So Acts chapter 22, and we'll
read from verse one. Perhaps you'll remember with
me just before we begin this reading here, that the Apostle
Paul had been arrested by the Romans in Jerusalem, where he
had been attacked by the Jews when he was in the temple. And
this little account that we have, this sermon that we're going
to hear from the Apostle Paul takes place as he is being led
away by the Romans. Indeed, he is being carried away
by the Romans. And we are told that he asks
if he might be able to address the crowd. And what a huge crowd
it very probably was. And this is the defense. This is the message that the
Apostle Paul gives from the steps and the stairs into the castle. So Acts chapter 22 and verse
1, the Apostle says, Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence
which I make now unto you. And when they heard that he spoke
in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence, and
he saith, I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city
in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel,
and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers,
and was zealous toward God as ye all are this day. So Paul was a Jew, although he
was born in Tarsus, which is in modern day Turkey, and yet
he had had all his education or his schooling in Jerusalem
and he was very familiar with that city. and we know of him
in the early chapters of Acts as Saul of Tarsus. And I persecuted,
verse 4, this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons
both men and women. as also the high priest doth
bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders, from whom
also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus
to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to
be punished. And it came to pass that as I
made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon,
suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and
heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? And I answered, Who art thou,
Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus
of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And they that were with me saw
indeed the light, and were afraid, but they heard not the voice
of him that spake to me. And I said, What shall I do,
Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise,
and go into Damascus, and there it shall be told thee of all
things that are appointed for thee to do. And when I could
not see for the glory of that light being led by the hand of
them that were with me, I came into Damascus. And one Ananias,
a devout man according to the law, having a good report of
all the Jews which dwelt there, came unto me and stood and said
unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour
I looked up upon him. And he said, The God of our fathers
hath chosen thee, that thou shouldst know his will, and see that just
one, and shouldst hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt
be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. Now, why tarriest thou? Arise,
and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name
of the Lord. And it came to pass that when
I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple,
I was in a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and
get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy
testimony concerning me. And I said, Lord, they know that
I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed
on thee. And when the blood of thy martyr
Stephen was shed, I also was standing by and consenting unto
his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. And he
said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the
Gentiles. Amen. May the Lord be pleased
to bless to us this reading from his word. I've called this little
account, this little address this morning, the Sermon on the
Steps, because it was from the steps, the steps that went up
into the castle beside the temple, that the Apostle Paul was able
to speak these words. You'll remember with me that
he had been beaten almost to the point of death and then the
Roman soldiers had come and recovered him and the Jews that were trying
to kill him had stopped off from doing that. So Paul was given
an opportunity to speak from the steps. The Jews couldn't
reach him anymore. The Roman soldiers were on the
steps with him. And there, it really was like
a platform. It really was like he was standing
up on a platform getting ready to give a sermon. But the sermon
that he gave was very interesting. And we have heard before this
testimony that the Apostle Paul gave. It was a testimony of his
conversion experience, how the Lord had met him on the road
to Damascus and saved him from his sins, despite his purpose
of endeavouring to destroy the church, which the Lord was now
bringing him into as a member. And I think that that story,
that account of the Apostle Paul's conversion, how Saul of Tarsus,
as it were, became Paul the Apostle, it's a wonderful story of Christ
preserving his people also. Because you'll remember with
me, I trust, that Paul was going to Damascus in order to kill
and to harm and to hurt and to take in chains those Christians
that he found there back to Jerusalem that they might be punished.
Paul told us about that in this sermon once again. And so we
can see that the Lord protected his people from this man that
was coming to do them harm. And it is also a picture of the
wonder of sovereign grace because here was a man who was opposed
to the Lord Jesus Christ, who was against the church, who was
looking for opportunity to hurt the Lord's people. but Jesus
Christ met him in the way, changed him around, turned him around,
so that the one who was opposed to the message of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the gospel now becomes a preacher of that message of
Christ and the gospel. So in telling the people this
story, Paul was saying to them, I was just like you. He is saying
to them, you are trying to kill me because of the gospel. And
I previously was just like that as well. I was trying to kill
people because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then Jesus
Christ came to me and saved me. And the first point I want to
draw to your attention here this morning, or this afternoon, if
that's your time, is this. You might think that being a
Christian is just a little thing, a small thing, an easy matter. But there are people who have
suffered and died for this gospel that we preach today. Stephen
did. Paul almost did. The Gospel isn't
just a story. Although we read it in a book,
although we read it in the Bible, although we perhaps are told
this story at church and by our parents, it's not just a story. The Gospel is important. It's
a matter of life and death. In Acts chapter 22, verse 14, Here the apostle said of this
gospel, the God of our fathers, that is the God who created this
world, the God of our fathers hath chosen you that you should
know his will and see that just one and should hear the voice
of his mouth For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what
thou hast seen and heard. And that's the story of how the
gospel works. The gospel works by men who have
been chosen of God bringing the message of the gospel generation
to generation, age to age. country to country, city to city,
town to town, bringing that message of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
bringing the message of salvation by grace, that we might be able
to see that just one. And this is the message which
is the most important message in the world. the message of
the salvation of our souls and the forgiveness of our sins. And so it is important that we
hear this message and the Apostle Paul was anxious and eager to
preach this message, to give this story once again, the story
of his conversion to all those people who heard him that day. And the story that Paul told
that day, it wasn't a complicated sermon. It wasn't something that
was difficult to understand. It was very simple. He simply
said, this is what the Lord has done for me. Paul saw Christ's
glory and he heard Christ's voice. And maybe you say to me today,
I would believe if I had an experience like Paul had on the Damascus
Road. A man once told me that. He once
said, you know, I would love to believe like other people
believe. I would love to believe this
story about Jesus. He said, but I can't. He said,
I would need to have an experience like Paul had on the Damascus
Road. I would need to hear and I would
need to see for myself. Well, Paul actually heard and
Paul actually saw. But Ananias tells us that he
actually heard and actually saw because he was called to be an
apostle. All the rest of us, we have to
believe by faith. We don't actually hear a voice. we don't actually see the Lord
Jesus Christ but we hear his words in the gospel that's preached. We see him lifted up in the message
of the cross. We see the work that he has done. We see the accomplishments that
he has made and by faith We believe that these things, these things
that we hear of Christ in the Gospel, these things that we
see about Christ in this message, to be true and to be meaningful
and to be significant in our hearts and in our lives. We receive this message from
the people who did actually see and hear the Lord Jesus Christ. When I preach from Acts chapter
22 or from the other passages of the New Testament Scriptures. I am preaching what the apostles
wrote, what the people who were with the Lord Jesus Christ actually
wrote down and gave to us. And it's a beautiful thing just
to have the testimony of the Apostle Paul. We see it several
times in the book of Acts. And every time the Holy Spirit
leads us to reflect upon Paul's conversion is a blessing to us,
for it reminds us that we are getting firsthand from the very
lips of the man whom God chose to be our preacher, the things
of this just one, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all that he has done. Here's another little point about
this story, which is interesting, I think. This is perhaps the
greatest congregation that Paul had ever preached to. And I guess I'm repeating myself,
but all he did was to tell them what the Lord had done for him. He gave his testimony. And that's all any of us are
able to do. It would be wrong for me to try
and teach you things that I don't know about. And it's wrong for
anyone to try and teach someone else of something that they themselves
are ignorant. We have to be faithful to the
things that we have seen and heard, to the things that we
have discovered, to the things that have been revealed to us
in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we are faithful when we relate
and recount the testimony of scripture and this apostolic
message and this gospel of Jesus Christ. It is all that we can
do. Paul had already preached for
many, many years. He had already, by this time
in which he made this sermon from the steps, he had written
the epistle to the Romans and he had written both epistles
to the Corinthians. Paul was a very capable, a very
able, a very profound and experienced preacher, but to those that were
there that day, all he could do was to tell them what the
Lord Jesus Christ had done for him. He called him to be a preacher,
he called him to be a messenger of his and to take that message
to the Gentiles to take that message not only to the Jews
but to the whole world and this is what the Apostle Paul was
faithful in doing. And there's a final point here
that I just want to make because there's something lovely about
the way that Paul returns to the testimony of Stephen. You know, it was over 20 years
since the death of Stephen and Paul standing on these steps,
giving this message. Over 20 years. Many of the younger
people who are listening to us today, they won't be 20 years
old. And yet that length of time had
transpired but Paul still had Stephen in his mind and in his
memory. No doubt the very location in
which he now spoke reminded him of that Beautiful man, Stephen. No doubt the temple itself where
he had argued with Stephen. No doubt the very sand in the
streets there in Jerusalem that had been the places where Stephen
had been dragged and where Stephen had been stoned. And even perhaps
the way in which Paul himself had almost been slain there outside
the temple was reminiscent and reminded him of what he had been
party to all those years before. Paul, in mentioning Stephen,
was honouring his sacrifice and he was honouring his martyrdom.
And that attitude to the gospel that had brought about Stephen's
death generally remained amongst the Jews. And here they were
again, still trying to destroy the preachers of the Lord Jesus
and silence this message of God's grace and the forgiveness by
the blood of Jesus Christ. But the Lord Jesus Christ has
a people in this world. And Paul was called to leave
Jerusalem and to take the Gospel to the Gentiles, to take it to
men and women in different countries, of different tribes, of different
nations. And that is what the Apostle
Paul did. He carried that message into
Turkey, into Europe, into Macedonia. and perhaps even beyond that. And he brought us the message
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was told to depart, for I
will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. And how blessed
we are today that the Lord Jesus Christ has sent preachers to
us to bring us this message of the gospel of salvation, this
message which so changed Paul, and motivated him to go and to
preach all the message of grace to all the people to whom he
was sent. It is our privilege today to
hear that message still being spoken. May God grant us grace
to believe it. Amen.