Pentecost—The New Church: The Birth of the New Testament Church: Saul to Paul: Psychotic Break, Psychological Delusion, OR Divine Revelation of Grace? Damascus Conversion

Sunday November 17, 2024

Pentecost: The New Church Series

Review

In review, last week we looked at

Philip and the Ethiopian. Acts 8: 26-40; Isaiah 53

We return to our study of Philip and the Ethiopian which becomes for us a perfect model of the presentation of the Gospel. The Ethiopian was being prepared by the Holy Spirit. He is positive towards God’s word already, and is being convicted to understand that He hasn’t put the pieces together. He is open to instruction and input, so God sends Philip to meet him.

Let’s reread the account as it has been a few weeks since we have done that.

Acts 8:26-38

Acts 8:26–38 NKJV

26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” 34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” 37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” 38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.

The Judgment of the Servant for the People. Isaiah 53:4-12; Acts 8:34-40

The thing that we should not lose track of in this study is that this is ultimately about an evangelistic ministry, that of Philip, and we see a critical facet in the church age, which is the role of God, the Holy Spirit. But even though God, the Holy Spirit, has a role and is the one who guides, directs, and oversees the process, it is not at the expense of or apart from human responsibility.

Philip is responsible for following the Holy Spirit's leadership, going from Jerusalem to Gaza, talking with the Ethiopian eunuch, and helping him understand what he is reading.

Because the conversion of Saul of Tarsus will be such a contrast in Acts 9. We should note the comparison and contrast here between the mindset of the Ethiopian eunuch and Saul of Tarsus.

The Ethiopian here is overtly positive to the Word of God. He is reading Isaiah and wants to know what it means.

He has a well-grounded frame of reference for understanding the Old Testament and the background in light of all the sacrifices and feasts, etc., in terms of that framework for understanding the basic message of the Old Testament. Even though it is unclear in his head, he wants to know the truth.

By contrast, we will see Saul of Tarsus as the prime persecutor of Christianity. With a misguided zeal, it will take the confrontation of Jesus Himself expressed in His divinity on the road to Damascus to stop him in his tracks and both figuratively, and literally to open his eyes to HaMoshiach, the Messiah of Israel.

If we were to spend time talking to the Ethiopian eunuch the day before he met Philip, what kind of person would he have been in terms of his openness and interest in the Word of God?

And what about the Saul of Tarsus as an unbeliever? He had arguably the most extensive understanding of the Old Testament at that time and was probably his generation's most rabbinical student. And yet, he is extremely hostile to Christianity.

The Ethiopians were not hostile.

We must think about this because we often talk to someone we know. If they put up their defenses as Saul of Tarsus would, we might flippantly write them off as negative and not going to turn around.

How many of us would have thought before Jesus appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus that he would even lighten up on his hostility to Christians?

Probably too often, we run into people in our lives who are that way, and we retreat too much and back off, and it is easy for us to be dismissive in our self justification, in thinking that they’re just negative and not interested.

How do we know there will not be a point when they will change? It is going to take years for some of them. We may be one person in a stream of fifty, sixty, or seventy who gives that person the gospel.

It may be that you are the person who needs to have a relationship with that person, become their friend, and get to know them, not just as a target for evangelism but also understanding that it may take the rest of your life to explain the gospel to that person before they finally respond.

We usually don’t think of witnessing that way, and too often, the evangelical community and too many Christians have adopted a drive-by evangelism approach. Most of the time, that is not effective.

The idea of substitutionary payment of a legal penalty is foreign to our culture today. To them, it sounds unjust. If they say it is unfair that somebody could take the penalty for somebody else, what have they just done?

They have imposed their view of justice upon God. And so, as we explain the gospel to them, we ought to figure out a way to expose that. As we think about that, we need to lay a foundation.

Where would we start?

Well, the Ethiopian had been prepared as any observant Jewish person was able to be.

Genesis 22, where God tells Abraham to take his son, his only son, to Mount Moriah and there to sacrifice him to God.

God never intended for Abraham to kill Isaac. How do we know that? Very simply because God had told Abraham that it would be through Isaac that he would have descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky and the sands of the sea.

So obviously, God intended to give Abraham an innumerable number of descendants through Isaac. But He wanted to test Abraham to see if Abraham had finally got to the point where he trusted God.

What happened when Abraham took out his knife to sacrifice Isaac?

There was a ram caught in the bushes that was to be offered instead of Isaac. That was the substitute.

Then go from there to the whole principle of substitutionary sacrifice, then the principle of the Passover and the substitution of the lamb’s blood on the door for the firstborn's life, and from there to the day of atonement.

Walk through this concept showing that the Bible from the beginning affirms the principle of a substitutionary payment because the person guilty of ever fulfilling that kind of payment would redeem them. They can only be condemned. Laying the principle out there sometimes contradicts everything the unbeliever has come to understand. But every circumstance is different.

In this circumstance, we have this Ethiopian who is, for all practical purposes, Jewish in his thinking and acceptance of the Old Testament, but he hasn’t put everything together yet. He has been reading Isaiah 53 and has been confronted with this substitutionary terminology, talking about this servant of God:

So let/s pick back up on Isaiah, where we have the Romans Road of salvation expressed. The Ethiopian and Philip did not need Romans, which was obviously not written yet, since Paul has not been saved yet, let alone been taught by the Lord or sent out as an Apostle writing epistles to the churches he has founded.

Isaiah focuses on the substitutionary work of the prophesied servant.

Let’s return to Isaiah, where this is being addressed, by the focus on the servant’s vicarious suffering for the sins of others.

It starts in this verse which we have studied at some length already:

Isaiah 53:4

Isaiah 53:4 NKJV

4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.

Three central statements are made. The first two in 53:4a represent the speakers’ present understanding of the Servant while the third factor in 53:4b explains a former misunderstanding of the Servant’s afflictions.

The reality is that everything He endured—being pierced and crushed and punished—was in payment for our transgressions, and our healing and well-being came at the price of His wounds

The idea of the substitutionary work continues in the next verse

Isaiah 53:5

Isaiah 53:5 NKJV

5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

Every single one of us—all but Him—have strayed far from God’s path and gone our own way, yet the Lord laid the guilt and iniquity of all of us on Him

The reason He needs to die for our transgressions is revealed in the next verse:

Isaiah 53:6

Isaiah 53:6 NKJV

6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

So we see that the penalty for sin is necessary, but is laid on Him; He, the servant of Isaiah 53 is the one who pays that penalty.

Strikingly, as this Servant is being afflicted and attacked, He neither defends Himself nor protests, just as a lamb goes to slaughter

His response to bearing that penalty:

Isaiah 53:7

Isaiah 53:7 NKJV

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

The opening statement of oppression and judgment is probably a Hebrew idiom related to His arrest and judgment.

Then we have the second

Isaiah 53:7 NKJV

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

This is the section that is quoted in Acts chapter eight.

Acts 8:32 NKJV

32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

Isaiah 53:7 NKJV

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

What does it mean that He was oppressed and afflicted? This is extremely difficult to translate from the Hebrew. There is a lot of debate over what some of these terms mean and how they are to be expressed. The LXX translation, which is what is quoted in Acts 8, is a little bit different, and it is helpful to look at it to understand the gist of what is being said in the original Hebrew because the LXX version seems to summarize the meaning of Isaiah 53:7 without giving a direct translation of it. The word used in the LXX for “lamb” is AMNOS [ἀμνὸς], which is only used four times in the New Testament. It is an important word. Notice the passages where it is used.

When Jesus comes down to the Jordan, where John the Baptist is baptizing, (John 1:19) we read

John 1:19

John 1:19 NKJV

19 Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

The next day, John says the same thing.

John 1:36

John 1:36 NKJV

36 And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!”

So, two references are in John chapter one, identifying Jesus as the Lamb of God. Acts 8:32 is the third use; 1 Peter 1:18, 19 is the fourth use, that

“you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, {the blood} of Christ.”

This is a direct reference to the Passover lamb, which had to be qualified to be used as a sacrifice. It had to be evaluated and watched to ensure it was without spots or blemishes. So Jesus is identified by this phraseology, which uniquely identifies Him with the Old Testament sacrifice.

And Jesus does not protest the unjustness of His condemnation. Not once.

Isaiah 53:8

Isaiah 53:8 NKJV

8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.

This is also a difficult passage to translate from the Hebrew. The issue is how to punctuate the line,

“who will declare His generation?”

(NKJV). Is that in the sentence, or should that be re-translated as “Who will declare to His generation?” Corrected translation:

“Yet who of His generation considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke {was due?}”

The blow/stroke was due to “my people.” They are guilty; they are the ones who were to receive the penalty, but instead, it falls upon the servant.

Translation in the Tanakh: (The second line has a note in the margin which says: “This is extremely difficult, we are not sure what this means.”) That is the difficult Hebrew phrase there.

Isaiah 53:8 NKJV

8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.

“Who can describe His דּוֹר֖ DOR.” Does it use “generation”? There is a problem with understanding the Hebrew word dor.

But notice how the Rabbis translate the last two lines in the Tanakh: “For he was cut off from the land of the living through [not for] the sin of my people…”

The Hebrew preposition is the preposition of substitution; it is for, not through. “…who deserve the punishment.” When they get to that last “who deserve the punishment,” they get the substitutionary idea they try to avoid by using “through.”

The main idea is in the ESV (English Standard Version):

Isaiah 53:8 ESV

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

In other words, who among His contemporaries realized what was going on? He was being cut off and executed “for the transgression of my people.” This is the best translation seen so far.

Both His death and burial were ignominious, even though He Himself was guiltless, committing no violence and speaking no deceit

He was not guilty of any sin or any crime whatsoever.

Returning to verse 8:

“…For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke {was due?}”

It is clear there that the servant is distinct from the people. The servant is the one who is struck and who pays the penalty “for the transgressions of my people.” We don’t see how it can be argued that the servant is just another term for the people in light of that verse 9 and verse 10.

Isaiah 53:9

Isaiah 53:9 NKJV

9 And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

Isaiah 53:10

Isaiah 53:10 NKJV

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

So the servant's life is made an offering for sin.

“… He [God] will see {His} offspring, He will prolong {His} days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.”

But all this happened by the explicit will of God, who crushed Him in order that the Servant would make His own life a guilt offering (אָשָׁם֙—ASAM) so that He would see future generations (lit. seed, offspring), His life would be extended (= resurrection), and He would succeed in doing God’s work

Isaiah 53:11

Isaiah 53:11 NKJV

11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.

That is the doctrine of propitiation. God's righteousness and justice are satisfied by the sacrifice, the sin offering of the servant on the cross.

“… By His knowledge …”

By learning about the servant.

“…the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As [for] He will bear their iniquities.”

He carries that penalty in His body—substitutionary.

the Lord Himself declares, His righteous Servant will make many righteous, having also carried their iniquities

Isaiah 53:12

Isaiah 53:12 NKJV

12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

Indicating His ultimate victory over those who have unjustly condemned Him.

“… Because He poured out Himself to death.”

This isn’t just suffering. One of the views is that the suffering isn’t fatal. This is just a picture of the suffering of the Jewish people of the time. But this doesn’t fly.

“… And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.”

The last phrase indicates His high-priestly role in place of or as a substitute for the transgressors.

The 1985 Tanakh: “Assuredly, I will give him the many as his portion, he shall receive the multitude as his spoil, for he exposed himself to death, and he was numbered among the sinners; whereas he bore the guilt of the many, and made intercession for sinners.”

Even in the Tanakh, they cannot escape the substitutionary aspect of what the servant would do for the sinners.

Back to Acts chapter eight:

Many times, when the New Testament quotes one or two verses from a passage, it alludes to the entire passage, not just those one or two verses. That would be the case here. The Ethiopian asks a specific question about to whom this passage is piqued, but Philip would have explained the entire passage to him.

In the first part of Isaiah 53:8, “He was taken from prison and from judgment,”

is handled in the LXX as a summary of His humiliation and not receiving justice. There is a perversion of justice that took place. It refers to His arrest and trial, summarized in the LXX as a humiliation because justice was perverted then. It does not translate it word for word but expresses the idea in the Masoretic Text. Then, “And who will declare his generation, for his life is taken from the earth.” In the original, it says, “he was cut off from the land of the living,” so the LXX interprets that as His physical death.

Acts 8:34

Acts 8:34 NKJV

34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?”

As we have seen through this study of Isaiah 53 it cannot refer to any other person in history.

Acts 8:35

Acts 8:35 NKJV

35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.

It doesn’t say this was the only Scripture he talked about—“beginning from this Scripture.” He “preached,” which means he is giving the gospel, proclaiming Jesus to him.

Then we see a result.

Acts 8:36

Acts 8:36 NKJV

36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

There’s no indication here of what the Ethiopian said. We see the result of his response. We don’t know how he learned about baptism. Did he see Christians baptized in Jerusalem, or did Philip explain this to him? The summary of Philip’s conversation leaves a lot out, but we understand it because we see its results.

Some have tried to communicate that baptism is not for today. The largest group that has done this is known as ultra-dispensationalists. Dispensationalists are those who believe that God administers history in different ways in different periods of time. Charles Ryrie pointed out that what makes one a dispensationalist were three things: A literal interpretation of Scripture, a distinction between God’s plan for Israel and God’s plan for the church; everything in God’s plan is ultimately related to the glorification of God.

Early dispensationalists in the 19th century tried to put the beginning of the church age in Acts 10.

Others put it later on when Paul first began to go out in Acts 13 to take the gospel to the Gentiles; others came along and said the church age didn’t begin until the close of Acts or AD 70.

But what makes the difference between legal and grace dispensation under the law is baptism by means of the Holy Spirit.

That is Acts chapter two.

Even though it is in a transition period, you can’t come along and say there were some features this way and some that way, so the church doesn’t begin until sometime later in Acts. That was the argument of the hyper-dispensationalists and the ultra-dispensationalists, and they concluded that baptism only had significance concerning the Jews.

If that was true, then why was Paul baptizing Corinthians? Paul said he wasn’t baptizing because the Corinthians were abusing it. He didn’t say he didn’t baptize anybody because baptism is out. At the same time, he wrote that he was in Ephesus, and in Acts chapter nineteen, all of a sudden, there were these disciples of John the Baptist who had been baptized by John the Baptist and understood his message of repentance (Old Testament salvation).

Now Paul asks, “Were you baptized in the name of Jesus?” He explains the gospel to them and then baptizes them in the name of Jesus—that is the issue. That identification with Jesus is a picture of identification with Christ in the baptism by means of the Holy Spirit.

The next verse is probably not in the original:

Acts 8:37

Acts 8:37 NKJV

37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

We don’t find that language anywhere else (If you believe it wholeheartedly). That implies that if you don’t believe with all your heart, you aren’t saved and can have a half-hearted belief. That just doesn’t fit with anything else in Scripture, and it is only in a few MSS traced to one geographical area.

Neither the Critical Text nor the Majority Text includes this verse. Scholars universally recognize that it was inserted late in the manuscript tradition and is not part of the original text, just based on its textual history.

Acts 8:39

Acts 8:39 NKJV

39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.

Does this mean that the Holy Spirit told Philip it was time to leave, or is there a supernatural transportation that takes place here? We tend to think it was supernatural transportation because of the suddenness of the vocabulary and the narrative here. The verb is harpazo [αρπαζω], which doesn’t necessarily mean a supernatural snatching away but is used that way. It primarily means making off with someone else’s property by attacking or seizing it. But it is also used to remove something, gain control of something, snatch something, and take it away.

This is the word used for the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.

1 Thessalonians 4:17

1 Thessalonians 4:17 NKJV

17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

It is used 13 times in the New Testament. When Jerome translated the New Testament into Latin, he chose rapio as the verb, where we get our word “rapture.”

There are seven “raptures” in Scripture: the rapture of Enoch, the rapture of Elijah, Isaiah (Is. 6), Jesus going to be with the Father in heaven, Philip getting harpazo’d from the road to Gaza to Ashdod, and Paul (2 Corinthians 12), the church at the end of the church age.

Acts 8:40

Acts 8:40 NKJV

40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.

So here we see the inclusion of a black Gentile, but he is not considered a full Gentile because the text treats Cornelius in Acts 10 as the first Gentile convert to the church. The Ethiopian was a proselyte to Judaism.

Sunday November 24, 2024

Pentecost: The New Church Series

Review

In review, last week we looked over Isaiah 53 again. This time, stepping from Isaiah 53:4-12 that deals with the judgement of the suffering servant. The text tells us that He takes the vicarious judgement of sin upon Himself as a substitute providing atonement for the people. We’ve done a fair amount of work to sort through Isaiah 52 and 53, giving you background, understanding of some of the vocabulary, showing that the major theme is provision for sin and not any number of other theories which we have shown just don’t hold water.

I have one more issue that I’d like to bring up that we should take up and consider while having thought through Isaiah 53 in such detail.

That is ...

The Problem of Matthew 8:14-17

Matthew 8:14–17 NKJV

14 Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 15 So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them. 16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.”

It turns out that this is the Charistmatic proof text for their teaching that the crucifixion of Christ provides for healing today.

More to the point, they believe that we can ask for or perform healing today for the same reason.

Let’s look through the details related to this passage and the passage quoted:

ISSUE OF THE NOUNS IN ISAIAH 53:4 (Quoted in Matthew 8:17)

Matthew 8:17 NKJV

17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.”

Matthew seems to take them as physical sicknesses, etc

Matthew 8:17 KJV 1900

17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

• KJV translation takes them as non-physical (griefs & sorrows).

Matthew 8:17 NASB95

17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”

• NASV takes them as non-physical (griefs & sorrows) but puts the physical terminology in the margin as a possibility.

• The Hebrew words are chali (griefs in KJV) and mak'ov (sorrows).

• Chali has the usual connotation of "physical sickness" although it is used metaphorically in such passages as Hosea 5:13 and Isa. 5:13.

• Mak'ov rarely refers to physical pain but usually carries the idea of mental pain or distress.

ISSUE OF THE VERBS IN ISAIAH 53:4

Isaiah 53:4 NKJV

4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.

o The first verb is nasah which means "to lift up." This can then refer to the "bearing" of something [which in this context would lean toward a vicarious nature of what is borne along] or to the "taking" of something [which could be taken as identification without any association of substitution]. In the OT, both of these ideas are used evenly to translate the word. Rarely does the word imply a vicariousness with respect to guilt.

o The second verb saval means "to carry a heavy load." Usually, the term does not imply the idea of "vicariousness."

ISSUE OF THE NOUNS IN MATTHEW 8:17

Matthew 8:17 NKJV

17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.”

o The word for infirmities (ἀσθένεια, astheneia) according to BDAG carries the following ideas in various contexts:

1. A state of debilitating illness, sickness, or disease

2. Incapacity for something or an experience of limitation, weakness, or frailty

3. Lack of confidence or feeling of inadequacy

o The word for diseases (νόσος, nosos) carries the idea either of a physical malady or a moral malady.

o The context is clearly the physical healing of people by sickness and/or demons.

WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING THE PASSAGE AS A WHOLE (see Erickson, Christian Theology, II, p. 837):

o The reference in Isaiah is to a vicarious bearing of our sicknesses. Matthew interprets Isaiah's statement literally and sees its fulfillment in Christ's work on the cross. (Charismatic)

o The reference in Isaiah is to a vicarious bearing of figurative sicknesses (our sins). Matthew interprets literally what was intended figuratively by Isaiah. What Matthew has done is to apply to Jesus' healing ministry an Old Testament passage concerning his bearing our sins. (Traditional approach) Another way to say this is perhaps to view the usage of the terms to be a figure of speech, in particular, as Bullinger notes, the figure of speech called Accomodatio (Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, 787). So, Matthew is actually making an application rather than giving us the meaning of the Isaiah passage.

o Both Isaiah and Matthew are thinking of actual physical illnesses. In this respect both references are understood literally. In each case, however, what is in view is not a vicarious bearing of our sicknesses, a taking away of disease. Rather, what is in view is an empathy with our illnesses, a sharing in our hardships. There is a figurative element--but it has nothing to do with Christ's bearing our diseases, not the diseases themselves. (Erickson)

Concluding Thoughts of Matthew 8:14-17 and Isaiah 53:4

o It seems to me that the death of Christ and His resurrection are the basis for full salvation and restoration of all things, including human health. After all, Christ’s work is the basis for the ultimate elimination of the curse which came about because of mankind’s sin. The elimination of the curse begins with the eternal state (Rev. 21-22).

o However, this should not be taken to mean that God guarantees healing in this life (if we have enough faith, etc.). I can have hope that God will eventually heal me entirely when I am glorified at my personal resurrection. At this point all sickness and sin will be removed forever in my person. God does heal in this life, and we can surely pray for it for our loved ones and ourselves. However, there is no basis for a “name it and claim it” approach to healing.

o Jesus died directly for our sins, not our sicknesses or infirmities. Diseases and weaknesses are merely symptoms of the problem.

o The example of Jesus’ healing ministry reveals what the ultimate destiny of believers will be relative to perfect health (Rev 21:4 ).

Revelation 21:4 NKJV

4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

o Jesus’ healing ministry authenticated his identity as the Messiah of Israel and the world (Matt. 11:1-6 ).

Matthew 11:1–6 NKJV

1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples, that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. 2 And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples 3 and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” 4 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: 5 The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 6 And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

Believers should be cautious about the idea of exorcism based on Matthew 8:17

According to Matthew 4:23-24 as well as passages like 8:17, exorcism is considered a “healing.” So, it would be inconsistent to say that there are no faith healers today and still practice exorcism (which I take to be more than simply praying for the elimination of strong demonic force in a person).

Matthew 4:23–24 NKJV

23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. 24 Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them.

Saul to Paul: Psychotic Break, Psychological Delusion, OR Divine Revelation of Grace? Acts 9:1

This section is biographical in many ways, and it is very important because Luke describes the story of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus three times in Acts. It is described as a third-person narrative here in Acts 9; it is described two more times in the first-person perspective as the apostle Paul relates it first to the mob in Jerusalem in Acts 22 and then later in Acts 26 as he gives his testimony to Herod Agrippa.

For these events to be recorded three times in Acts and then again in Galatians and Philippians, and alluded to in a couple of places in 2 Corinthians, tells us how important the Holy Spirit views this episode. This isn’t just a story. But it is foundational to understanding some critical elements of grace—grace versus legalism, and it is vital for understanding the power of God in transforming the thinking and then the life of an individual as we see this radical transformation that takes place in the person of Saul of Tarsus. It is important for us to understand the supernatural and miraculous nature of his conversion, and the revelation that God gives him becomes the foundation for much of the doctrinal teaching of the New Testament. And consequently, what we see in anything important is that it becomes the target of significant assaults and attacks from those who are opposed to Christianity. This comes from different sources, and ultimately, they try to give this a naturalistic interpretation.

We have to remember that from the unbelieving viewpoint, there is no God. That is the basic assumption of theological liberalism, no matter what they claim. The bottom line is that they have a God who does not enter into and act in space-time history. He is either a disconnected God or He is an impotent God, and he views everything that way so that whatever happens in history is always from the vantage point of a naturalistic worldview that, by definition, excludes the kind of supernatural interference in history that the Bible presents. Therefore, when the modern unbeliever reads this, he discounts it immediately. Within that nanosecond of hearing and discussing the story, he immediately discounts it as this can’t be true. By definition, because he has never seen anything like this, God doesn’t do anything like this in anybody’s life today; therefore, it is just a story, a myth, something that somebody dreamed up in order to promote his own religious views and it has no foundation in objective reality or objective fact. So, there is an attempt to completely reinterpret this in terms of psychological narrative.

This episode with Saul fits perfectly within the thesis and the purpose of the book of Acts. There is the expansion by the Holy Spirit, beginning in Jerusalem, then Judea, Samaria, and then to the uttermost part of the earth. And it is this episode in Acts chapter nine when Saul of Tarsus is converted and becomes the apostle Paul is given a commission by the Lord Jesus Christ to take the gospel, not to the Jews—Peter is the apostle to the Jews—but to the Gentiles. It is Peter who takes the gospel to the first Gentile, Cornelius, but it is Paul who will exploit that in his three missionary journeys and then his fourth, which is his journey to Rome.

End of 1st Service 11/24/2024

Beginning of 2nd Service 11/24/2024

Many times in “doctrinal churches” or teaching churches, we don’t spend a lot of time on biography, and yet if we look at the Bible, the vast majority of the Bible is narrative, the story of people’s lives and how God works in people’s lives. We see doctrine put into shoe leather, and it has worked out in history. That is very important because the doctrine that we believe, the teaching we believe, isn’t just some abstract theological system. It is not a philosophy; it is not just principles of life. It is the reality of God’s creation and how this is to be part of our life. We are to live consistently with that because this is the warp and woof of reality. So we can’t separate doctrine from history, from individual’s lives, and specific events. Suppose we do that and cut the doctrine and separate it from the historical events in and through which it is revealed. In that case, it becomes nothing more than an academic exercise, a philosophical system, and it is no different from Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, or any other philosophical system. That is one thing that makes Judeo-Christianity, going back to the Old Testament, so different. God reveals Himself in and through history. So, we can’t divorce history from doctrine. We have to understand doctrine within the historical context. History has no meaning in Islam or in Greek philosophy; it is only the Bible that gives meaning to history, and so as our lives are history written within the framework of large history, if history is irrelevant, our life is irrelevant. The Bible gives meaning and value to every individual’s life, first because we were created in the image and likeness of God, and second because history is divinely guided and has a God-intended purpose.

Political correctness is the suicide weapon that Western civilization has chosen. Political correctness is destroying and will destroy (if it is not stopped) Western civilization because it is a mask that we have chosen to put on to avoid looking at reality as it is. Political correctness has redefined many issues in life so that we can’t do certain things or talk about certain things because if we do, it is going to offend somebody. And one of the tremendous social sins today is that we may do something that offends someone. Sorry, but anything we do is bound to offend somebody, and the Word of God and the cross of Christ are offensive to a large segment of people in this world.

This is the same thing—going back into Acts 9—that we see in the misinterpretations of Christianity, i.e. there is no such thing as a real absolute. That is one of the dividing points between a biblical worldview or divine viewpoint and human viewpoint. Human viewpoint says that man is the center of everything and that man determines ultimate reality. Divine viewpoint says that God determines ultimate reality and everything operates according to His manual of instruction, and His manual is based on the fact that He is the creator of all things. Anyone who is not worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us, is an idolater to the greatest degree.

Understanding the life of Paul centered on this event is very important, and sadly, many Christians, many young people, are never exposed to the biography of Paul in Scripture. All of these doctrines taught in Scripture are grounded in what happens in the life of Paul as God revealed it to him.

We are introduced in Acts 9:1 to Saul

Acts 9:1

Acts 9:1 NASB “Now Saul …”

Acts 9:1 NKJV

1 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest

Luke has been talking about what happened in the expansion of the gospel and to the Ethiopian eunuch. There had been a persecution in Jerusalem, and so the disciples were scattered. But in their scattering, they were evangelizing. This is caused by the persecution spearheaded in many ways by Saul of Tarsus.

So 9:1 is just picking up where that narrative left off.

Acts 9:1 NKJV

1 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest

“… still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest.”

He asks for letters from him to the synagogue at Damascus. This was his authorization to go outside the province of Judea into what is now Syria to seek out and arrest anyone who was a Christian—those who were “of the way.” They are not called Christians yet. That comes later.

Acts 9:2

Acts 9:2 NKJV

2 and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Acts 7:58, the occasion of the stoning of Stephen.

Acts 7:58

Acts 7:58 NKJV

58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Saul is called a young man here. The term “young man” would be applied up to the age of thirty, so we know that he is no older than thirty and probably not younger than twenty.

Acts 8:1

Acts 8:1 NKJV

1 Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

He was in full approval. This gives insight into his character and his belief system. He is one of the strongest advocates for Pharisaical Judaism at this time. This is a picture of a man who is passionate about what he believes, a picture of a man who is so committed to what he believes that when there is a challenge to that belief system, he is willing to take the initiative to physically persecute, assault, arrest and execute for blasphemy those who opposed him. As a result, 8:1

Acts 8:1–3 NKJV

1 Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. 3 As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

If the crucifixion of Christ occurred in AD 33, then this event took place probably no earlier than two years later. It would have taken place about AD 35, and all of these events described in Acts chapter nine would have been completed by AD 37.

The reason for saying that is because in 2 Corinthians 11:32-33, we are told,

2 Corinthians 11:32-33

2 Corinthians 11:32–33 NKJV

32 In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me; 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.

Aretas died in AD 40. So, these events would have taken place at least three years before Aretas died.

Rabbinic tradition meant that Paul would have, under normal circumstances, moved to Jerusalem to begin his rabbinic studies when he was probably thirteen or fourteen. If we assume the youngest age, that he was twenty when this takes place in AD 35, that would mean that he would have been born about 15 AD and moved to Jerusalem about 28 or so. That is fascinating because that means that, at the very least, Saul of Tarsus was living as a student of Gamaliel in Jerusalem between 28-35 AD. Think about that. Who keeps coming to Jerusalem during those years? Jesus. So he would not have been ignorant of Jesus of Nazareth. If we had met Saul of Tarsus any day up until the day that Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, even fifteen minutes earlier, we would have been convinced that he was a lost cause. He was a religious rabble-rouser, operating on religious arrogance on steroids, and if anybody was hostile to Jesus and Christianity, it was Saul. So, if we say that anybody will never respond to the gospel, it will be Saul. And look what happened.

You and I have no right to think that somebody we have been witnessing will not be responsive to the gospel. We don’t know how long it will take before the Holy Spirit makes it really clear to them and they finally “see the light” (metaphorically).

What we know about Paul is that he was born in Tarsus. We don't know how much he was exposed to Gentile teaching. It was a center for Stoic philosophy. There was a major university training center there for physicians. Some speculate that he may have met Luke, the physician in Tarsus. We don’t know about that. It is just an interesting guess. Paul’s education was strictly Jewish. They were devoted to the Pharisaical teachings so they would have been separatists and not mingled very much with the Greek culture. However, he did have a position of privilege because he was a Roman citizen.

In Philippians 3:5, 6 Paul tells us a little bit about his family background:

Philippians 3:5-6

Philippians 3:5–6 NKJV

5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; 6 concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

The Pharisees were the conservative, self-righteous legalists. They were not liberals like the Sadducees. The Pharisees believe that the Torah was from God. Paul believed that righteousness came through ritual observance and was dedicated to that. He discovered from Philippians 3:7ff that righteousness from the Law was worthless, that only righteousness from God has any meaning, and the only way to get God’s righteousness was by trusting in Jesus Christ.

Acts 22:3-5

Acts 22:3–5 NKJV

3 “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, 5 as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.

Paul was the poster child of second-temple Judaism. If you wanted to be the greatest, most devoted Jew in that period, the model Jew was Saul of Tarsus. But then something happened. He was confronted on the road to Damascus by Jesus Christ. We have to understand who he was before he was saved to realize that nobody makes this kind of 180-degree shift just out of some psychotic break or dementia or just because they had some sort of guilt complex over all of the people that they had brought to death. This radical change goes to the very core of his being, and it could only happen because something truly took place on the road to Damascus. He describes it this way in Galatians chapter one:

Galatians 1:12-15

Galatians 1:12–15 NKJV

12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. 14 And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace,

Psychotic Break, Psychological Delusion or God's gracious forgiveness and transformation.

That really sets up the interpretive conflict between human viewpoint, on the one hand, and divine viewpoint, on the other. The world looks at that and says, “Ahh, this is just some psychological break. He's overwhelmed by the guilt of persecuting these Christians, persecuting women and children.”

I'll just use one word, 'holocaust.' You didn't see that kind of thing happening to the SS troops. Paul has a shorter window of time here. You just don't see this kind of psychological event occurring for people who are so mired in the darkness of evil in their souls that guilt has that kind of reaction. It might bother some people, but not this complete 180-degree shift with the Apostle Paul. They may have a nervous breakdown, emotional breakdown, or whatever you may call it, but they don't become the passionate, most brilliant declarer of the opposing view within 72 hours. It just doesn't happen.

That is the brilliance of what happens with Paul. So, these human viewpoint explanations just really don't work in the face of the historical evidence. But they have this presupposition they bring to the evidence and say, “Well, that can't be accurate evidence. So we have to discount it. It was probably written not by Luke but by somebody two or three hundred years later.” That completely flies in the face of all historical evidence today. That's a 19th-century view that liberals tried to float because they didn't have enough historical, archeological confirmation in the mid-19th century to argue against some of those views. They got away with suggesting a late authorship of New Testament documents and people bought into that.

Today, that's not true. There's one book written by an extreme liberal theologian, John A. T. Robinson. He wrote a book back in the late sixties called Honest to God in which he set forth the death of God theology. You may remember how popular that was back in the sixties. However, John A. T. Robinson also wrote another book dealing with the origin of the New Testament, in which he dealt with the historical, archeological evidence of the New Testament. He even ended up trying to date all the New Testament even earlier than most conservative theologians would. I don't buy into his dates, but it shows that when liberals are honest with the historical, archeological dates, they cannot late date anything in the New Testament to the mid- or late-second century or even the late third century. They can't say that there was some period that oral transmission got so garbled that X became non-X, white became black, and up became down which is just basically the liberal view.

This shows that there is documented, historical evidence of numerous things in the book of Acts so there's no reason to doubt its historicity or authenticity. We have this tremendous story here of Paul's conversion, told by Luke as it happens in Acts 9 but then it's repeated by the mouth of Paul two other times in the books of Acts when he is defending his position. Once in Acts, chapter 22, and again in Acts, chapter 26. Some people try to make a case for certain discrepancies in these views, but they fit together. They're just the addition of details. Not being mentioned in one account does not mean that someone is covering something up or distorting something. It's just that no one is sitting down and trying to write in terms of a modern, academic model of historiography, an exhaustively, detailed account of everything that happened on the road to Damascus. But when you create false criteria like that and then impose that upon these different narratives, it makes it appear as though there are discrepancies when, in fact, there are none.

(CHART) Looking at maps, just to orient us, down in the southern tip is Jerusalem. Here's Damascus which is the capital of modern Syria and was the capital of Silesia/Syria area. All of this was part of one Roman province at the time. Here you have the city of Antioch which becomes significant later on in Acts and this is Tarsus which is the hometown of the Apostle Paul.

The Apostle Paul's background is such that he was born into a family associated with the Pharisees, a wealthy family, indicated by the fact they had Roman citizenship. His father was an entrepreneur businessman and had a tent manufacturing business that the young Paul would have apprenticed to. We know of this because later in life, as an adult, he went back to that and established that kind of business in places like Corinth, employing believers to make money. Capitalism. It is not the kind of pseudo-capitalism often attacked today by different elements of our modern media and press. It is a federally or governmentally-controlled capitalism, not the free market. They had an opportunity to start a business, build a business, and generate income that supported them. This is completely in line with the teaching of Scripture.

Paul gives us a little bit of his autobiography in a couple of different passages, such as Acts 3, 5, and 6, which we discussed last time. He talked about giving his credentials as a strong, passionate, 180% dedicated Pharisee, dedicated to first-century rabbinical teaching on how a person gained approval with God and that this is based upon Moses' ritual and moral law. He's from the stock of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He's the poster child. If you want to know what a true dedicated Jew would look like in the first century, the picture in the encyclopedia would be the Apostle Paul. No one surpassed him. He is a Pharisee and he says, 'concerning zeal' he is passionate. He has self-righteous arrogance to the extreme, persecuting the Church and concerning the 'righteousness which is in the Law', that is generated from observance according to Pharisaical standards, he would account himself blameless

In Acts 22, he talks about his background, and he is giving his testimony to a Jewish audience when he went to Jerusalem when a mob came out. Let's turn there. I want to hit this passage and the one in Acts 26 and look at that compared with what we read in Acts, chapter 9. In Acts 22, Paul addresses them in Hebrew. I think this is important. What you will discover every now and then as you are enthusiastic about reading other things and learning about the Scripture [which I applaud], is the hypothesis that Jesus taught only in Aramaic. So they say that the Greek in the Gospels is only a translation from the Aramaic.

There are problems with that and one of the problems I have is that the language was not always Aramaic. Here, it says Paul addresses them in Hebrew. I think it’s important to recognize that he is addressing them in Hebrew, and they understand that. He is speaking to them in their language, not in Greek. I don't think Jesus taught the New Testament in Greek or in Aramaic. Whatever language he used, he may have shifted language because he was multilingual. Whatever language was used, God the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture to write it in Greek so that the Greek accurately reflects what Jesus' intent was. So we can't get mired in with those who think we need to go back and translate it into Aramaic so we can get the real sense of what was going on. That's not necessary if we truly believe in the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture.

Paul talks to them in Hebrew. That calms them down. He's not a foreigner. He's not talking to them in Latin or Greek, and they pay attention to him. He says here, “I'm a Jew born in Tarsus in Silesia, brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel [I said a few things about Gamaliel the last time. Gamaliel was considered to be the foremost rabbi, especially under the Pharisees, in the ancient world. It was said later that he was the head of a rabbinical school founded by another famous Pharisee Hillel in about 10 B.C. There were two great rabbis about that time, Shammai and Hillel. Hillel was the more conservative, what we would call a literacist, a Biblicist and Shammai was a little more loose with the text. There was always this debate going on between the rabbis over interpretation of different aspects of the Old Testament. It comes out of whether they come out of one school or another. This is like dispensationalists versus covenant theologists, dispensationalists being the ones closest to the truth, with covenant theologists furthest from the truth. So that's the idea. Gamaliel is in that tradition. He established his own school and became as great as his predecessor, Hillel. Later on, the followers of Gamaliel are spoken of and Paul is in that tradition.

I've heard Arnold Fruchtenbaum refer to some passages in the Talmud where a name has been removed and there's some speculation that may have been Paul but we have no way to verify that. I wouldn't hang my hat on that too much but it's interesting information to be aware of. So Paul says he studied at the feet of Gamaliel. He is his prize student, the number one apple polisher in Gamaliel's class, far and beyond the greatest rabbinical student of that generation. No one could touch him. He was absolutely brilliant. Anyone who studies Paul, whether you're a believer or not, [I have read conservative Jewish scholars looking at the New Testament in terms of its Jewish background come to the same conclusion] that whether you agree or disagree with the Apostle Paul his writing are among the most erudite, the most logically rigorous of all writings in the ancient world. They cannot be simply dismissed or diminished lightly. He says he was taught under the 'strictness of our fathers'. So we see that he has a rigorous view of the interpretation of the text, and the Law, and he's zealous or passionate toward God.

I pointed this out last week. There is evidence that he, at his core, is positive toward God. Like many people who may be positive at an early age, because we all have a sin nature, go off the rails and get trapped in suppression of truth and unrighteousness so that for all practical purposes our observance of them is that they're the last person in the world who would ever, ever become a passionate disciple of Jesus Christ. That's wrong on our part because up until five minutes before Jesus appeared to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, anyone of us would have written him off.

This guy is so hostile. He is Adolph Hitler personified in his hatred and antagonism toward Christians. Yet, in an instant, he does a 180 because when Jesus Christ appears to him in the light, he sees the truth for what it is and responds positively. Suppose you know somebody who's really hostile to the Gospel. In that case, that may be their defensive mechanism to try to cover up something that makes them very uncomfortable, thinking they may be a little positive, so you never know. It's in the Lord's hands.

In verse Acts 22:4, he admits, “I persecuted this way to the death.”

The way was a term used to refer to early Christians in the church. It was taken over by a small cult group in the US back in the sixties and the seventies.

“I persecuted this way to the death binding and delivering into prison both men and women.”

He makes it very clear that he is out there rounding up families who are Christians and putting them I prison. He's involved in their torture and their illegal execution, which is murder. He goes on to say,

“As the high priest bears me witness, it's well known in all the council of the elders [Sanhedrin], from whom also I received letters, I went to Damascus to bring those who were there in chains to Jerusalem to be punished.”

Acts 22:5

Acts 22:5 NKJV

5 as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.

When he says 'bring in chains' he's not talking about some metaphor there that this is emotional bondage or spiritual bondage or he's just going to bring them back at the point of a spear. He's talking literally that they would be linked one to another by chains and manacles and marched back to Jerusalem. He wanted to make their life as much of a living hell as possible.

In verse 6 he describes what happened.

Acts 22:6

Acts 22:6 NKJV

6 “Now it happened, as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me.

“Now as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon suddenly a light from Heaven shone around about me.”

He's probably somewhere between fourteen or fifteen miles south of Damascus.

“Suddenly a great light from Heaven shone around me...”

This is typical in many revelatory theophanies in Scripture when God appears, He is surrounded in light. John says, in 1 John, that “God is light and in Him, there is no darkness at all.” God himself is light. It's not just a metaphor for His purity or His holiness but, while it involves that as well, He is light.

When we see God appear repeatedly in the Scripture, the effulgence of His being is often referred to as His Glory. It becomes reduced in a finite way to the pillar of fire that led the Israelites out of Egypt. It is seen in the Old Testament when Moses went into the Holy of Holies, and God appeared to Him over the Ark of the Covenant. When Moses would come out, his face was glowing. He talked about the rosy glow, and his face just literally beamed. It was so intense, but it would decrease in its intensity. People would see that. It really impressed them when it first happened, as is typical with most of us. “Look, he saw God. How impressive that is.”

It talks about this in 2 Corinthians. Then, as time passed, the brilliant reflection from Moses' face diminished, and people would lose their mountain-top experience and say, “Well, you're not so close to God today as you were yesterday, so we won't pay attention to you.”

To counteract that, Moses would put a veil over his face so people would not let their spiritual lives be distracted by his physical appearance.

Again and again, when Isaiah is before the Throne of God in Heaven, in Isaiah chapter 6 and in numerous other places, the appearance of God is in this brilliant light. The light is also significant because it's revelatory. It exposes that which is in the darkness. It illuminates truth so that we talk about 'walking in the light of God's Word' or in the 'light of truth'. The psalmist says, “It is in your Light [revelation] that we see light,'

The resurrected ascended Christ appeared personally to the apostle in the road to Damascus and this great light shone around him. In verse 7, he says,

Acts 22:7

Acts 22:7 NKJV

7 And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’

“I fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me.”

Notice he doesn't say anything about the goads kicking. That's added in chapter 26.

It's added in a textual variant of the King James but shouldn't be there in Acts, chapter 9. All he says at this point is, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Acts 9:4

Acts 9:4 NKJV

4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

The light is almost physically palpable. What happens when Paul sees that light is so overwhelming that it knocks him to the ground? I don't know if you've ever had that experience, but sometimes people are hit with tragic news that knocks them to the ground. This is that kind of event. It's so profound in his thinking that it just knocks his feet out from under him.

Then he hears a voice. He answers and says, “Who are you, Lord?”

Acts 9:5

Acts 9:5 NKJV

5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

Some people have made a lot of theological headway out of the word 'lord,', but the word KURIOS is just a simple expression of someone worthy of respect, much as we would use the term 'sir.' In Spanish-speaking areas, we see bumper stickers that say, “Jesus es mi senor,” meaning 'Jesus is my Lord'. Senor is normally associated with mister, but it is also the polite word for sir or lord. That's how they translate 'lord' in the Bible.

When Paul says, “Lord, why are you persecuting me?' we can't make the mistake that John McArthur makes [I use him as an example because he is in print with the argument that Paul was submitting himself to the lordship of Jesus Christ and that's when he was saved.] It should be understood that in this context, I'm not sure if Paul understood that Jesus was God. He recognizes the superiority of the one in his presence and demonstrates language of submission like we do when a police officer stops us, and we say, 'Yes sir,' so we don't end up in any more trouble. Paul says, “Who are you, Lord?” If he knew who Jesus was, why would he ask this? That's ridiculous; that's contradictory; that's irrational.

Paul asks the questions for identification purposes, and Jesus says, “I am Jesus of Nazareth.” That's how Jesus identifies himself in terms of His humanity and the One who walked on the earth for thirty-three years, consistently teaching that He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament passages related to the Messiah. He doesn't say, “I'm Jesus, the Messiah.” He doesn't say, “I'm Jesus Christ”, which means the Messiah. He says, “I'm Jesus of Nazareth.” He's connecting the dots right away. He doesn't say I am the One who was crucified because I claimed to be the Son of God.

Paul got the message right away. Then Paul says,

Acts 22:9

Acts 22:9 NKJV

9 “And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me.

“Those that were with me saw the light and were afraid.”

Interestingly, in all three of these accounts, Paul says those with him saw the light. What you hear from the liberals is they say, “Well, this was internal. Paul had a hallucination. It's all inward inside his head between his ears.” However, the statement that in all these passages, while those with him didn't hear the specific words that Jesus said, they heard someone speaking, but the words were inarticulate to them. They saw a light, but they couldn't see clearly who was being revealed in the light because it wasn't for them.

The fact that they saw the light and heard the sound tells us that this is an objective event that was not a psychological apparition between Paul's ears. “Those with me saw the light and were afraid.” They're not just looking at Paul on the ground as if he had a seizure and were asking, “Let's call 9-1-1. Wonder what we should do?” No, they're afraid because they understand that something supernatural has happened. One of the words used in Acts 9 for what they see is a word used frequently in passages where people see an appearance of God, a theophany.

So he says, “Those that were with me were afraid but they did not hear the voice that spoke to me.”

Other passages say they heard, so what's the contradiction? Well, one is that they heard the sound of the voice, but they didn't hear the specific words, much as if you may be in one room. You hear someone talking in another room; you know there's someone there, but you don't hear their words clearly enough to have any idea what they are saying or even identify who the speaker is. They heard the sound of a voice, but they didn't hear the content of what was being said specifically. So Paul says, “I said, 'what should I do, Lord'? And the Lord said, “Go into Damascus and there you will be told all things which you will be appointed to do.”

Acts 22:10

Acts 22:10 NKJV

10 So I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do.’

By this point, Jesus has identified himself. This is the point at which Paul believed in Jesus. But what Paul says is the result of his belief in Jesus. He's had his moment of faith alone in Christ, and as a result of that, he says, “Okay, Lord, I'm convinced. What do I do now?” He is directed to go into Damascus, and there he will be given further revelation.

Acts 22:11

Acts 22:11 NKJV

11 And since I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus.

In verse 11, Paul says, “And since I could not see from the glory of that light…” [he was blinded by it]... he's led by the hand into Damascus.

Let's turn to Acts 26 now.

In Acts 22, Paul is standing before the crowd in Jerusalem, and they want to stone him. They're riled up, and they're emotional. They're almost like those crowds we see getting riled up Tahrir Square and outside the embassy in Cairo, Ben-ghazi, or some other places. They don't want to listen to this objective explanation of the gospel. And so they react accordingly. In Acts 26, this is an event resulting from that earlier event. The crowds tried to stone him, and he appealed to the Roman Empire to protect him. A military contingent escorts him to Caesarea-by-the-Sea which at this time is serving as the headquarters for the Roman government in Judea.

The procurator at this time is Felix, and when he appears before Felix, Felix is somewhat sympathetic to him. Paul plays his trump card in chapter 25 and calls for an appeal to Rome so that he can come under complete Roman law in his trial. So he's kept in jail, which is probably a pretty comfortable situation in a beautiful location. In Chapter 29, Herod Agrippa the Second and his wife, Berenitha, come and are interested in hearing from Paul. They've heard about him. They've heard about all the disruption, so they want to hear him state his case before them.

End of Second Service

May the Lord give us insight into the person and the work of His son.

Hebrews 1:2-3

God in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Sunday December 1, 2024

Pentecost: The New Church Series

Review

We have begun a review of the story of Paul’s conversion, which is incredibly important to understand because it provides the background for much of Paul’s teaching in the New Testament. There are multiple passages where this account is reported, with each having slightly different information

We started in Acts 9:1.

Let’s read the whole account

Acts 9:1-31

Acts 9:1–31 NKJV

1 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. 4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” 6 So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” 7 And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. 8 Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. 10 Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 So the Lord said to him, “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying. 12 And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.” 13 Then Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. 14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. 16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” 17 And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized. 19 So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. 20 Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God. 21 Then all who heard were amazed, and said, “Is this not he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem, and has come here for that purpose, so that he might bring them bound to the chief priests?” 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ. 23 Now after many days were past, the Jews plotted to kill him. 24 But their plot became known to Saul. And they watched the gates day and night, to kill him. 25 Then the disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall in a large basket. 26 And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. 28 So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. 29 And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him. 30 When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus. 31 Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.

Next we moved to the decription in Acts 22.

The account begins In Acts 21:15-30, Paul and his companions travel to Jerusalem. Upon arrival, Paul meets with James and the elders, who rejoice at the success of his ministry among the Gentiles. However, they express concern about rumors that Paul is teaching Jewish converts to abandon the law of Moses.

To address this, they suggest that Paul participate in a purification ritual with four men who have taken a vow. Paul agrees, and they go to the temple to perform the purification rites.

However, some Jews from Asia see Paul in the temple and accuse him of teaching against the Jewish people, the law, and the temple. They also falsely claim that Paul brought Gentiles into the temple, defiling it. This accusation causes a riot, and the crowd seizes Paul, dragging him out of the temple.

Let’s pick up reading in Acts 21:31-22:29.

Acts 21:31-22:29

Acts 21:31–22:29 NKJV

31 Now as they were seeking to kill him, news came to the commander of the garrison that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. 32 He immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down to them. And when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. 33 Then the commander came near and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and he asked who he was and what he had done. 34 And some among the multitude cried one thing and some another. So when he could not ascertain the truth because of the tumult, he commanded him to be taken into the barracks. 35 When he reached the stairs, he had to be carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob. 36 For the multitude of the people followed after, crying out, “Away with him!” 37 Then as Paul was about to be led into the barracks, he said to the commander, “May I speak to you?” He replied, “Can you speak Greek? 38 Are you not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a rebellion and led the four thousand assassins out into the wilderness?” 39 But Paul said, “I am a Jew from Tarsus, in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city; and I implore you, permit me to speak to the people.” 40 So when he had given him permission, Paul stood on the stairs and motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great silence, he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, saying, 1 “Brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now.” 2 And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent. Then he said: 3 “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, 5 as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished. 6 “Now it happened, as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me. 7 And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ 8 So I answered, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’ 9 “And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me. 10 So I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do.’ 11 And since I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus. 12 “Then a certain Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good testimony with all the Jews who dwelt there, 13 came to me; and he stood and said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ And at that same hour I looked up at him. 14 Then he said, ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth. 15 For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’ 17 “Now it happened, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I was in a trance 18 and saw Him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning Me.’ 19 So I said, ‘Lord, they know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe on You. 20 And when the blood of Your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death, and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’ 21 Then He said to me, ‘Depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles.’ ” 22 And they listened to him until this word, and then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live!” 23 Then, as they cried out and tore off their clothes and threw dust into the air, 24 the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks, and said that he should be examined under scourging, so that he might know why they shouted so against him. 25 And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?” 26 When the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander, saying, “Take care what you do, for this man is a Roman.” 27 Then the commander came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman?” He said, “Yes.” 28 The commander answered, “With a large sum I obtained this citizenship.” And Paul said, “But I was born a citizen.” 29 Then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him; and the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him.

Now we skip over some of the story where the commander allows the Jews to interrogate Paul.

But they pledge to kill him, and to protect this Roman citizen, the commander sends Paul under guard with two Centurions, two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen to guard him to Caesarea in the third hour of the night, or 9:00 pm. In Caesarea he was transferred to the custody of Felix the governor. Felix held Paul in custody for two years waiting for him to bribe him.

Now Felix was replaced by Festus by Nero about 60AD.

Felix was replaced because he was a corrupt and incomptent administrator. The Jews had lodged many complaints against him with Rome accusing him of corruption and favoritism, which seems born out by the Acts narrative. Felix's administration was marked by a lack of effective governance and an inability to control the increasing unrest and disturbances in Judea.

Festus was expected to fix these problems.

In Acts 26, King Agrippa II and his sister Berenice arrive in Caesarea to pay their respects to the new procurator, Festus.

During their visit, Festus discusses Paul's case with Agrippa, explaining that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem have accused Paul and demanded his death. Festus notes that he found no grounds for their accusations and that Paul had appealed to Caesar, so he is preparing to send him to Rome.

Festus seeks Agrippa's insight, as he is uncertain about what charges to specify in his report to the emperor. Intrigued, Agrippa expresses a desire to hear from Paul himself. Festus arranges for this to happen the following day.

This passage sets the stage for Paul’s defense before Agrippa, highlighting the complexities of Roman governance and the interplay between political and religious authorities in Judea.

Now Porcius Festus and Herod Agrippa II were the two prominent Roman Empire figures in Judea.

Festus was the Roman procurator of Judea from around 59 to 62 AD. Appointed by Emperor Nero, Festus was responsible for maintaining law and order and implementing Roman policies. He reported directly to Nero on matters of governance and legal proceedings in Judea, ensuring Roman interests were upheld. Interestingly he died after two years in the region, and would be replaced by Lucceius Albinus. Most procurators last typically two to three years.

‌‌Herod Agrippa II, a client king from the Herodian dynasty, ruled over specific territories and had authority over Jewish religious affairs, including the appointment of the high priest. He was the great-grandson of Herod the Great and the son of Herod Agrippa I.

Herod the Great, To bolster his legitimacy, married Mariamne, a Hasmonean princess, and tried to align himself with the Hasmonean legacy.

Additionally, it is important to know that Herod the Great, was half Idomean or Edomite (descendents of Esau the brother of Jacob), and half Nabatean, which is Arab royalty, his mother being a princess from Petra. His father Antipater was an official and administrator under the Hasmonean dynasty who was a Jewish proselyte, as was Cypros, His wife.

The Herodean dynasty is complex as Herod the Great had multiple wives.

Harod Antipas I had a Samaritan mother, named Malthace, by Herod the Great, making him both Samaritan royalty and Edomite Royalty, while being a practicing Jewish Proselyte.

Herod Antipas I, is Harod Agrippa I’s uncle and had two notable wives. His first wife was Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea. He later divorced her to marry Herodias, who had previously been married to his half-brother Herod II. This second marriage to Herodias was controversial and led to significant criticism, including from John the Baptist. This resulted in the death of John the Baptist.

Herod Antiquas , the son of Herod the Great and his Jewish wife, Miriamne was the father of Herod Agrippa I. Agrippa I was married to another Nabatean woman of the royal family, a grandaughter of Herod the Great’s brother, also named Cypros, who is his cousin. Herod Agrippa II and Bernice are the children of Agrippa I and the Nabatean princess.

Educated at the imperial court in Rome, Agrippa II maintained a close relationship with the Roman emperors, including Nero. Josephus describes Agrippa II as having significant influence and acting as an intermediary between Nero and the Jewish population. Nero rewarded Agrippa II by granting him additional territories, such as parts of Galilee and Perea.

During the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, led by Titus, Agrippa II sided with the Romans. He and his sister Berenice joined forces with the Roman general Vespasian and his son Titus to suppress the Jewish rebellion. Festus's earlier interactions with Agrippa II and the Jewish leaders were part of the complex political landscape leading up to this period.

In AD66 Agrippa II flees to Rome, while Bernice his siter caries on a romantic daliance with Titus who later eschews here to ascend the throne.

The roles of Festus and Agrippa can be likened to a governor (Festus) and a president (Agrippa II) in modern terms. Festus managed the day-to-day administration and judicial matters of Judea, similar to a regional manager, while Agrippa II, akin to a CEO, had more ceremonial duties and influence over high-level decisions. Agrippa II’s relationship with Nero was more personal and influential, acting as an intermediary and receiving territorial rewards for his loyalty.

In summary, Festus and Agrippa II played crucial roles in maintaining Roman authority in Judea. Festus focused on administrative efficiency and law enforcement, while Agrippa II balanced ceremonial influence and local authority, navigating their relationships with Nero and the complex political landscape of their time. Agrippa II’s lineage as the great-grandson of Herod the Great and the son of Herod Agrippa I highlights his deep-rooted connection to the Herodian dynasty and his significant role in the region's history.

Now to our passage in Acts 26:

Acts 26:1

Acts 26:1 NKJV

1 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You are permitted to speak for yourself.” So Paul stretched out his hand and answered for himself:

In verse 1 of chapter 26, “Then Agrippa said to Paul, 'you're permitted to speak for yourself.'”

So Paul stretched out his hand and gave an apologeta, a rational, apologetic defense of his belief. That's all apologetics is: giving a rational, articulated defense for what you believe and why. It is a legal term for a defense against accusations. to speak in one’s own defense against charges presumed to be false, defend oneself

He says,

Acts 26:2

Acts 26:2 NKJV

2 “I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall answer for myself before you concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews,

“I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall answer for myself before you concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, especially because you are an expert on all matters concerning the customs of the Jews.”

Now he is not pandering to Agrippa.

Agrippa is a grandson of Herod the Great, and he knows Jewish customs and laws. He was considered one of the better Herodian rulers so Paul is making an honest statement and he is appealing to his knowledge about Jewish law and custom. He says in verse 4, “My manner of life from my youth, which was among my own nation in Jerusalem from the beginning...”

Acts 26:4

Acts 26:4 NKJV

4 “My manner of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my own nation at Jerusalem, all the Jews know.

Now, that is an interesting statement. He could be speaking in a general sense which would indicate, as some have suggested, that he didn't go to Jerusalem until he was bar mitzvahed, but this might indicate that from young childhood, he was sent there. We know he had family in Jerusalem and was sent to Jerusalem to study early on. It's not precise enough what that means. 'From the beginning' probably means his adulthood at thirteen or fourteen.

He continues, “...all the Jews know. They knew me from the first if they were willing to testify that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee.”

So, he was a highly observant Pharisee. Josephus says there were only about 5500 in the Pharisee party, but Josephus also says that there were about 4500 Essences. It seems like there were many more people associated with the Pharisees. Everyone else may have just identified themselves when they were called up by Gallup polling, and they said they were Pharisees. They weren't card-carrying Pharisees but they tended to associate themselves with them when asked

So Paul says, “...now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.”

Acts 26:6

Acts 26:6 NKJV

6 And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.

Notice what he does here. He's talking to a Jew. When he's talking to Gentiles, he goes back to creation, but when he's talking to Jews, he goes back to Father Abraham.

The Jews had a problem understanding the monotheism of the Old Testament and the historicity and accuracy of Genesis 1 – 11.

So he can start with Abraham. And that's where he starts this. He locates this in the Abrahamic promise made by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “the promise of the twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day for this hope sake.”

So what's the hope?

That God is going to give them the land, and they're going to experience the prosperity and blessing God intends to give the Jewish people, but they haven't experienced it yet because they haven't been obedient. They haven't accepted the gospel. When they were obedient in the Old Testament, they experienced a measure of that. But that's the hope of the promise.

It's the Abrahamic promise, and it included, from what Paul said to the Jews earlier, the hope of resurrection. The Sadducees rejected this but that's what Paul means when he says,

Acts 26:7

Acts 26:7 NKJV

7 To this promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. For this hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews.

“I am accused by the Jews. Why should it be considered incredible by you that God raises the dead?”

See, he nails it. He goes right to the core issue that the Old Testament promise focuses on a resurrection. Paul explains that he was teaching about the resurrection. That's what the Bible teaches about the promise. Why does it upset people when you teach that God can raise people from the dead? It's all through the Old Testament scriptures.

He says he got caught up in that trap and thought he must do many things contrary to Jesus of Nazareth as he did in Jerusalem “and many of the saints he shut up in prison.”

Again, he sees he is imprisoning men and women Christians in his persecution.

“Having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.”

They were not only put in prison, they were executed, and Paul is complicit in that. It's not just dealing with Steven and his stoning, but we don't know how many, maybe hundreds or thousands of Jewish believers in Jesus as Messiah were imprisoned and many who were executed for their faith.

He goes on in verse 10,

Acts 26:10

Acts 26:10 NKJV

10 This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

“And this also I did in Jerusalem and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received from the chief priests, when they were put to death, I voted against them and often in every synagogue. We see that Christians are still meeting in synagogues with Jews who don't believe in Jesus. Christianity is still considered part of Judaism at this point. But it is splitting. Those who had accepted Jesus Christ and those who hadn't were still meeting together in the synagogues.

So he's going in to weed them out and identify them and compelling them to blaspheme, to deny Jesus. And he says, “In a seeming rage against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.” He's chasing them. He is just on crusader arrogance to the max. And he says in verse 12,

Acts 26:12-14

Acts 26:12–14 NKJV

12 “While thus occupied, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, 13 at midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me. 14 And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

Now there's some new information. We see here that Paul has had more time to talk about what happened, and so he adds that not only did he see the light that knocked him down, but it knocked down everyone around him. Why is that important? It shows that it is an objective event according to our historical accounts. It's something that wasn't between Paul's ears. This is why the authority of Luke and the authority of the writers of the Scriptures are constantly attacked. If you can do away with the only documentary evidence we have and destroy that, then it is all just guesswork. And so it's important.

So, Paul is giving this information... clearly and objectively. He heard a voice speaking to him in the Hebrew language. New information. Jesus spoke Hebrew to Paul. I think Hebrew is going to be the language in Heaven. Maybe we ought to start learning now. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And here this line is added, “It's hard to kick against the goads.” A goad was a long stick pointed at one end used to prod oxen and other domestic animals so they would move and not just stand there and eat. The idea here is that every time Paul hears the gospel, he's goaded, he's pricked. God is pushing him in some direction and sticking him with the truth of the gospel. Paul is resisting it over and over, so God asks how he's going to kick against the goads all the time. And he knew it.

God is saying, “In your soul you know this. Don't give me that stuff that you just don't know. And you're just trying to cover it up but you know the truth and you're just suppressing it in unrighteousness.

Acts 26:15

Acts 26:15 NKJV

15 So I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

In verse 15, Paul says,

“Who are you, Lord.” He answers, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting

[notice here he doesn't say Jesus of Nazareth, but that would be the full statement.]

And then we have additional information given.

Jesus said to him,

Acts 26:16

Acts 26:16 NKJV

16 But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you.

At this point, Christ gives him his commission as an apostle. He says,

Acts 26:16 NKJV

16 But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you.

Paul fits in that pattern.

“A witness both to the things you have seen and the things which I will yet reveal to you.

Acts 26:17

Acts 26:17 NKJV

17 I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you,

Now, Jewish isn't in the original text, but the implication is there from the original language. He says,

Acts 26:18

Acts 26:18 NKJV

18 to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’

This is an important verse and we'll get there in due time.

Notice that Paul is given this commission to be the apostle to the Gentiles. That's his commission.

Then he goes on in verse 20 to talk about what happened afterwards.

Acts 26:19-20

Acts 26:19–20 NKJV

19 “Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, 20 but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.

Paul says in Galatians 1 when he is talking to the Galatians later on after his first missionary journey that he identifies his source of the gospel. “I neither received it from man...”

Galatians 1:11-12

Galatians 1:11–12 NKJV

11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

He's not saying he didn't get additional information but he didn't get the gospel from a human being. His core understanding of the gospel that convinced him of the truth of the gospel did not come from a human witness.

“I did not receive it from man nor was I taught it from man but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Jesus Christ is the One who revealed it to him on the road to Damascus.

Paul is defending his gospel and what he's preaching. He says, “I neither received it from man...” Here's he's talking about his personal understanding that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah who fulfilled the Old Testament promises and prophecies. He learned that, not from the witness of Steven or others he arrested and tortured and was responsible for their persecution, not from them, but what convinces him is when Jesus Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. That's what he's describing in Galatians 1:12. “I neither received it [the gospel] from man nor was I taught it but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Galatians 1:13-14

Galatians 1:13–14 NKJV

13 For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. 14 And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

Then, in Galatians 1: 13 and 14, he talks about how he had persecuted the church, how he tried to destroy it, and how he advanced in Judaism beyond all his contemporaries.

He describes his previous life in Judaism, how he persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. In a passionate, self-righteous fire he is just lit on fire to defend Judaism against what he sees, at this time, as an assault.

In the next verse, he talks about how God called him to preach His Son so that he might preach Him among the Gentiles.

He says,

Galatians 1:16

Galatians 1:16 NKJV

16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,

He talked about what transpired in his conversion, Galatians 1:15, “And when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, [what he's indicating here is that God had a plan for his life] “...and to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.” That's why he's called.

He doesn't go there for three years but goes out to Arabia to contemplate and revise his theology and understanding of the Old Testament.

We'll come back to this passage, which is another important passage, and then we'll move on as we go back to Acts 9.

We'll read it with a better understanding that it's not just another event that happens in history. Still, it's one of the top thirty crucial events that happens in the whole Scripture and it's referred to numerous other times in the New Testament.

So, how can we understand Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and Timothy without this understanding? How can we understand these subsequent epistles if we don't understand Acts 9? Later revelation is always built on earlier revelation. That's why you need to be reading your Bible every day.

He says he didn't immediately confer with flesh and blood which indicates he got his information from Jesus Christ. He didn't go sit in a conference and sit in Bible study. Instead he says he went to Arabia. That really covers a lengthy time. We don't know how long he was in Arabia. Arabia is an area just a little bit out of Damascus. You go five or six miles and you are out in what is generally known as Arabia. It's not Saudi Arabia, down in the south, which is what we think of today. Any of that area, Syria, southern Syria, Jordan down towards Petra and further south; all of that was known as Arabia. So he goes out in the desert or wilderness for a period of time. Then he returned to Damascus. So he's in Damascus for three years. During that time he's outside for weeks or months. We don't know how long.

It's not until after three years that he goes to Jerusalem and there he meets Peter and then later, James. But he's only there for fifteen days before he leaves. That gives us a time frame for chapter 9.

Here's a map showing the different regions in the area of Damascus. In the upper right-hand corner of this area, the whole region is known as Syria, which is part of the Roman Empire. All of this part along the edge is generally known as just Arabia. Out here would have satisfied the description. It doesn't mean he didn't go down towards Mecca, Medina, or anywhere in Saudi Arabia. He's out here alone in the wilderness, rethinking his theology and understanding of the Scriptures now that he has truly understood that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises and prophecies. So, we see Arabia in this general geographical area, identified as the Arabian Desert. This area here is part of the modern Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. At that time, the Nabatean Kingdom with King Aretes IV is mentioned in Acts later on. He is the ruler of this area, and his headquarters is just south of the Dead Sea and the city of Petra. His kingdom would extend right up to the edge of Damascus.

Luke begins this account by reminding us of Saul in Acts 9:1-2

Acts 9:1-2

Acts 9:1–2 NKJV

1 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

“Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus...”

There's some question about what is happening. It seems to be unusual. It is at a time when Rome is in authority over this whole area. Herod Agrippa is the king up in the north, and Syria or Damascus comes under his authority to some degree, so what gives the Sanhedrin the authority in this? There's some indication that this precedes history two or three centuries earlier.

In 1 Macabees 15:21, the authorities in Jerusalem send out some to find and bring rebels back for prosecution by the state.

1 Maccabees 15:21

1 Maccabees 15:21 NRSV

21 Therefore if any scoundrels have fled to you from their country, hand them over to the high priest Simon, so that he may punish them according to their law.”

This indicates some judicial precedent. Josephus mentions it in a similar situation related to the first century that involved a similar letter of authorization. This practice of the Sanhedrin sending someone on a mission and giving them a letter of authorization seems to have a historical precedent for some time.

Paul is going to Damascus. Damascus seems to be an extremely significant city at this time. Damascus was about 130 – 135 miles to the northeast of Jerusalem. It's the first time we have seen a reference to Christians outside of Israel. There's a suggestion here that there are believers in Christ among the Jewish community. Now, there was a sizeable Jewish community in Damascus. Josephus, in his writings on the wars of the Jews, speaking about the rebellion of the Jews against Rome, which started in A.D. 66 [40 years later than the time frame of Acts but within that time framework], tells of 10,000 Jews being massacred in Damascus. Another place he speaks of is 18,000. So somewhere between 10,000 to 18,0000 Jews were massacred in Damascus.

That wasn't the whole Jewish community there. We don't know how many are represented there, but it clearly shows Damascus's extensive Jewish community. There were many synagogues, maybe as many as 15 or 25 in Damascus.

There was a testimony of a Holocaust survivor. He was just a teenager then, and he had gone back on a tour and gone to Kosovo, where he had lived. At the beginning of World War 11, there were 20,000 to 25,000 Jews and 25 synagogues, one synagogue for every 1000 Jews. Now, there's only one synagogue in Kosovo. He was there with a tour group. You have to have ten males to have a minyan, which is a minimum number to have a synagogue, and it was only through the males in the tour group that they were allowed to have a minyan. So, the Jewish community has almost completely disappeared from that area since World War11. That shows the difference.

There were a number of synagogues in Damascus during Paul's time, and they were probably hearing the gospel that Jesus was the Messiah. So rather than letting this false message, as Paul would have viewed it, Paul wanted to go there and root it out. He wanted to bring back the men and women converts to Jerusalem. Starting in verse 3, we see the description of what happens when suddenly his plans are interrupted by God.

In verses 3 - 4 it says,

Acts 9:3-4

Acts 9:3–4 NKJV

3 As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. 4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

“And as he journeyed he came near Damascus and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven.”

This light is the glory of God. It is beyond any light he has ever seen. It is a light emanating from the glory of the risen, resurrected, glorified Lord Jesus Christ that is so brilliant and powerful that he's knocked to the ground. It's more than just having a spotlight on him. The light that emanates from the being of God is a light that has a moral, righteous element to it. “Then he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Just as we've seen in other examples in the Old Testament, such as in Isaiah 6, when Isaiah is before the throne of God, he is immediately struck by his sinfulness. He cries out,

“Woe is me, a man of unclean lips.”

The light of God has a moral, ethical element, which is part of what struck Paul at this particular time. Paul falls and hears a voice. The repetition of his name indicates the seriousness of the situation. Many times in Scripture, God calls out and repeats someone's name twice.

Jesus says,

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

The identification of Jesus with his believers means that those who persecute believers are persecuting Jesus. There isn't a doctrine or emphasis here on the body of Christ. Still, it is undoubtedly something we understand from later revelation that we, as members of the body of Christ, are the physical bodily representation of Jesus upon the earth today as He is absent in heaven. We are the body of Christ. That's more than simply a metaphor or a descriptive term. There's this close identity we have with Jesus, so to persecute Christians is to persecute Jesus.

Then Paul says,

Acts 9:5

Acts 9:5 NKJV

5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

“Who are you lord?”

He's asking this question because he's not sure who this is. He hasn't comprehended that this is Jesus of Nazareth or the one whose followers he's persecuting that is appearing to him. He's not using the term 'lord' here with a theological connotation. The word 'lord,' kurios in Greek, and “Adonai” in Hebrew, was a term that was used as a term of respect for a superior, a male superior, as we would use the word 'sir.' Adonai was also a term that was used as a synonym for Yahweh. Yahweh was with a lowercase 'lord'. And then you have 'lord', which is just a standard capital 'l,' which indicates the original Adonai. It has a connotation because if you say that someone is lord, you're saying they are Yahwe, that they are deity.

So that was also a meaning. It's just a standard term that anyone would use to someone in high office, as well. So, there's no indication here in the text that Paul is recognizing the deity of this person at all; he's merely recognizing a superior person. The Lord then identifies himself to Paul, saying, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Again, that identification with the body. In a New King James or a King James version, we have the statement, “it is hard to kick against the goads.” Jesus said that, but we only learn of that in Paul's account later in Acts 26. It wasn't in this chapter. It's only in a few manuscripts called the textus receptus, a collection of between six and ten Greek manuscripts that Erasmus used and collated to form the foundation for the first critical edition of the Greek text in the early part of the 16th century. Over 15 or 20 years, Erasmus found additional manuscripts and added those into his critical apparatus in the textus receptus. Between six and ten manuscripts because it changed over time. He was constantly improving his edition. These were not very old manuscripts. We know which manuscripts they were, which were not of the highest quality.

Our Greek texts are based on thousands of fragments and large collections that we have found that are both older and better than the textus receptus. It isn't identical to the Byzantine or majority texts, but it is similar. It's part of that same family. Even the majority text edition leaves this out and does not include this as part of Acts, chapter 9. So what we see here, compared to Acts 22 and Acts 26 first-person accounts of the apostle Paul, is a more truncated, abridged, abbreviated version. Luke's purpose is not to tell us everything that happened to Saul on the road to Damascus but to hit the high points because his trajectory is to show the expansion of Christianity beyond Judea and Samaria.

The key player for that will be Saul, who'll be known as Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. Luke hits the high points here because his focus is on where this is going and the role Saul, Paul, will play in the advance of the gospel. In verse 6 we read,

Acts 9:6

Acts 9:6 NKJV

6 So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

“So he, trembling and astonished...”

We can imagine what must have been happening to Paul, beyond our conscious awareness, just to be in the presence of the resurrected, risen Lord in this kind of event, hearing the voice of God, having this kind of thing happen that's totally beyond anything you expected and just the opposite of what you believed would generate in anyone a host of physiological reactions. Your adrenaline would spike, and you would be shaking and trembling, and things of that nature. So he is astonished by that and is trembling and fearful of things of that nature. Amazingly, he could even talk. He's losing his eyesight because of the brilliance of the light, and he'll be blinded as a result. He says,

“Lord, what do you want me to do?”

Again, he is using the term kurios or Adonai. It does not necessarily mean recognizing Jesus as deity.

It doesn't mean that somewhere in these moments, Saul doesn't believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Somewhere in here, he makes that transition. He understands that Jesus, who is before him, is the Jesus of Nazareth, the promised, prophesied Messiah, and he trusts Him, but Luke doesn't tell us that. It's evident to us that this happened, so Luke doesn't need to overstate the obvious, so he doesn't. You can't go to a passage like this and say, “See, he's using the word lord, so that means he's recognizing the lordship of Jesus, which is key. If you haven't recognized the lordship of Jesus, you're not saved.” That is the primary interpretation that we hear from people who espouse what is known as the Lordship gospel. The lordship gospel is not just as simple as saying you have to believe Jesus is lord, but a recognition that you have to be submitting to the sovereign authority of Jesus, recognizing that He is the sovereign God. It's not just as simple as believing that He died for your sins, but you are also willing to commit yourself to His authority.

The trouble is we don't have commit language here. 'Commit' is not a synonym for 'belief.' If you tell me it's raining outside, I can believe you, but I am not committing anything. If you look 'commit' up in a thesaurus, 'believe' is not a synonym. These are two different words and two different ideas. In lordship theology, you have the idea that you must commit yourself to the authority of God at the instant of salvation, or you're not saved. It's just adding something else. All that we have in Scripture is the command to believe.

In the gospel of John, which many believe is the one so clearly directed to understanding the gospel's message, John uses the verb 'believe' over 95 times. He doesn't use words like 'commit,' 'invite Jesus into your life,' 'invite Jesus into your heart,' or 'turn yourself over to Jesus'. None of that verbiage is there. Again and again and again, it says believe, believe, believe. Jesus said to Martha at the grave of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, yet shall he live.” He doesn't say, 'Martha, do you commit yourself to this?”, “Martha, are you going to let me into your heart?” No, he doesn't say this. He says, “Martha, do you believe this?” That's the issue.

That's the gospel. Yet we have people today who muddy that up.

End of second service 12/1/2024

Sunday December 8, 2024

Pentecost: The New Church Series

Review

Acts 9:7

Acts 9:7 NKJV

7 And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.

So, at this point, somewhere along this line, we don't know how long all this took place because when we look at Paul's later descriptions, we know Jesus said other things, but Saul trusted in Jesus as Messiah somewhere along here. It's probably before he says, “What do you want me to do?” The Lord says, “Arise, go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” Some of us might expect that as soon as we walk through the gates of Damascus, someone will tell us what to do. God's timing is different from that.

It will be three days before anybody has a clue about what is happening.

Paul will have a vision that tells him someone will come, but we don't know exactly when that happened. So he's told to go into the city; he'll be told what to do. Then, in verse 8, we read,

Acts 9:8

Acts 9:8 NKJV

8 Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

“Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.”

Damascus

We have some interesting things happening in Damascus and in Syria today.

For you who have been keeping up with the current situation in the middle east or know your geography, you might know that Syria is an immediate neighbor to Israel.

One of the recent concerns, as we have had the activity in the Middle East surrounding Israel, is that the Iran funded Hezbollah Terrorists were fleeing Lebanon and moving into Syria. In fact we have seen instances of Hezbolah rockets being fired into Israel from Syria. More recently their have been concerns of Hezbollah using Syrian soil to transfer weapons to Lebanon, which has led Israel to strike at Syrian-Lebanese border crossings and infrastructure allegedly used by Hezbollah for these purposes.

Syria indeed had a significant Christian population in modern history. At its peak, Christians made up about 30% of the population in the late 1960s. However, due to various factors including persecution, displacement, and emigration, the Christian population has drastically declined. By the time of the Syrian Civil War, Christians accounted for about 10% of the population, and today, they make up less than 2%.

The overthrowing faction in Syria are Sunni Muslims, who affiliate with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Allies.

The Al-Assad regime in Syria is predominantly associated with the Alawite sect of Islam. The Alawites are a minority sect within Shia Islam, and the Assad family, including both Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, belong to this sect. The Alawite community has played a significant role in the political and military leadership of Syria under the Assad regime

Hezbollah is affiliated with Shia Islam, not Sunni Islam. It is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group that was founded in 1982. Hezbollah has close ties with Iran, which is predominantly Shia, and follows the ideology of the Iranian Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which emphasizes Shia political thought, particularly the concept of "Wilayat al-Faqih" (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist). While Hezbollah does engage with other Muslim groups and has some support among non-Shia populations in Lebanon for its resistance activities against Israel, its core identity and support base are rooted in Shia Islam.

So you can see that the Hezbollah had an ally in the Al-Assad regime of Syria.

The attitude of Sunni Islam towards Christianity can vary widely depending on cultural, historical, and regional contexts. Generally, Sunni Islamic law tends to be lenient towards Jews and Christians, who are often referred to as "People of the Book" (Ahl al-Kitab). This leniency includes permissions such as eating meat slaughtered by Christians and Jews and marrying their daughters.

In many Sunni-majority countries, Christians have lived alongside Muslims for centuries, often with varying degrees of tolerance and coexistence.

Syria has one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, dating back to the first century AD. The apostle Paul famously converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus, and the country has produced several significant theologians and church leaders.

=====

There is quite a bit of turmoil in the amature eschatology world right now, as people are trying to figure out what the Bible says about Syria prophetically.

There are really 3 major passages that make prophetic statements, and I want to review these so that you are up on what the Bible has to say, as well as being up on what is happening.

We have a couple of passages to look at to wrap our minds around Damascus/Syria.

First we start in Amos 1:3-5

Amos 1:3-5

Amos 1:3–5 NKJV

3 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, Because they have threshed Gilead with implements of iron. 4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, Which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad. 5 I will also break the gate bar of Damascus, And cut off the inhabitant from the Valley of Aven, And the one who holds the scepter from Beth Eden. The people of Syria shall go captive to Kir,” Says the Lord.

“Damascus” was Aram’s capital, located northeast of Israel. The Arameans were Israel’s most frequent and most powerful enemy. Gilead, the Transjordan Israelite region south of Damascus, was an attractive territory for Aramean expansion. Territorial disputes between Israel and Aram often erupted into border wars characterized by terrorist atrocities. Such wars were common during the ninth and eighth centuries b.c., not only between Israel and Aram but also among the other small nations of the region.

“Sins” (pĕšaʿîm) is one of the three significant words for sin in the Old Testament. The term may be translated as “transgressions,” “rebellions,” “crimes,” or “sins.” The wrongdoing named in each oracle represented a rebellion against God’s standard of conduct, not simply rebellion against Judah or Israel based on prior treaty agreements. With the sin named Damascus had exceeded the limit of God’s tolerance.

I will not turn back my wrath” is literally “I will not cause it to turn/ return.”

God would be stating his unwillingness to take back in a treaty relationship the people of Damascus. The reason for God’s decision was their repeated rebellious acts.

Amos 1:3–5 NKJV

3 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, Because they have threshed Gilead with implements of iron. 4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, Which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad. 5 I will also break the gate bar of Damascus, And cut off the inhabitant from the Valley of Aven, And the one who holds the scepter from Beth Eden. The people of Syria shall go captive to Kir,” Says the Lord.

Three first-person verbs in vv. 4–5 outline God’s actions: “I will send,” “I will break down,” and “I will destroy.” The Lord will be the agent of judgment, though such language would not rule out his use of an intermediate agent. The Assyrians were the means to carry out the threatened punishment of Aram.

Next we have Jeremiah 49:23-27

Jeremiah 49:23-27

Jeremiah 49:23–27 NKJV

23 Against Damascus. “Hamath and Arpad are shamed, For they have heard bad news. They are fainthearted; There is trouble on the sea; It cannot be quiet. 24 Damascus has grown feeble; She turns to flee, And fear has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman in labor. 25 Why is the city of praise not deserted, the city of My joy? 26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, And all the men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord of hosts. 27 “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, And it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.”

Damascus, located near Mount Hermon, was the Aramean center in OT times and the capital city of three Syrian states that included Hamath and Arpad (2 Kgs 18:34; 19:13). Hamath was on the Orontes River in Syria, 110 miles north of Damascus. Arpad, also in northern Syria, was about twenty miles north of Aleppo. Hamath and Arpad became Assyrian vassals before 738 b.c. (cf. Isa 10:9; 36:19; 37:13). Damascus fell to Assyria in 732 (2 Kgs 16:9) but became a vassal of Babylon in 605 after Assyria’s fall. Its army joined Nebuchadnezzar in his attack on Judah in 599/598.

Jeremiah 49:23–27 NKJV

23 Against Damascus. “Hamath and Arpad are shamed, For they have heard bad news. They are fainthearted; There is trouble on the sea; It cannot be quiet. 24 Damascus has grown feeble; She turns to flee, And fear has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman in labor. 25 Why is the city of praise not deserted, the city of My joy? 26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, And all the men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord of hosts. 27 “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, And it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.”

The sin of these cities that resulted in their judgment is not named. The bad news they heard (the coming invasion?) made them “disheartened, troubled like the restless sea” (lit. “they melt, in the sea of anxiety”; a verb applied to the Canaanites in Exod 15:15 ).

Exodus 15:15 NKJV

15 Then the chiefs of Edom will be dismayed; The mighty men of Moab, Trembling will take hold of them; All the inhabitants of Canaan will melt away.

Jeremiah 49:23–27 NKJV

23 Against Damascus. “Hamath and Arpad are shamed, For they have heard bad news. They are fainthearted; There is trouble on the sea; It cannot be quiet. 24 Damascus has grown feeble; She turns to flee, And fear has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman in labor. 25 Why is the city of praise not deserted, the city of My joy? 26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, And all the men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord of hosts. 27 “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, And it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.”

In the face of the enemy, Damascus is described as “feeble” (lit. “slack”), in flight, gripped by panic, and seized by anguish and pain like a woman in labor (see 49:22).

The negative wording of the question in 49:25 causes difficulties. One solution is to amend the negative (loʾ) to an emphatic lamed (le). It would then read, “Why has the city of renown been completely abandoned?” Jeremiah 49:26 (repeated in 50:30, where it is applied to Babylon) describes the all-too-common aftermath of battle.

Jeremiah 50:30 NKJV

30 Therefore her young men shall fall in the streets, And all her men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord.

The streets would be filled with the bodies of young men who have been silenced forever. The point, however, may be that the population was doomed and should not tarry.

Though the Lord used human means to bring his judgment on the nations, Jeremiah frequently reminds the reader that God is acting.

Jeremiah 49:23–27 NKJV

23 Against Damascus. “Hamath and Arpad are shamed, For they have heard bad news. They are fainthearted; There is trouble on the sea; It cannot be quiet. 24 Damascus has grown feeble; She turns to flee, And fear has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman in labor. 25 Why is the city of praise not deserted, the city of My joy? 26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, And all the men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord of hosts. 27 “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, And it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.”

Notice the frequent first person: “I will sound the battle cry” (Jeremiah 49:2 );

Jeremiah 49:2 NKJV

2 Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “That I will cause to be heard an alarm of war In Rabbah of the Ammonites; It shall be a desolate mound, And her villages shall be burned with fire. Then Israel shall take possession of his inheritance,” says the Lord.

“I will bring terror” (Jeremiah 49:5 ;

Jeremiah 49:5 NKJV

5 Behold, I will bring fear upon you,” Says the Lord God of hosts, “From all those who are around you; You shall be driven out, everyone headlong, And no one will gather those who wander off.

“I will strip” (Jeremiah 49:10 );

Jeremiah 49:10 NKJV

10 But I have made Esau bare; I have uncovered his secret places, And he shall not be able to hide himself. His descendants are plundered, His brethren and his neighbors, And he is no more.

“I will make you small” (Jeremiah Jeremiah 49:15 );

Jeremiah 49:15 NKJV

15 “For indeed, I will make you small among nations, Despised among men.

“I will chase” (Jeremiah 49:19 );

Jeremiah 49:19 NKJV

19 “Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the floodplain of the Jordan Against the dwelling place of the strong; But I will suddenly make him run away from her. And who is a chosen man that I may appoint over her? For who is like Me? Who will arraign Me? And who is that shepherd Who will withstand Me?”

“I will set fire” (Jeremiah 49:27 );

Jeremiah 49:27 NKJV

27 “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, And it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.”

“I will scatter” (Jeremiah 49:32 ).

Jeremiah 49:32 NKJV

32 Their camels shall be for booty, And the multitude of their cattle for plunder. I will scatter to all winds those in the farthest corners, And I will bring their calamity from all its sides,” says the Lord.

The Lord would set fire to Damascus’s walls (cf. Amos 1:4 , 14 ).

Amos 1:4 NKJV

4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, Which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad.

Amos 1:14 NKJV

14 But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, And it shall devour its palaces, Amid shouting in the day of battle, And a tempest in the day of the whirlwind.

That fire would consume the fortresses of Ben-Hadad (a ninth-eighth century dynasty in Syria as well as the name of several of its rulers; cf. 1 Kgs 15:18 ; 20:1–34 ; 2 Kgs 13:3, 24 ).

1 Kings 15:18 NKJV

18 Then Asa took all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the treasuries of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants. And King Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, saying,

1 Kings 20:1–34 NKJV

1 Now Ben-Hadad the king of Syria gathered all his forces together; thirty-two kings were with him, with horses and chariots. And he went up and besieged Samaria, and made war against it. 2 Then he sent messengers into the city to Ahab king of Israel, and said to him, “Thus says Ben-Hadad: 3 ‘Your silver and your gold are mine; your loveliest wives and children are mine.’ ” 4 And the king of Israel answered and said, “My lord, O king, just as you say, I and all that I have are yours.” 5 Then the messengers came back and said, “Thus speaks Ben-Hadad, saying, ‘Indeed I have sent to you, saying, “You shall deliver to me your silver and your gold, your wives and your children”; 6 but I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, and they shall search your house and the houses of your servants. And it shall be, that whatever is pleasant in your eyes, they will put it in their hands and take it.’ ” 7 So the king of Israel called all the elders of the land, and said, “Notice, please, and see how this man seeks trouble, for he sent to me for my wives, my children, my silver, and my gold; and I did not deny him.” 8 And all the elders and all the people said to him, “Do not listen or consent.” 9 Therefore he said to the messengers of Ben-Hadad, “Tell my lord the king, ‘All that you sent for to your servant the first time I will do, but this thing I cannot do.’ ” And the messengers departed and brought back word to him. 10 Then Ben-Hadad sent to him and said, “The gods do so to me, and more also, if enough dust is left of Samaria for a handful for each of the people who follow me.” 11 So the king of Israel answered and said, “Tell him, ‘Let not the one who puts on his armor boast like the one who takes it off.’ ” 12 And it happened when Ben-Hadad heard this message, as he and the kings were drinking at the command post, that he said to his servants, “Get ready.” And they got ready to attack the city. 13 Suddenly a prophet approached Ahab king of Israel, saying, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver it into your hand today, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’ ” 14 So Ahab said, “By whom?” And he said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘By the young leaders of the provinces.’ ” Then he said, “Who will set the battle in order?” And he answered, “You.” 15 Then he mustered the young leaders of the provinces, and there were two hundred and thirty-two; and after them he mustered all the people, all the children of Israel—seven thousand. 16 So they went out at noon. Meanwhile Ben-Hadad and the thirty-two kings helping him were getting drunk at the command post. 17 The young leaders of the provinces went out first. And Ben-Hadad sent out a patrol, and they told him, saying, “Men are coming out of Samaria!” 18 So he said, “If they have come out for peace, take them alive; and if they have come out for war, take them alive.” 19 Then these young leaders of the provinces went out of the city with the army which followed them. 20 And each one killed his man; so the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them; and Ben-Hadad the king of Syria escaped on a horse with the cavalry. 21 Then the king of Israel went out and attacked the horses and chariots, and killed the Syrians with a great slaughter. 22 And the prophet came to the king of Israel and said to him, “Go, strengthen yourself; take note, and see what you should do, for in the spring of the year the king of Syria will come up against you.” 23 Then the servants of the king of Syria said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills. Therefore they were stronger than we; but if we fight against them in the plain, surely we will be stronger than they. 24 So do this thing: Dismiss the kings, each from his position, and put captains in their places; 25 and you shall muster an army like the army that you have lost, horse for horse and chariot for chariot. Then we will fight against them in the plain; surely we will be stronger than they.” And he listened to their voice and did so. 26 So it was, in the spring of the year, that Ben-Hadad mustered the Syrians and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. 27 And the children of Israel were mustered and given provisions, and they went against them. Now the children of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of goats, while the Syrians filled the countryside. 28 Then a man of God came and spoke to the king of Israel, and said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because the Syrians have said, “The Lord is God of the hills, but He is not God of the valleys,” therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’ ” 29 And they encamped opposite each other for seven days. So it was that on the seventh day the battle was joined; and the children of Israel killed one hundred thousand foot soldiers of the Syrians in one day. 30 But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; then a wall fell on twenty-seven thousand of the men who were left. And Ben-Hadad fled and went into the city, into an inner chamber. 31 Then his servants said to him, “Look now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Please, let us put sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads, and go out to the king of Israel; perhaps he will spare your life.” 32 So they wore sackcloth around their waists and put ropes around their heads, and came to the king of Israel and said, “Your servant Ben-Hadad says, ‘Please let me live.’ ” And he said, “Is he still alive? He is my brother.” 33 Now the men were watching closely to see whether any sign of mercy would come from him; and they quickly grasped at this word and said, “Your brother Ben-Hadad.” So he said, “Go, bring him.” Then Ben-Hadad came out to him; and he had him come up into the chariot. 34 So Ben-Hadad said to him, “The cities which my father took from your father I will restore; and you may set up marketplaces for yourself in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.” Then Ahab said, “I will send you away with this treaty.” So he made a treaty with him and sent him away.

2 Kings 13:3 NKJV

3 Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-Hadad the son of Hazael, all their days.

2 Kings 13:24 NKJV

24 Now Hazael king of Syria died. Then Ben-Hadad his son reigned in his place.

Finally we have Isaiah 17:1-4

Isaiah 17:1-4

Isaiah 17:1–4 NKJV

1 The burden against Damascus. “Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, And it will be a ruinous heap. 2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken; They will be for flocks Which lie down, and no one will make them afraid. 3 The fortress also will cease from Ephraim, The kingdom from Damascus, And the remnant of Syria; They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,” Says the Lord of hosts. 4 “In that day it shall come to pass That the glory of Jacob will wane, And the fatness of his flesh grow lean.

The prophet first deals with the destruction of Syria, especially the key cities of Damascus and Aroer (plus Israel in Isaiah 17:3), because Rezin, the king of Syria, attempted to force Israel and Judah to join in a coalition against Assyria (Isaiah 7:1–2 ; 8:6 ; 2 Chr 28:5 ).

Isaiah 7:1–2 NKJV

1 Now it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but could not prevail against it. 2 And it was told to the house of David, saying, “Syria’s forces are deployed in Ephraim.” So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.

Isaiah 8:6 NKJV

6 “Inasmuch as these people refused The waters of Shiloah that flow softly, And rejoice in Rezin and in Remaliah’s son;

2 Chronicles 28:5 NKJV

5 Therefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria. They defeated him, and carried away a great multitude of them as captives, and brought them to Damascus. Then he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who defeated him with a great slaughter.

Ahaz, king of Judah, resisted joining this coalition (Isaiah 7:1–6 ; 2 Kgs 18:5–6 ),

and Isaiah promised that God would not allow these nations to destroy Judah (Isaiah 7:8–9).

All Ahaz had to do was not to fear and trust God for his deliverance from these military forces (Isaiah 7:4, 9). Isaiah 17:1–3 provides additional assurance that Damascus (and Israel) will not stand, so Isaiah’s audience could be calm and believe God’s promises (7:4).

The two powerful cities of Damascus and Aroer (Deut 2:36 or Josh 13:25 ) will no longer exist.

Deuteronomy 2:36 NKJV

36 From Aroer, which is on the bank of the River Arnon, and from the city that is in the ravine, as far as Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us; the Lord our God delivered all to us.

Joshua 13:25 NKJV

25 Their territory was Jazer, and all the cities of Gilead, and half the land of the Ammonites as far as Aroer, which is before Rabbah,

After the destruction of these strong cities' walls, palaces, fortresses, and towers, all that will be left will be one huge pile of stones. The place will be unfit for human habitation, so it will return to being a place for shepherds to stay with their flocks (cf. Isaiah 5:17; 13:20–22 ).

Notice that Babylon today is still an abandoned site with no improvements or rebuilt city.What remains today are extensive ruins, including the famous Ishtar Gate and parts of the city walls. While there have been some restoration efforts, particularly under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, the site has not been fully reconstructed as a functioning city.

Isaiah 13:20–22 NKJV

20 It will never be inhabited, Nor will it be settled from generation to generation; Nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, Nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. 21 But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches will dwell there, And wild goats will caper there. 22 The hyenas will howl in their citadels, And jackals in their pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, And her days will not be prolonged.”

Now in Damascus the shepherd and flock will not have to fear someone trying to chase them away because no one will live in these cities.

This foreshadows the conquest of Damascus and portions of Israel by Tiglath-Pileser III around 732 BC. In 17:3, the destiny of the royal power of Rezin (the king of Syria) is connected to the fate of the fortified cities of Israel, its coalition partner. Rezin’s authority will evaporate with only a small remnant of people left. The implication is that Ahaz should not fear these nations (cf. 7:4) but instead trust God.

The last part of Isaiah 17:3 has produced much confusion, and several have suggested emendations to help make sense of the Hebrew text. There seems to be a message of hope (cf. Isaiah 18:7) by interpreting this clause as a promise that Aram and Israel will have a glorious remnant left after their judgment. The question is: How will the remnant of Aram (Syria) be like the glory of Israel? If Israel is defeated in this war and has no glory, then the prophet means that the glory of Syria will also disappear.

This seems consistent with Isaiah 17:4, which picks up the discussion of the fading “glory of Jacob.” Both nations will have no strong cities, no gold, no glorious palaces, no prosperous economy, and no powerful armies (cf. Isaiah 2:7–17; 10:16).

Thus, these nations will be humbled with nothing to be proud of (cf. Isaiah 2:11–12). This reminds the reader that people should exalt only the glory and majesty of Almighty God (as in Isaiah 2:11–12, 17) and stop regarding man-made objects, cities, armies, or special people as something glorious (Isaiah 2:22).

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Now, the picture on the screen is from a collection of several black and white slides of Damascus. These were taken at the turn of the last century, the 1890s into the early 1900s. There were seven main gates into Damascus.

Here are some other pictures of other gates in Damascus

They black and white pictures were part of a collection from the American Hotel or what was originally known as the American Colony in Jerusalem.

Horatio and Anna Spafford founded the American Colony.

Horatio Spafford was the father of four daughters who were killed in an ocean liner accident.

Horatio G. Spafford was a successful lawyer and businessman in Chicago with a wife, Anna, and five children. They were no strangers to tragedy; their son died of pneumonia in 1871, and much of their business was lost in the great Chicago fire later that year.

In 1873, the Spafford family decided to travel to Europe. Due to last-minute business developments, Horatio stayed behind but sent his wife and four daughters ahead. Tragically, the ship they were traveling on collided with another vessel and sank rapidly. Anna was one of the few survivors; their four daughters perished.

His wife, Anna, survived and telegraphed back to him, “Saved alone.”

Upon hearing the devastating news, Horatio boarded a ship to join his grieving wife in Europe.

As his vessel passed near the site where they drowned that he wrote, “When peace like a river attendeth my soul, when sorrows like sea billows roll, It is well with my soul.”

He wrote those words, and then, another fifteen or twenty years after that event, they moved to Jerusalem and established a colony there. He had changed his theology a good bit.

He had gone through a very difficult time of grief, but they had become much more oriented to the Second Coming of Christ, and so that was part of the reason they moved to Jerusalem.

He died not long after that; Anna survived for many years, and the American Colony became a place where many from the west came. It was a well-known place to exchange ideas.

They had quite a collection of photographs. Many photographers who traveled throughout the Middle East came there, and the originals of these, are in the Library of Congress.

You can go to any of these locations today since World War II and see a different place. From the time of Jesus until 1920, they didn't change much. It's very interesting to see how things looked at that time.

This is an actual picture of the Gateway entrance to the road “straight” in Damascus. The gate was built around 200 AD during the reign of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, and still exists today.

So Paul goes there.

Acts 9:9

Acts 9:9 NKJV

9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Verse 9 tells us he was there for three days without sight, and he was fasting. This is part of Judaism. There are probably many things at play here emotionally as he thinks about what has occurred. He had an event that changed every belief system he had. In verse 10 we read,

Acts 9:10

Acts 9:10 NKJV

10 Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.”

“Now there was a certain disciple...”

In Acts, the term 'disciple' begins to take on certain connotations, becoming almost equivalent to a believer. “Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and to him, the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias.” God only appears to people in visions in unique circumstances and situations.

Several events in Acts are related to visions. Stephen's message in Acts 7: 31- 32 mentions God appearing to Moses in a vision.

Acts 7:31-32

Acts 7:31–32 NKJV

31 When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, 32 saying, ‘I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look.

He appears to Peter in a vision in Acts 10, to Cornelius in a vision in Acts 10, and to Paul in a vision in Acts 16 again and in Acts 18. These are all related to moving forward the plan of the gospel going from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. In Acts chapter 10, we especially see both Peter and Cornelius being directed by God through a vision. We see the same kind of thing going on here.

So Ananias is directed by the Lord in verse 11 when he says,

Acts 9:11

Acts 9:11 NKJV

11 So the Lord said to him, “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying.

“Arise and go to the street called Straight...[ it still exists in Damascus today] ...and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus for behold, he is praying.”

Sometime read through the Bible once or twice to become familiar with the Scripture. Then, take some time to read the Book of Mormon, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita. You'll be impressed with how the Bible is written compared to these other books. They're like cheap counterfeits. They don't have the same resonance or the same kind of description. In many cases, especially like the Book of Mormon, it's written by someone in the early 1800s trying to imitate Elizabethan English from that period, so it's awkward to understand. The clarity of the New Testament as the writers describe what is going on is impressive. You don't have to look for hidden meanings and all these other things. It's just simple directions: go to the house of Judas, which everyone would know where it was, and look for Saul of Tarsus. He's praying.

Now we learn that Saul also has a vision, as we'll see in Acts 10, where God spoke to both sides. God told Saul that someone named Ananias was coming and told him that he was to go to Saul. In verse 12, Ananias is told that

Acts 9:12

Acts 9:12 NKJV

12 And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.”

“And in a vision he [Saul] has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.”

Then Ananias answered. How honest Ananias is; he's fearful. He says,

Acts 9:13

Acts 9:13 NKJV

13 Then Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem.

“Lord I'm not sure I want to do this. I've heard about this guy.”

This would be like you being a Jew or rabbi and that you're being told to go to Heinrich Himmler and to heal him of his blindness. This would be taking your life in your hands. Ananias doesn't want to do it. He says,

Acts 9:14

Acts 9:14 NKJV

14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.”

“Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.”

So, he's honest about his fear.

Sometimes, we need to be that way in our prayers. One of the things that happens a lot with Christians is that we think, “I'm not supposed to be afraid, so I'm not going to tell God I'm afraid.” He knows you're afraid and worried. Read the Psalms. How often does David say, “I know what I'm supposed to do, but I don't want to do it. I'm afraid.” The prayers of David are very honest about where he is in his spiritual life. We need to be that way as well.

Acts 9:15

Acts 9:15 NKJV

15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.

“But the Lord said to Ananias, 'Go because he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.'”

Notice how we always focus on the fact that Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles, but what does the Lord say about him here? He's chosen to go to the Gentiles but will go before kings and the children of Israel.

Paul was not excluded from giving the gospel to Jews just because he was appointed to be an apostle to the Gentiles. That's part of the commission God relates right here. He's not the apostle to the Jews like Peter, but I've heard some dispensationalists criticize Paul because he didn't understand he was the apostle to the Gentiles. He always took the gospel to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles. Why was he hanging around in the synagogues all the time? Why did he go back to Jerusalem later on? Doesn't he understand he's the apostle to the Gentiles? Being the apostle to the Gentiles did not exclude being a messenger, a representative, and a witness to the gospel to the children of Israel.

Acts 9:16

Acts 9:16 NKJV

16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

And the Lord says, “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake. God said, “Go open his eyes so he can see how he will suffer for me.” Isn't that a message to warm your heart? He's going to suffer many things, and we think about some of the things Paul says later on in 2 Corinthians 1 and some passages like 2 Corinthians 10 or 11.

He talks about the whippings, the beatings, the times he's in jail. We only know about one shipwreck, but he says it happened three times. None of this caused him to stop; he didn't get weary and say, “Lord, I just don't want to do this today. I'm just going to stay in bed.” He understood the mission from the very beginning.

Acts 9:17 says,

Acts 9:17

Acts 9:17 NKJV

17 And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

“Ananais went his way and entered the house and laying his hand on him he said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Now, the word he uses here for 'filling' is not the word we find in Ephesians 5:18. That's pleroo. This is a different word, πλησθῇς--PLESTHES, which often refers to an event, a filling that precedes some sort of speaking. It is often related to some divinely inspired statement. We're not told about that immediately. We're told that all Ananias says here is “that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” We don't hear about the speaking until verse 20.

Acts 9:18

Acts 9:18 NKJV

18 Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.

“Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales and he received his sight...”

It's not just gradual healing like in healing services today. The healing in Scripture is instantaneous. It's not, “Well, you'll see a little fuzzy light, and each day you'll see a little more, and after a time, your sight will return completely.” It's instant. “...he received his sight at once, and he arose and was baptized.” Notice he doesn't wait to be baptized, indicating he understood the significance of this. He had witnessed it, he had seen it; this was a significant event because this was an identification with Jesus as Messiah. He doesn't waste any time.

In verse 19, he receives food because he hasn't eaten in three days and then he spent some days with the disciples at Damascus.

Acts 9:19

Acts 9:19 NKJV

19 So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus.

I think this is at the front end. I think he spent time in Damascus, then went out to Arabia for a while, and then came back to Damascus. The period of time is approximately three years or a little less before he goes to Jerusalem. Luke doesn't talk about him going into Arabia. That's not part of his purpose. He telescopes the instances, and between verses 19 and 20, Paul is out in Arabia.

In verse 20, we read,

Acts 9:20

Acts 9:20 NKJV

20 Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.

“Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues that He is the Son of God.”

Note the emphasis. Paul is proclaiming that this is the Son of God. This is the only time we have this full phrase: Jesus is God's Son. In verse 21 we read,

Acts 9:21

Acts 9:21 NKJV

21 Then all who heard were amazed, and said, “Is this not he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem, and has come here for that purpose, so that he might bring them bound to the chief priests?”

“Then all who heard were amazed and said, 'Is this not the one who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem, and has come here for that purpose so that he might bring them bound to the chief priests'? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.”

Notice, he's arguing, he's discussing, and all the time, he's showing from the Scriptures who Jesus is. When we witness to people, we need to do the best we can do. You're not going to be the apostle Paul, and neither am I. We won't be as well schooled today as we will be five years from now. There are things we can always do that help us master our witnessing.

Number one: Know five or six good verses like John 3:16, John 3:18, John 3:36, Acts 16:31...verses like this that are good gospel verses. Ephesians 2:8-9. Memorize those Scriptures.

Number two: Paul refers to his testimony in Acts 22 and 26 and Galatians 1. He always goes back to his testimony. That is something we all can do. Maybe you're saying, “Yeah, but I'm like you, David, I got saved when I was four years old. I don't know what it was like before that. I barely remember that I trusted Jesus when I was that young.” Sure, but at some point in your life, you decided it was 'fish-or-cut-bait time' regarding our walk with the Lord. And it was time to decide whether or not you believed what you thought you believed. Growing up, it was what our folks did, but at some point between fifteen and ninety-five, you reach a point where you realize it's not just their faith, it's yours. What is going to be real in your life? At that point, we go through a re-evaluation and decide what ours is. That is part of your testimony—something you can describe to others.

That is very much a part of Paul's witness, again and again and again, to tell others what Jesus did for him—his own story. God, the Holy Spirit, uses that. The other part of that is learning how to talk to others. Do you know how you learn to talk to unbelievers about the gospel? By talking to unbelievers about the gospel. You don't learn how to do it by sitting at home, listening to a tape, watching someone on a video, or listening to someone on evangelism. The only way we learn how to talk is by talking to people. That means that often we're going to feel inadequate, that we didn't have the correct answer.

Later on, we will play Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning quarterback. Oh, you know. The wrong set of referees was in. We had the backup team. That's what's happened the last couple of days in pro football. Somebody else should have been there. The Holy Spirit wasn't there. God must have sent in the backup team. God, the Holy Spirit is in control. He doesn't do it apart from us. We may think we blunder, but the Holy Spirit uses it. One of the most important things is when we are who we are; when we're just part of our life, people watch us. You'd be amazed at how many people watch you because they know you're a Christian.