The Slaying of a Dragon
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It’s one of the first epic tales of old to portray a dragon. The author of the Epic Beowulf is unknown, but its stories have captured the hearts and attention of many through out the centuries. In the book the hero Beowulf finally meets his end when he fights his last battle with a great dragon. Dragons in folklore are said to love treasure especially gold, and they will nest to guard their treasure refusing to part with even one piece of it. In the story there is a slave boy who ventures into the lair and steals a golden chalice. This action awakens the fury of the dragon who then goes and unleashes on the nearby residents of Geatland. Beowulf the warrior decides to track down the dragon and slay it. In the pursing struggle Beowulf is mortally wounded when the dragon bites him in the neck, but Beowulf still manages to sever the head from the dragon.
Here we see in our text the fury and the rage of a man named Saul. When I look at the text I think of this dragon that has been breathing threats and murder against the disciples. Chapter 8 began with Saul ravaging the church dragging men and women out of their houses back to the dungeons of the religious leaders to be devoured one by one.
the bigger the giant the harder the fall, and this beast was thrown from the sky with lightening and a thundering voice, but was given new life and became the greatest missionary the world has ever known responsible for taking the gospel into the furthest reaches of the known world.
This is the case of as Calvin describes it, a wolf turned sheep, turned shepherd.
We must like Saul be given a nature contrary to our own. We each in nature are opposed to the things of God, though perhaps not outright rage like Paul, he was overly zealous of the religious rites of the Jews, but would also go on the to greater things for the kingdom than perhaps anyone ever has, and would also suffer perhaps more than any has as well. These things are proportionate you see. That’s why Christ told Ananias “I will show him how much he must suffer for my names sake”.
So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice,
AND SUFFER HE DID
Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.
The sufferings of Christ and ours are connected. It goes both ways.
We were mortified with Him. This is our source of both great struggle and great encouragement. When the world comes against us it is not us they rage and war against but God.
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
Christ said to Saul, Why are you persecuting me? Paul asks Who are you Lord? The voice he recognizes as distinctly divine, but he does not as of yet recognize Christ, We see a contrast that Ananias was a man of God a follower of Christ because in a vision He speaks to the Lord with familiarity and does not question who He is.
We must each of us every dragon great or small be cut to the heart, slain and crucified to the old self that rages and makes war against God, only then can we be brought into His kingdom and only then can we be in His service to do good for the heavenly kingdom and of use to God.
Like the animated show how to train your dragon we must be converted.
If Paul were to always have followed Christ as one of His disciples perhaps others might have had reason to think that it was just his natural temperament or proper nature, but when as it came about, he was struck down by the great I am.
By the way this reminds me of the time when Christ was being arrested and the soldiers came with lanterns and clubs to take Him and having asked for Him He said I am, what happened they fell backwards at the mention of His name. Those men even the men who were with Paul were not converted as far as we know but Paul was.
Unless the Lord strikes as the heart of stone and melts it like wax we will and cannot ever submit our selves to Him.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people 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 righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
Paul lost it all there at the road to Damascus, Paul gained it all.
CONCLUSION:
DRAGONS ARE REAL: MORDOR IS REAL Not every dragon has been slain
What happened to Nagla al-Imam and her two children? Egyptian citizen al-Imam converted to Christianity. In 2010 a controversial attorney made her conversion public. “In an interview broadcast by Free Christian Voice she described being arrested and beaten by Egyptian security forces for her change of faith. She said an officer took her by the hair and bashed her head against his desk.” She and her children disappeared on July 12, 2010, and have not been seen since. The television station that had helped her was unable to find her and had their offices vandalized by Egyptian security. Friends also reported that they were unable to locate her or her children.
Story of Lee Strobal Chicago Tribune Josh McDowell
Conversion vs adhesion -there needs to be radical change. This once persecutor has now become preacher. He went to Damascus to round up Christians and left Damascus fleeing for his life.
you can be a christian just dont bring it to the public square. DOnt bring it into politic. Just a pinch of incense on the alter.