moving and back into church, because it was a responsibility. You knew that I’ve got to teach my kids about Jesus. A goad. Okay—what else? (Input: Scripture. I’d been raised in the church and its traditions and Scripture bothered me when it suddenly started saying what I’d been brought up to believe was wrong.) Do you think that affected Saul? Yeah, he knew a lot of Scripture and all of a sudden it’s got new meaning. If Jesus really is the Messiah, I’ve understood a lot of things wrong. Okay? Scripture—that’s an interesting one because . . . this morning Annette went to wake up Janea and she woke up and she said, “Mom! In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. John 1:1” That’s their memory verse for this morning that they had to learn. Okay? Isn’t that awesome? Great way for your daughter to wake up. I think it’s awesome. Sometimes we will see in our kids—we’ve sown in, we’ve sown in, we’ve sown in, we’ve poured the Word in, and then we may see that they begin to go their own direction for a period of time. What do we stand on? Train up a child in the way that they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it. Sometimes we’ve gotta hang on to that because we’ve sown the word in but we don’t see them walking where we think they ought to walk and we’ve got to trust that that Word, as Dawn says, is gonna come back and become meaningful. I believe God used a lot of things in Saul’s life. Think about the change in Saul. What happened after this? I don’t want to take the time to go through and read the whole thing this morning, but what happened to Saul? The very next thing Saul says is “What would you have me do?” Now it’s not recorded in Acts, chapter 9; but in Acts, chapter 22, it is. I think that’s significant. There are in the . . . some of the early manuscripts, the earliest manuscripts, it is recorded in chapter 9, but somewhere over the years the copyists that were copying down new ones must have left it off and then it got left off on subsequent things—so it’s not in there. But in chapter 22—if I can find it—verse 9. Verse 9 says: And those who were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me. And I said, “What shall I do, Lord?” Up until then there was no question. Up until then he’s, like, I know what I should do. Now there’s a question and there’s submission. If we’re gonna have a change, a true change, I think that’s a beginning point. It’s a revelation of who He is. He shines Light. And then it’s a submission to that—what would you have me do? Do you think that we only go through that once? Why not? I only want to have to get knocked down to my knees or on my face one time. Why do I gotta keep getting knocked down again and again and again? Sin—didn’t learn my lesson—carnal nature. There was a verse—I don’t know if it was in Sunday School—Isaiah. Flip over to Isaiah 6. I thought about this as you were reading it. And I’m gonna close with this. Isaiah 6, verse 7—Isaiah’s in the presence of the Lord and it says this angel . . . he touched my mouth with it . . . Let me read verse 6 as well: Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.” What’s the difference between iniquity and sin? Any idea? (Input: What you think versus what you do?) Close. Sin is the act of violating God’s law. Do you know what iniquity is? It’s the tendency toward disobedience. It’s the bent within me. The natural drive toward rebellion against God is what iniquity is. He said, behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away; your sin is forgiven. Not only forgiven for the sins you’ve committed, but I’ve cleansed you of the iniquity—the bent toward sin. I find that amazing. Now what can do that? In this passage, you see that Isaiah recognized his shortcomings. He was undone before God. He’s in the presence of a Holy God he doesn’t fit, and he realizes he’s out of place. What can we do to clean ourself up so that we can then be okay in God’s presence? And the answer is absolutely nothing. It has to be an outside act. God has to do it. Saul could hear the preaching of Stephen, Philip, and perhaps Peter and John in Jerusalem over and over again; but if God didn’t open up his eyes, he wasn’t gonna see. God had to intervene. And the reality is some of you might be thinking, well, I’ve never had that dramatic experience. Yes, you have if you got saved, because you came to a place in your life where God opened up Heaven and showed you your need for a Savior. He shined the Light. Now, it may not have been a physical thing dropping you to your knees in the noonday sun, and it may not have been a voice that others around you could hear and not understand, but God did something absolutely supernatural in your life to bring you into Jesus Christ or you wouldn’t be in Christ. And we sang that song “Indescribable”—the magnificence of God, and yet that same magnificent God called your name. He called you out. He took notice of you and opened your eyes so that you could come to Christ, so that you could repent of your sin and say, Lord, what would you have me do? That’s an act of God. I hear so many people say, well, I’ve never seen God move. I hear Christians say that. The most powerful thing God can do is to open your eyes. And as He does, it changes who you are—not just what you’ve done and the forgiveness. I like that part. But even my tendency toward, He forgets. I think we can be thankful for God in that. Amen? Let’s pray: God, there’s a lot of things we didn’t get into and cover this morning about the change, the transformation that You created—what Saul immediately began to do after this. I believe we’re called to that, too. But more than that, I think sometimes we just need to realize that You’re a God who has worked in us. There was a time when we can look and we felt conviction of Your Holy Spirit, when we knew that we needed a Savior, and You opened our eyes so that we could come to faith. And You poured out grace into our life, saving grace, changing grace, transformational grace. We were born again because of Your act, an act from the outside. Saul had done all these righteous things; it wasn’t enough. You had to touch him; You had to open his eyes. Father God, we’re thankful that You’ve done that in us. And if there’s anybody here that hasn’t been born again—maybe there’s a prod going on right now, a goad, that’s drawing them to Christ. I pray that they would come to their senses. I pray that their eyes would be opened, that You would touch them, that You would forgive them, that they would repent of the way they’ve always lived and they would ask “what would You have me do?” And You’d change us. God, I pray that You would have Your way in us as a church. Help us to have great fellowship today as we break and we visit over dinner and as we make decisions about budget stuff. More than anything I pray that we’d have Isaiah 6 experiences, Damascus Road experiences, changing experiences, so that we can become what You want us to be. I ask You for that in the name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen. ###