Here we have the testimony of
God the Holy Spirit regarding the making of a minister, the
saving of a sinner, the commissioning of an apostle, the making of
a minister, the creation of a servant of God. What a remarkable opportunity
King Agrippa had to stand in the presence of the Apostle Paul
and have the Gospel declared to him. Paul, as we have seen
in our journey through Acts, he preached with great force. He spoke with as much clarity
as the Lord would possibly allow. He spoke particularly and personally
to the people he had the opportunity and the door of utterance open
to speak to. He spoke forcefully, but he spoke
courteously. He was bold. He was strong, but
he wasn't rude. He was respectful, wasn't he,
of Agrippa. He says, King Agrippa, he was,
I think myself happy, verse two, King Agrippa, because I shall
answer for myself this day before thee. I'll answer these accusations
before thee. But in fact, what's he do? What
does he do? He doesn't have to deal with
the accusations so much. What he does is he takes the
opportunity to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. One
of the things that's interesting as you follow with us and have
followed with us on our journey through Acts is that the Jews
now seem to have none of these accusations brought against him.
He stands there in this court in with all the pomp and ceremony
of Gripper and Festus and all of these others, and he just
has one thing he's dealing with, isn't it? And that is the hope
of the resurrection from the dead. He says, he says, now I
stand, now I stand, and am judged for the hope of the promise made
of God unto our fathers. Unto which promise, verse 7,
our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope
to come. Paul was determined. that he would proclaim a God
who raises to dead. What, verse 8, why should it
be a thing incredible with you, Agrippa? You know the history
of the Jews. You know, you know the stories,
you know the extraordinary evidences of resurrection in their, in
all of their life. Elijah raised people from the
dead, Elisha raised people from the dead. Elisha, when, when
some man was put into Elisha's Grave, when his body touched
the bones of Elijah, he rose from the dead. A resurrection from the dead. There
is going to be a resurrection from the dead, the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. is just but a fulfillment, isn't
it, of the resurrections that were promised throughout the
Old Testament. Job looked forward to a resurrection.
He says, I know my Redeemer lives. And he says, these eyes, this
flesh of mine is going to see him when he comes upon this earth.
I'm going to see him. There'll be a resurrection. There's
a resurrection of Christ points forward to that resurrection.
There'll be a resurrection of all who are in him. And there
will be a resurrection of all humanity. Your future is a resurrected
future. It doesn't matter who you are.
No one escapes this resurrection. And with that in mind, Paul speaks
to a griffith, doesn't he? He sees, he's persuasive and
he's not apologising. Paul was captive. He was determined
and he was persuaded that Agrippa's only hope was to hear the gospel. And he begins in verse 6 by talking
about his manner of life, which was from my youth, which was
at first among my own nation at Jerusalem. Now all the Jews,
you can find out this. He says at the end of that chapter,
he says, I'm speaking words of truth and soberness to you. All
of them know. These people that are bringing
the accusations know me. The very people who sent me with
these letters to Damascus know me. And they knew me from the
beginning if they would testify. Isn't this extraordinary that
in all their testimonies they never ever mention Paul's life.
They never mention Paul's life with them. They never mention
him being the brilliant student of Gamilu. They never mention
him In the zeal, the pharisaical zeal that caused him, as he declares
of himself, that he was actually mad and enraged against them.
Verse 9, now I stand, is judged for the hope. Verse 8, why should
it be thought an incredible thing with you that God should raise
the dead? Verse 9, verily I thought myself that I ought to do many
things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing
also I did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints did I show
up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests.
And when they were put to death, this is the first mention in
the scriptures, that not only was Stephen put to death, and
not only was James put to death, but there were many others. Many
of the saints of God have testified to the sovereign grace and glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing is recorded. Nothing
is recorded in sacred history and nothing is recorded in any
other history. God records. God records the
actions and the life of His saints. When they were put to death I
gave my voice against them and I punished them oft in every
synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, I compelled them
to deny the Lord Jesus Christ. And being exceedingly mad against
them, I persecuted them even unto Australian cities. Whereupon,
as I went to Damascus with authority and commission of the chief priests."
So Paul was a man with some power on earth, wasn't he? Paul was
a man of authority. Paul was a man with a lot of
religious recommendations to him. So when he begins talking
to Agrippa, he doesn't talk about anything that he can boast in
whatsoever. He talks in truthfulness about
his history. Paul says, doesn't he, that he
was a sinner, he was a blasphemer, he was a violent man, an injurious
man. And he says, I obtained mercy. I obtained mercy, and this is
how that mercy came to be. This is Paul's commissioning,
verse 13. It's a glorious description of
the Lord intervening in the lives of his people. At midday, O King. Midday, O King. There he was,
with all of this authority. and all of this achievement.
You see, Paul just preached what he'd experienced. Paul just preached
what he'd seen, and Paul just preached what he's heard. Witnesses
just witness to what they've seen and heard. He says, I saw in the way a light
from heaven above the brightness of the sun shining round about
me and then which journeyed with me. Paul was on his way. And that's
what happens, doesn't it, when God meets the sinner. He meets
them in their way, and he meets them in his way, doesn't he?
I saw a light from heaven. It wasn't a natural light, but
a light from heaven. The light from heaven eclipses
all natural light. I love what John says in 1 John
1. See, John writes as a witness,
doesn't he? Three times in 1 John 1, he says,
what we have seen and heard. I'm going to declare to you what
I've seen and heard, that which was from the beginning, that
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, we have
looked upon and our hands have handled the world of life. He's
talking about both the incarnation of the Lord Jesus, but particularly
the resurrection. They could touch him. They could
walk with him and talk with him and have meals with him and he
could teach them. For the life Our hands have handled
the Word of Life, for the Life was manifested and we have seen
it, and bear witness and show unto you that Eternal Light which
was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen
and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship
with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His
Son. Jesus Christ. These things we write unto you,
that your joy may be filled. As Paul says to the Romans, you
might have the joy and peace of believing. We're just giving
a testimony as honest men. This then is the message, which
in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship
with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.
To walk in darkness is to walk in anything of man-made religion,
anything of your works in any way at all, of your free will
and your works in any way at all. We lie and do not do, but
if we walk in the light, verse seven, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another in the blood of Jesus Christ.
cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, Berseid,
see there sin is a noun, sin is what you are, it's a being
word. Paul's description of himself
before a group of, the first thing he does is tell everyone
what a sinner he was, what an enemy of God he was. If we say
we have no sins, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But
if we confess our sins, to confess your sins is not to name them
before you or anyone else. To confess your sins is to say
exactly the same as God. That's what that word means.
It means to say the same thing. God says that we are nothing
but sins. We're sinners. We're sinners
by birth, by nature, by practice, and we're sinners by desire.
and all sinners can do nothing but sin. If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned,
and sin is a verb, it's a doing word, we make him a liar and
his word is not on us. There is a light, isn't it? God
lives, as Paul says to Timothy, in light unapproachable. That
light from heaven is emblematic of so many wonderful things about
our glorious God. It's emblematic of His holiness,
isn't it? His utter purity. The fact that
He is not at all like us, when we meet Him, Meet him as he is and as he's
displayed in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're meeting
a God who is utterly holy. We're meeting a God, our meeting
with God, as Paul's meeting with God with his light from heaven,
speaks of his sovereignty, doesn't it? That he has the right and
the time to choose, the time of love when he will come and
reveal himself in light. It speaks of his sovereignty,
doesn't it? Him coming in light. He speaks of His sovereignty
in grace. He speaks of His sovereignty
in revelation. I do quote that verse out of
Ephesians chapter 1, but it's just, it's a glorious description
of what happens, isn't it? Paul's prayer for the Ephesians,
and our prayers should be for each other, isn't it? He ceases
not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.
Verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, to father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Him. You'll know Him by revelation
when He reveals Himself to people. He reveals Himself as He really
is. And where do we see, verse 18,
that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may
know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches
of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the
exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe. According
to the working of His mighty power, Paul could be recounting
exactly what happened on that Damascus road that day, didn't
he? God came and the light of the sun was eclipsed by the light
of the Son of God. God was revealed in holiness
and purity. Paul was revealed in the utter
depravity of what he was. God revealed that in sovereign
grace and mercy he can come to a sinner like Paul and shine
his light upon him. God's coming, this light from
heaven coming, reveals in particular power that all of Paul's religion,
all of Paul's religion, was nothing other than enmity against God. It was the exercise of hatred
and rebellion against God. And only a revelation of a sovereign
God, only a light from heaven, only the eyes of your understanding,
being enlightened, will cause you to see that all man-made
works religion is nothing, is nothing but enmity, organized
enmity against God. Paul had a light, and Paul particularly
heard a voice from heaven. There's a particularity about
it, isn't there? You can imagine what happened. I was wondering
this morning what happened. There's a bunch of soldiers.
It's a long way from Damascus to Jerusalem, isn't it? And there
you are taking your soldiers. They would have been the temple
soldiers of the Jewish courts, those who were soldiers to the
Sanhedrin, as it were. And a whole, I don't know how
many of them were going up. If you were going up there to
Damascus to arrest a number of Christians in Damascus, you'd
have to make sure that you restrained them on the way home. I mean,
what happened to those soldiers when they turned up in Jerusalem? The Sanhedrin would have said,
well, why are you back so quickly? And where's Paul? Where are all these Christians? And what's happened to you? You
have survived. You have some testimony of meeting
God. So when the Lord comes in sovereign
grace and mercy, There's something very particular about it. Something
in the hearts of God's people which is an extraordinary revelation. It is the implanting of a new
man. It's a new creation, isn't it?
It is salvation. God is light. Nothing escapes
his all-seeing eye. And when, verse 14, there's so
much more to say about that light from heaven, I remind you to
go to 2 Timothy chapter 1 and remind yourself of those glorious
words, this light that comes, this light that comes. I'll just
read them to you, but I'd love for you to go and spend some
time studying it and just be be reminded that Paul now stands
there and he says, I'm not ashamed, verse eight, I'm not ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord. I'm not ashamed of being his
witness, nor me, his prisoner. I'm not ashamed of being a prisoner
for him. But be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel.
This is going to cost you. Believing in this gospel is going
to cost you. There'll be afflictions associated with this gospel.
So many ways, afflictions in this world and afflictions in
your own heart that you would never have known were there.
When the new man comes, the old man rises up in rebellion against
you and you have trials in this world that you could never possibly
have imagined until the Lord comes. But you're gonna have
them according to the power of God, who has saved us and called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus,
When God gave you grace, he gave it to you before the foundation
of the world, before the world began, but is now made manifest,
which means that light has shone upon it. Something has been revealed
by the appearing of our saviour Jesus Christ who has abolished
death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. whereunto I am appointed a preacher,
and an apostle, and a teacher to the Gentiles. And we quote
and sing in verse 12, often don't we? For which cause I also suffer
these sins. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed,
for I know whom I have believed. I know a whom. I don't know a
what, I know a whom. And if you know the whom, you'll
know all the what about him. Paul was never ever going to
question ever again in the absolute sovereignty of God, he was never
ever going to have any doubt about the absolute holiness of
God. He was never ever going to have any doubt about the fact
that God saves, particularly that God is a God of purpose,
and God is a God of achieving His purpose all the time. He
had no doubt about any of that. Anyone who meets the true living
God, when His light shines upon them, they have no doubt about
these things. I'm not ashamed, I know whom I believe. I'm persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him
against that day. All of his life is committed
into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's got all his eggs
in one basket. He's not clinging on to the Lord Jesus and something
else. It's a glorious revelation of
our God. So that's salvation, isn't it? In a nutshell, salvation is meeting
the Lord Jesus Christ as he really is, and surviving and thriving,
and finding it delightful, isn't it? There are countless multitudes. As we speak here now, there are
people leaving this earth and standing in the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They'll see him in this life.
They'll see Him in His utter purity and His holiness. They'll
see Him in His absolute sovereignty, and they'll be aware in a way
that they had never been ever before, that all of their life
was nothing but rebellion against Him. What a mercy it is. What a mercy, brothers and sisters.
Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time that He may be
found. Now is the day when we can call
on Him. Now is the day when we can go to Him with His promises,
when He says, whosoever will call on the name of the Lord
shall be saved. We are whosoever. When the light comes, verse 14,
when the light comes, there's a humbling. The very first act,
isn't it, of Paul's commissioning is that Paul has to be stripped
of everything he is. He has to meet the God who lives in light
unapproachable. or we're all fallen to the earth. So Paul was no doubt an apostle,
and no doubt his commissioning had particular and very, very
significant elements to it, that he might be the apostle of the
Gentiles, and he might be commissioned by God to write almost half the
New Testament. But he still is a pattern, isn't
he? When you meet God, you'll meet him as he really is, and
there will be a falling to the earth. is a pattern to believers. All of what we can trust in,
in our Adam flesh, has to fall to the ground. Has to fall to
the ground. And that's not just a one-off
experience in the lives of God's people. There's an ongoing experience
of falling to the ground. Paul declared himself to be the
chief of sinners, not worthy to be called an apostle on the
least of all the saints. Christ came into the world to
save sinners. I qualify, I qualify as a sinner. There's so many beautiful pictures,
aren't there, of the Lord meeting people. Our dear friend, our dear friend,
Peter met him, didn't he? Peter was fishing by the Sea
of Galilee in Luke chapter 5, when the Lord had spoken to them,
hadn't he? And then he says to Peter, you cast your net out.
Take your boat out into the deep and cast your net out. And when they'd done it, poor
Peter, Simon whinges, doesn't he, at first. He says, we've
been out there all night, Mark. We've toured all night. We've been
out, you know there are no fish out there. We've checked this
out. And we've taken nothing, but nevertheless, nevertheless,
if you insist on it, just to humor you a little bit, I'm going
to let down my net. And when they had done this,
they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their net broke,
and they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other
ship, that they should come and help them. And they came and
filled both the ships, and they began to sink. When Simon Peter
saw it, he fell down. He fell down. At Jesus' knees,
something was revealed to Peter there that hadn't been revealed
to him any time before and was going to be revealed to him again
and again. He says, depart from me, Lord. He fell at his knees, depart
from me, Lord. for I am a sinful man. That's what sin there is, isn't
it? A sinful man. O Lord. We have the humbling of the saints
throughout the Old Testament Scriptures when they thank God.
Daniel, who had the most remarkable testimony, when he meets him
again, doesn't he, he says, my comeliness, all of my beauty
turned to corruption. When Isaiah saw him, he says,
woe unto me! And it doesn't stop. And it doesn't
stop at conversion. I love the story in Revelation
of John meeting the Lord Jesus Christ. He meets him in his glory
and he meets him in his true character. He saw him that had the seven
stars in his right hand, and out of his mouth went a sharp
two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun shining out of
strength." John was an old man. He may have been in his 90s at
this stage. He had walked with the Lord Jesus
Christ for 60, maybe 70 years, maybe longer. His countenance was as the sun,
shining in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at
his feet as dead." It's an ongoing experience, being
humbled by the presence and the power and the grace and the awesomeness
of our God. And then what happens? I love
what happens when people fall at his feet. Look what happened
to John. Verse 17, I fell at his feet as dead, and he laid
his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not. He lays his right hand upon him,
his hand of omnipotence and power, and he raises his people from
the dead. So why? Why does the Lord so
treat his servants? Why in Paul's commissioning is
the very first thing that happens to him, a meeting with God and
a falling down as a dead man? Well, there are several answers
to the question, isn't it? The first one is, of course,
so that they would know who they are and who they're dealing with. The modern God of religion is
nothing but an idol created by men, isn't it? He's the powerless,
impotent God that he tries and he fails. He loves and his love
doesn't succeed. We think, says the Lord in accusations. He says, we think that I'm altogether
like you. In every act of unbelief, we
are reducing him down to something that's a little bit more like
us. He will cause his servant to
know the fact that they are creatures and he's the creator. That they
are utterly dependent upon him and he's not dependent upon them
for anything at all. Without him they can do nothing. So the first thing is he will
cause his servants to fall down. They'll be made to know their
nothingness. their emptiness before He fills
them. Also, He makes them to fall down
for them to be able to empathize with those trodden down, with
others who have fallen down, fallen down in the circumstances
of their life, fallen down in their meeting with the Lord. that when we meet those who have
been made by sovereign grace to lean heavily upon the omnipotent
arm of the Saviour, we'll be there to walk alongside them,
leaning with them, rather than standing in judgment upon them
on account of our self-righteousness and our ability. See, only the humble, will call
upon the name of the Lord. Only those who are broken will
need to be mended. There is mercy from the merciful
one, isn't there, for the mercy beggars. You see, you've been made, you
will be made as God's children to call upon the name of the
Lord. You'll call upon Him and you'll
continue to call upon Him as one who's dealt in mercy with
mercy beggars. See, I'm proclaiming God who
delights in mercy. Only sinners need mercy. Only
helpless, hopeless, deprived sinners need mercy from God. Now God delights in it. Paul, like all of his servants,
I can tell you of a gracious God because I've been the recipient
of his grace. I can tell you of a holy God
because I've met his holiness. I can tell you that all of my
work's righteousness, all of the things that people and people
in religion profess and cling to are just filthy rags because
the Lord stripped them from me and made me to see what they
are like he did with Paul. I can tell you of the emptiness
and the deadness and the impossibility of loving
God with any legalism whatsoever because I know what it is to
be a Pharisee. I know what it is to be a Pharisee has meant
the Lord. Paul was made a minister. What extraordinary grace. that
the one who is appointed the apostle to the Gentiles is the
one who was the most evident recipient of grace. Nothing that
Paul was doing could have possibly endeared him to the Lord and
caused the Lord to be merciful to him. No wonder he spoke of
salvation as the electing grace, that we were saved before our
experience. No wonder Paul could talk of
redeeming grace. We were redeemed before we knew
about it. Now I wonder if Paul could talk about calling grace.
Because God visits and calls his own to himself. I wonder
if Paul could talk about all this has been received by the
faith that God gives, the eyes that God gives to see and the
ears that God gives to hear. Paul could talk about being kept
by the power of God because he's been stripped of all of his own
power. Paul could talk about an eternity
to come where we experience God's glorifying grace. And when he
speaks in Romans 8, he puts it all in the past tense, because
as far as he's concerned, it's finished, because when God speaks,
it's done. When you meet this guy that Paul
met on the Damascus Road, you're not arguing with the Word of
God anymore. You're just simply bowing to it, and you're so thankful.
Speak, Lord. Speak Lord. He's made a minister,
he's made to hear. And he goes on to say, I heard
a voice speaking unto me, saying to me in the Hebrew tongue. God
speaks in the Hebrew tongue, and he speaks in the English
tongue, and he speaks in the Japanese tongue. He has no problem
speaking in your tongue. He'll speak in such a way that
you'll hear a familiar voice in your own language. Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me? See, Paul heard a voice, didn't
he? He heard a particular voice. He heard a voice that spoke to
him. When God speaks, you'll hear a voice speaking to you.
That's one of the wonders of preaching the Gospel. That's
why Paul was preaching the Gospel to Agrippa, wasn't he? The wonder
of preaching the Gospel is that here we do as simply as we possibly
can and as boldly and as clearly as we possibly can, we just proclaim
the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour. And the wonder of
what he does is that he takes those words He takes those words
and He uses the simple words of a fallen sinner like Paul
or me, and He speaks to the hearts of people. He speaks in power. He speaks personally, and then
there becomes a personal communion and union between you and Him. Anyone who's met this God, anyone
who's a recipient of grace, longs to see that happen again and
again and again. And to see the Lord fulfill His
promise, He says, man, I've begun a good work in you. Not a good
work to you, not a good work for you, a good work in you.
When you hear that shepherd's voice and you meet this God of
omnipotent, blazing, shining glory, you'll hear a voice. you'll
hear a voice, and when you hear that voice, you read John chapter
10, you'll know it's him, because he speaks like no one else speaks.
No one else speaks like him. Paul saw a light. Paul fell to the ground. Paul heard a voice. Paul had
to acknowledge that all of his religion had taught him absolutely
nothing about God. He knew more about God in those
few minutes on the Damascus Road, and what followed, than he'd
learnt in his 20 or 30 years of Bible college and theological
training. He knew the Scriptures off by
heart, but he knew nothing of the Saviour. Who art thou, Lord?
Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, he said, whom thou
persecutest. Then he says, as he commissions
Paul, he says, now you can rise. You have met me, you have been
humbled by me. You have met me in my omnipotent
holy glory and now you can rise. Now you can stand on your feet.
So you'll stand on your feet and proclaim Him when you stand
in His strength and not your own strength. You'll stand at
His word and not at the will of man. You'll stand for His
purpose in this world and He will achieve His purpose and
you'll stand by His grace. You'll rise And stand upon your
feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose." Everything
our God does is purposeful, isn't it? Everything fulfills His eternal
purpose. And that's where you'll find
yourself resting like David did. When your head rests on your
pillow in your dying day, you'll be like David, won't you? What
did he say? God has made with me something. 2 Samuel 23, God has made with
me. I didn't make anything with God. God made with me an eternal
covenant, ordered in sure in every detail. David likes all,
like anyone else who's a genuine believer can look at their life
and they'll say, my house is not so with God. Everything I've
touched. Everything I've touched. The
only thing that matters is that God has made with me an eternal
covenant. My house is a mess. My house
is a mess. Arise, stand upon my feet, for
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 what you've heard. See, Paul preached what he's
experienced. of those things in which I will
appear unto thee." Just prior to this, we remember, just two
years prior to this in Jerusalem, Paul, the Lord Jesus Christ,
came and he visited Paul and he stood with him and he said,
don't you worry about these Gentiles, don't you worry about that Roman
superpower, you're going to Rome, Paul. So when God speaks, he
speaks He speaks the reality of their
future into existence. And it's going to appear to him
on that ship that we'll read about in the next few chapters.
He said, don't worry, Paul, you'll be safe. And everyone that's
with you is going to be safe. A glorious picture, isn't it?
Of those who are in Christ Jesus, those who have been brought into
Christ Jesus, those who have been joined in union with him
by the simple declaration of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ,
a simple declaration of the glory of a risen, successful, reigning
Saviour who speaks, and still speaks today, personally and
powerfully to the hearts of His people. It be your portion, and may it
be your delight, heavenly, my children, that we speak to. For all that we might speak to,
for they wouldn't hear the words of a man, they would hear the
words of God. That was Paul's testimony to
the Thessalonians, wasn't it? The word came to them in power. The Word came to them. You received
it not as the Word of God, but as it is in truth, the Word,
not the Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God,
which effectually worketh also in you that believe. "'Our gospel,' he said to the
Thessalonians, verse 5, "'our gospel came not unto you in word
only, "'but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, "'and in much
assurance, "'as you know what manner of men we were among you.
"'And you became followers of us, O Lord, "'having received
the word with much affliction, "'with joy of the Holy Ghost.'"
It's a joyful thing, isn't it? The word of God, the revelation
of our Lord Jesus Christ coming to fall sinners, to make them
fall, to make them stand, to put them on their feet again,
and to use them in their emptiness and their brokenness, stripped
of everything of themselves. That's the making of an apostle.
It's the making of a minister. It's the making of a Christian.
May the Lord bless his words. We're just going to have a 10
minute break. We'll see you when we come back.