This morning we will be looking
at the book of Acts. The book of Acts chapter 26,
if you want to follow along with me. Acts chapter 26. In this
portion of God's Word, the Apostle Paul is standing before the Roman
king, Caesar Augustus Agrippa, and the governor, of Caesarea
named Festus. And as he did before every one
of his captors and accusers, the Apostle tells a story of
how the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him and spoke to him and revealed
himself to him. Now, many of my friends tell
me their stories, how that they mirror the Apostle Paul somewhat
in that they were very religious and zealous and thought they
were serving the Lord when in fact they didn't even know the
true God and the true Christ. Well, Paul tells his story, and
I begin with verse 9 through 11. Paul says to the king and
the governor, I thought with myself that I ought to do many
things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which I did. And many of the saints I shut
up in prison. And when they were put to death,
he said he voiced his approval of that. And he punished them
and compelled them to blaspheme. And he said I was exceedingly
mad against them and persecuted them. Paul says, I thought I
knew God and I was zealous for the God that I served, but I
didn't know who Jesus Christ was, the true God and His true
Christ. And all who believed Him and
worshiped that way, I persecuted them." And later he writes to
the Romans, in Romans chapter 10, concerning his own Jewish
brethren, he says, I know they have a zeal for God, but it's
not according to knowledge. They are ignorant of God's righteousness,
going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God, for Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And
he goes on to talk about that in Romans 10. So he said, I was
ignorant of the true God and the true Christ, the true way
of salvation, but I thought I was serving God. In verse 12 he says,
and he said, I hated those who served the true God and knew
the true Christ. In verse 12 he says, I went to
Damascus. I was on my way to Damascus with
authority and commission. Paul at the time was fairly young,
a young man, and he was on his way up the religious ladder. He said to the Philippians, he
said, what things were gained to me. The religion I used to
be in was gained to me. There was great profit from it.
P-R-O-F-I-T. I profited in my religion. It was great gain. Paul, I believe,
was very wealthy by his religion and thought he was working his
way up the religious ladder. He was. He would have been one
of the cheap rulers, I'm sure. And he was on his religious road,
but he was lost. Paul was lost. He was serving
a God, but he didn't know the true God. Verse 13 and 14, he
tells what happened to him. At midday, O King, speaking to
Agrippa, he says, I saw in the way a light from heaven above
the brightness of the sun shining round about me and them which
journeyed with me. We were all fallen to the earth.
I heard a voice speaking unto me." Now, Paul recounts this
quite often. He says, this light shone round
about me, and I heard a voice. The Lord Jesus Christ is who
this light was. Just as John said, light came
into the world, but men are lovers of darkness rather than light.
Christ is light. God is light. And Christ spoke
to Saul of Tarsus, or the Apostle Paul. He spoke to him. Now, Paul,
or Saul was his name previously. Saul of Tarsus wasn't speaking
to the Lord. He wasn't calling on the Lord.
He didn't even know the Lord. He didn't know Christ was Lord.
And no man comes unto the Father but by Jesus Christ. So he wasn't
seeking the Lord. He wasn't calling upon the Lord. But now here is salvation. This
is what happened to Saul, and this is what happens to every
single son of Adam whom God saved. The Lord had chosen Saul, and
the Lord had predetermined to reveal himself to Saul and to
call Saul by his grace, by his gospel. Paul wrote this to the
Galatians later on, Galatians chapter 1. He talked about how
he was in religion. He said, but when it pleased
God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
his grace to reveal his Son in me. Salvation comes to a human
being not when they are pleased to let God save them, not when
they decide to accept Jesus. No, no, that is not scriptural.
Salvation comes to a human being when it pleases God, when God
is pleased in due time to reveal himself to them, not vice versa. God does the seeking first, and
when God seeks and God calls His own, then they begin seeking
and they begin calling Him, not until. So like the Apostle Paul,
true salvation comes when God is pleased to reveal Christ in
us. Paul said, he revealed Christ
in me, not just to my head, but in my heart. For he said again
in Romans 10, with the heart man believeth unto salvation. Many draw near with their lips
when their heart is far from it. And salvation is a heart
work. And only God can work on the
heart. Well, Paul, as I said, Paul didn't
decide to accept Jesus at the altar after some silly little
preacher begged him to do so. No, Paul, what Paul saw and heard
was a sovereign Lord Jesus Christ on the throne who put him, who
put Paul in the dust on his face trembling. Verse 14, Paul goes
on to say, we heard this voice, he said, when we were all fallen
to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me and saying in
the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is
hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Now, I've often heard
preachers many times tell people to not, don't disturb the Spirit. Nobody move while the Spirit's
working. Now, if you don't do this, God won't do that. Listen,
if God Almighty is working on somebody today, He'll be working
on them tomorrow. When God Almighty begins the
work of salvation, He finishes it. That's what Paul said in
Philippians 1, verse 6. I'm confident that He that hath
begun a good work in you will perform it, will finish it. And
when God Almighty decided or God determined to to work on
Saul of Tarsus. Well, it's hard, yea, it's impossible
to kick against the pricks of the Holy Spirit of God and the
work of the sovereign God. It's impossible. There's a story
in scriptures of the Lord sending his disciples to fetch a wild
ass's coat for his use. He told them to go into a city
and they would find a wild ass's coat tied to a fence. And he
said, and he made sure to say that it was a coat upon which
no man had ridden. Nobody had ever sat on this wild
ass's coat. He said, you go get it. I'm going
to ride it. And this is exactly what the
Lord did. He got on that wild ass's coat
upon which no man had ever sat. And that coat didn't kick one
time. It is hard to kick against the
pricks. When God Almighty works, when
God Almighty begins to work, that person will be saved. All right, verse 15, Paul says
this. Paul recounts his story, and
he says, when I heard this, I said, Who art thou, Lord? Who art thou? Paul didn't know
who the Lord was. Although he had been serving
the Lord all that time, or thought he had, he didn't know the Lord. He didn't know the true Lord
God of glory. And the Lord answers him and
said, now this is God, this is the Lord Elohim. He says in verse 15, he said,
I am Jesus whom thou persecuted. I am Jesus, the Lord God of glory,
the Lord God Almighty, the Creator. God the Father is none other
than Jesus of Nazareth. I am Jesus. Now, Paul, Saul,
that is, Saul of Tarsus, thought this Jesus was just a man. And
he thought he was dead and gone. Now he knows this man named Jesus,
that man named Jesus, whom the Jews crucified, whom I crucified,
whom I thought was just a man, I persecuted those that believed
in him, on him, while he is none other than the Lord God Almighty,
in whose hands my breath is, and all my ways." In chapter
9 of Acts, he tells the same story. This is when it actually
happened, chapter 9. The Scripture says, Paul fell
down trembling and was astonished. Just like the folks at Pentecost
when they heard from Peter who Christ really is, they trembled. They trembled and were astonished.
Why were they trembling? Why was Saul of Tarsus trembling
and astonished? Because he knew that this Jesus
was not in his hands to do with as he pleaded. That it was not
up to him to let him be Lord. No, he trembled because he knew
his very life was in the hands of this sovereign Lord and Master,
and he trembled at the thought that he could kill him or let
him live. Verse 16. Well, the Lord gave
these instructions to Saul of Tarsus. Verse 16. He said, Arise,
stand on your feet. I have appeared unto thee for
this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things
which thou hast seen and of those things in the which I will appear
unto thee. I will make thee I have purpose
to make thee a minister." God, according to his will and his
purpose, does things. It's not man's will, it's not
man's choosing, it's not man's purpose. God worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will, not our will, not of the
will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God. God told
Paul, I have purpose to make thee a minister. Now, years before,
when this young man named Saul, urged on by his parents and perhaps
others who saw some sort of religious ability in him, he decided to
enter the ministry. He was going to go into the Jewish
or Hebrew ministry, Judaism, and he decided to attend school. So he went to the school of Gamaliel
to become a preacher boy. And he got his degrees, and he's
got his letters of commendations, and he started serving the Lord.
He didn't even know the Lord. You see, men don't put themselves
into the ministry. No apostle ever applied for the
job. And so God Almighty says to Saul
now, he said, I've determined to put you in the ministry. God
does the choosing, God does the calling, God does the sending.
How shall they preach except they be sent? And God determined
God's purpose to make Saul of Tarsus a minister, and he turned
into the Apostle Paul by the sovereign power of God. Religious,
yes, but lost until Christ revealed himself to him. Perhaps there
is someone listening this morning It has the same story.