Christ’s Love over Saul’s Hate
Notes
Transcript
Good evening gentlemen. As always, it’s an honor to be here with you. I know for many of you, this feels mundane, repetitive, and just a part of this program. Some of you have hopefully and prayerfully benefited from hearing the preaching of God’s Word day in and day out, and some of you might be tired of it. What I would say to all of you, however, is that I encourage you to listen with an open mind and an open heart. Engage.
If you hear anything I am saying and you have a question or a comment to add, don’t hesitate to say it. I would rather you interrupt and ask rather than walk away not knowing. And I will answer it to the best of my ability. If you would rather wait until the end to ask, I will sit here with you as long as time allows to talk to you about whatever it is you want to know. And I don’t have all the answers, but I will do whatever I can to find one for you.
Because at the end of the day, we are all seeking answers. And more than that, we are all searching for the truth. The question, though, becomes this: What is the truth? If you ask that question in our culture today, what are they going to tell you? They are going to say that it is whatever you want it to be because it’s up to the individual. It’s not objective, meaning there is no one truth that is concrete and reliable, so it is whatever you want it to be. Whatever makes you happy. Friends, I am here to tell you something my mother told me my whole childhood, I don’t care about your happiness. I care about your holiness. And in order to have holiness, you must have Christ.
So if you will and have you Bibles, turn with me to Acts chapter 9 and we will be looking at the first 19 verses. I know it seems like a long chunk, but this is considered to be one of the most important stories in all Scripture. And that is commonly frowned upon to say since all of the Bible is God’s Word, but I will explain why I say this later on. So trusting that you have found your place, I will go ahead and read our text for tonight.
Pray with me.
So many of you might be familiar with this story and this particular passage, and if so, then great. That means you know what comes after this. If you don’t, that is okay too. Either way, I hope you’ll hear what the Lord has put on my heart here.
As you all heave heard leading up to this chapter in Acts, Jesus has been crucified and resurrected and has ascended to Heaven, leaving the apostles the Holy Spirit to go on and continue in the ministry of the gospel. The gospel is a word that means “good news,” and the good news which the apostles are preaching and teaching is that of Jesus. He has come to take away the sin of the world and to be the ultimate sacrifice. This doesn’t mean that sin is now gone, because as we saw in the chapter before this, and as we can see around us today, there is still sin in the world.
However, even as people rejected Jesus and celebrated His death, people are still rejecting the message of Jesus as the perfect sacrifice. The apostles are going city in and city out, preaching this gospel, and are being driven out. Though we see many come to faith in Jesus through the preaching of the Word, we see many also become enraged by this message. Why? Because they hate Jesus.
This may seem like a very blanket statement and a cheater’s way to say it, but it’s the truth. The “religious” people of that day subscribe to the Old Testament hard, but they do not believe that Jesus was and is the Son of God, and are still waiting on the Messiah that the Old Testament talked about. So for Jesus to come and say that He is God and the Messiah, they were enraged by it and rejected anything that has to do with Him or His message.
This is still happening today, really. Jesus told these people that they must leave their lives of sin and repent and believe. The message remains the same and so do the responses, right? Everyone wants to live by their own truth and live comfortably. When someone tells them they are wrong and need to get right, they become angry. Who in here likes to be told they are wrong? I know I don’t, especially if I am convinced that I am right. Regardless of what it is. However, this matter isn’t a matter of right and wrong, but it’s a matter of life and death.
So now we see Saul, who was introduced in Acts chapter 7 in the killing of Stephen, our first martyr. A martyr is someone who is killed for their faith in Jesus. Though an honorable way to die, it is still murder by the hands of Satan and those who serve him. Stephen gave his defense for his preaching of the gospel and his faith. He stood trial and gave his account for why he was faithfully following Jesus and His ministry, and once he finished, he was rushed by a mob and stoned to death.
They accused and charged him with blasphemy, and the proper penalty for blasphemy was being stoned to death. They would tie you up and throw rocks at you until you were dead. And not just pebbles, but significantly sized rocks that would do real damage and eventually kill you. They accused Stephen of blasphemy because he was preaching the truth, and they didn’t want the truth. They wanted their traditions and their version of the truth. But this was no just punishment, as they attacked him in a mob-like fashion.
As they were taking off their garments to bum rush and stone him, they were laying their garments at the feet of none other than this Saul. And as we move into chapter 8, we see that Saul is still very active in his persecution and killing of this movement. The movement of Christianity. The church. He hated Christ and everything he stood for. Now, Saul wasn’t this wild haired, cracked out criminal who was stealing things and killing anyone who stood in his way, but he was actually brilliant. He was one of the smartest men in his religious practices. He was of Jewish decent, his parents kept the law, and he did as well. So as he moved to Israel, he became a Pharisee.
So imagine for yourself, you grow up being told and believing Michael Jordan is the best ever. You’ve seen Jordan, you’ve studied him and you can tell of any fact about him. Stats form North Carolina, stats from Chicago, theories about why he took 2 years off, why he came back with the number 45, stats back in Chicago, flu game stats, stats from when he was in Washington, all star appearances, the whole thing. You know each number, fact, stat, theory, everything. And then some kids come around and say that LeBron James is the goat. You’re not going to stand for this, are you? You are going to argue and debate tooth and nail about this.
Now imagine that, but times 10,000. That is what Paul was. And for the record, MJ is the goat. But what you have here is Saul who studied, believed with his whole being, and lived out the Jewish traditions, and now there is something contrary to what he believed being spread all throughout his land. So he is acting, or rather reacting, in a way he seems to be appropriate. Kill anyone who is teaching anything else.
So that brings us now to our text I read earlier. Saul is headed to Damascus now to find more followers of Jesus to imprison them and bring them back to be killed or locked up. And even as he is requesting letters from the high priest about people who are following The Way, meaning the gospel or Christianity, he is breathing out threats and murder against the disciples who haven’t yet fled Israel, or Jerusalem in this specific case. The text in verse 3 then jumps to him traveling on his way to Damascus with two other men.
As he is making his way, a very bright light flashed around him, a light from heaven. This causes Saul to fall to the ground in confusion, and likely a great deal of fear. Wouldn’t you be? I remember a few years back, in 2019, I got into a head on car accident. A woman who was under the influence of drugs drove directly into my lane and hit me head on. A friend of mine, Josiah, if any of you remember him he used to work here, were driving and he was talking and I looked at him for a split second and when I looked back, a whole car was in my lane and crashed into me. After the impact, I wasn’t concerned about my car, or even myself . All I could think of was the fear and confusion I had just been thrown into.
I would assume Saul felt no different. He then hears a voice call to him, verse 4. And Paul replies, verse 5. Jesus then gives Saul a command in verse 6. Get up, go to the city, and do as I say. The two men with Saul are terrified, as I would be also. This mighty-seeming man who is practically running the ship for persecuting Christians has just been struck down by something they can’t see or hear. Again, it would be like if I were up here speaking to you all, and just fell to the floor, likely grabbing my face, and then began speaking out loud, having a conversation, and you all can’t hear the other side of it. I would hope that you all would call 911 or get some help, but these men didn’t have that option. They just had to be afraid and lead him the rest of the way into the city.
Now the trip to Damascus was about 140 miles and they were traveling on foot, which means it would’ve taken about a week to get there. We aren’t told how close he was before he was stricken blind by Jesus, but you have to imagine the difficulty and fear in traveling the rest of the way and not being able to see anything. If someone really wanted to take him out for doing what he was doing, they easily could have, but the protection of the Lord was upon him at this point.
So if you were watching a movie, this would be where the scene would cut and move to another character. A man by the name of Ananias. Ananias was already in Damascus when the Lord calls upon him and instructs him to go out and meet Saul. Now, Ananias we can tell is a logical individual. He pleads with Jesus and says “but this guy is crazy! He’s been killing people just like me left and right and he will kill me if he sees me.” But God instructs him to go because He has a special task for Saul, so he goes.
Once Ananias arrives to Saul, he lays his hands on him and informs him that it was Jesus who he was speaking with on the road when he was stricken with blindness and confusion. He also informs him that this happened so that he may be filled with the Holy Spirit and relent form his persecution from the church. We can assume it was at this point that the scales were removed form his eyes, as verse 18 tells us, and rose up and was baptized. Baptism being the next step after salvation, this seems like an accurate assumption.
Now, we read this and we say, “okay, so what then? This Saul was bad, and now he isn’t.” What about all the bad he did? Shouldn’t be be punished for his crimes? Shouldn’t he have to face a consequence? This hardly seems fair. But brothers, fair is not what you want. Fair leads us all to hell and quickly. We are sinners. And the penalty for sin must be paid because we are sinning against a holy and just God.
But you see, the point of this whole text is just that. It’s a story of salvation. The term salvation means to be saved from something, and when we are talking about salvation in a biblical sense, what are we saved from? Any takers?
We are saved from hell, yes. But ultimately we are saved from God. Interestingly enough, we are saved by God too. We are not saved by what we do or did in this life because when we take all the good we have done, or what we think is good, and compare it to this work that Jesus did on the cross after living a perfect and sinless life, it is nothing. Filthy rags as the Bible calls it.
And who in the Bible made this statement? That would be this Saul that we are reading of now. His name is later on changed to Paul and he goes on to be the greatest missionary that ever lived and proceeded to write 2/3 of the New Testament. You see, this conversion story of Saul to Paul is significant because of the way the Lord used Him after this. Your conversion is no different. No, you’re not going to write the next part of the Bible by any means, but when you are brought to your knees and the scales are removed from your eyes, that is no small thing.
Before we know Jesus, or more importantly, before He knows us, we are blind. We are dead. There are scales over our eyes and we cannot see. We cannot see our sins and we cannot see that there is a cure for this sin. Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Before this story of Saul, he was a servant of Satan and actively tried to kill the message of the gospel of Christ. This same gospel that he so vehemently tried to destroy is the same gospel that saved him and the same gospel that he would carry on to preach and teach until his dying breath in, what many believe to be, prison.
Men. You either are serving God, or you are serving Satan. Serving God leads you to eternal life with Him in His presence and in His Heaven. Serving the other leads you to God’s righteous judgement and eternity in hell, forever separated from God and His mercy.
We can’t pay that price. We owe that price, but we cannot pay it. But that’s our good news. That’s the gospel. We are sinners, we owe the price of sin, but we can’t pay it. Jesus paid that price on our behalf. On Saul’s behalf. And when we repent of our sins and place our trust in Jesus for salvation, then we are freed from this punishment because Jesus bore it. We no longer have to be enslaved to sin. Does this mean we won’t sin anymore? Of course not because we will still be humans who will struggle with sin until we die, but Jesus paid it all. With Christ you have the ability to say no to sin. Your bondage is removed. The chains are gone and you are all His.
Repent today, men. Turn from dark to light. Turn from a life of sin to a life wrapped in the arms of Jesus who bore your sin. Your shame. Your guilt. Your doubt. This is is the truth. This is the way.
Pray with me.
