He thought himself to be among
the best of men. And in chapter 9, verse 1, it
says, meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out
murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. Now, this man
whom I've described to you became the man who most thoroughly
cast off every religious feeling, attitude, thought, and belief
he had before, especially as it pertained to his Jewish ways. And he was the most ready of
all the apostles to embrace the Gentiles as equal brothers in
our Lord Jesus Christ, stating boldly in Christ, there is neither
Jew nor Gentile. His Jewishness and his obedience
to the covenant that God had made with the Jewish nation,
That had been his hope, that had been his righteousness before
God, that had been his glory. And if you didn't think so, just
ask him, you know, hey Saul, what are you about? Well, I'm
a Pharisee. I am of the strictest sect of the Jews. And I'm serious
about it. And I'm doing more than anybody
else my age, my peers, I've passed them all up. And I'm so zealous
in this way, I try to destroy every other way but my way." He was pretty proud of it. This Saul had created such havoc
in the churches and brought such pain and sorrow upon the people
of God that after the Lord converted him, He said, I am not worthy
to be an apostle. I'm not worthy. He says, I'm
less than the least of all the saints. And as our brother read
a few minutes ago, I am the worst, the chief of sinners. Before, I'm the best of men. I mean, I'm from the best of
nations, the Jewish. I'm a Hebrew, and I'm not one
of those Gentiles who just sided with Jews. I'm a Hebrew born
of Hebrews. I can trace my physical ancestry
all the way back to Abraham, the first Hebrew. I'm among the covenant people,
and I have obeyed that covenant. And then the Lord saves him. And that group that he once despised
so much, he said, I'm less than the very least of them. He was among the apostles, and
he did not hold back upon what authority that gave him among
the churches. Yet he said, I'm not worthy to
be called an apostle. I imagine as he went from place
to place preaching, it often would come upon his conscience,
why am I doing this? I mean, there's Peter, you know,
and there's James and John and Matthew and all of them, and
they've gone out and they're preaching. Why has God sent me? And all over the Gentile world,
why am I doing this? Why did he ever allow me? I used
to blaspheme the name of God, used to blaspheme the name of
Christ. Why does he allow me to even utter those words now? Not only as a human being, but
one who has been chosen by him and set forward as a master builder within the
church. So I'm not worthy. I thank God I'm in the church,
but I'm in the bottom of the heap. And if you count all the sinners
and line them up according to their sinfulness, put me last,
because nobody is worse than me." Now, that's a remarkable change
in what he thought about himself. You know, the word repent means
to change your mind. And one of the things that happens
when the grace of God is brought to bear upon a person, he changes
his mind about himself. He changes his mind about some
other things, too. But that's probably one of the first things
he notices. I'm not what I thought I was.
And you know, this doesn't stop. I'm not what I thought I was
before I was saved. I'm not what I thought I was
right after I was saved. I'm not what I thought I was
when I thought God called me to the ministry. I'm not what
I thought I was when I became pastor of Owensboro Baptist Church
at 28 years old. I'm not what I thought I was
three and a half years later when I became the pastor of this
congregation. I'm not what I thought I was
twenty years ago, ten years ago. We keep realizing, don't we, that truth that the Apostle Paul
said in Romans 7, in me, That is in my flesh, my natural
self. There is nothing good. And we
keep saying that, and then we find out through our own failures,
we're not as good as we thought we were. We actually thought
there was a little good to us. No. It's repenting you never stop. You never stop realizing. that for all the blessedness
God has bestowed on you as a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, you
are still in yourselves as wicked as wicked can be. Now, it's easier
for me to stand up here and say that. Not nearly so easy for
me to believe that about myself. But I prove it over and over
again. He said, well, preacher, you
don't know the things I've done. No, I don't. And you don't know
the things I've done. And it's best we keep it that
way. Only God can handle the knowledge of our sin, because He can see it fully accounted for in
Christ. I don't know how sinful I am,
I don't know how sinful you are, not in the way God does. But
throughout our lives we continue in that process of repenting
of what we thought of ourselves and the confidence we put in
ourselves and the trust we put in ourselves. So dramatic was Saul's conversion. that he considered it to be a
pattern of every conversion. Again, what Scott read to us,
he said, God saved me, the chief of sinners. Why? So I could serve
as a pattern of God's grace, of his infinite patience in Christ
Jesus. God took this man who is in as
serious rebellion against God as a man could be, well-known
for what he was doing, and changed him, saved him, forgave him all
his sins, and made him the most well-known
preacher of the gospel at all times. And he said, so dramatic was
the work that God worked in me that I serve as a pattern for
everyone else. As a pattern of what? Well, a pattern of God's gracious and
merciful nature. You know, a lot of people view
the gospel as simply the law light, you know, decaffeinated
law. That's all it is. It's bringing
the bar down. Okay, you couldn't keep it all
the way, but you do the best you can and, you know, make a
profession of faith. They'll mention some rules they
think you should follow, but if you don't, you know, they'll
excuse it somehow or another. But they think still that something
of your righteousness or your goodness, something that comes
from your natural self contributes to your acceptance with God. That's the natural way of thinking.
And here's one of the reasons we think that way. That's the
way we are. Who are your friends? They're people that do the things
you think they ought to do. That's who your friends are.
And if you have a friend, and then they begin doing things
you don't approve of, If they're too serious or too often, or
in particular, if they're personally against you, the time comes,
they're no longer your friend. We are not gracious like God
is gracious. We are not merciful like he's
merciful. We do not have patience in the
measure that he has patience. And we think God's like us. And
therefore, our sins, persistent as they are, you know, we start
off in the life of faith and we think, okay, I'm going to
be an example of a Christian. Well, you are, you will be that,
but not in the way you think. I'm going to be the best Christian
ever was. Well, that might be true because there never were
any good Christians, but you know what I mean by that. But you never will be a good
Christian in the way you're thinking of it. We have dreams, we have expectations
of ourselves, because that old legal nature is still within
us. But Paul says, I'm a pattern. And I tell you, brethren, look
at this pattern. Infinite patience. And I ask you this question,
when anything less than infinite patience put up with you or me, all of us have sins which are
most natural to us. It's a psychological thing, just
kind of how we're built. Some are very greedy. Some are naturally violent. Others, their sinfulness falls
along what's euphemistically referred to as the pleasures
of the flesh. All of us have these natural tendencies in us. And probably when the Lord saved
us, we thought that we wouldn't have trouble with that anymore. And time has taught us that everything
we were when God saved us, we still are. And it's a fight and
a struggle to the end. And we fall into this sin that
bothers us so much, that seems to be so much a part of our inborn
nature, something we can't get rid of. And when we do, we think,
for sure, I have reached the end. of the patience of God. Certainly now I have out-sinned
His grace." Look at the pattern. God forgave Saul of hating God, hating Christ,
hating the gospel, hating God's people, murderous, self-righteous. Say, yeah, but that's boys converted.
We find that Paul could get a little over strict sometimes. Do you
remember the little issue with Mark? Mark went with him on a
preaching trip. In the middle of the trip somewhere,
he heard that his mother-in-law was sick or whatever, and he
felt that he should go back and tend to that. And so he left. Well, when Paul was going to
go on a second trip, Paul and Barnabas thought they'd go on
a second trip, and Barnabas said, let's take Mark along. Paul said, nothing doing. I'm
not trusting that guy again. What was Paul doing? He had a
standard. law. And Mark failed. And Mark was cast out. What's interesting is, you know,
Barnabas is the one that had taken Paul. After Paul was converted,
the churches were still afraid of him. And Barnabas said, no,
don't. Paul's fine. Paul's a believer.
I've been with him now for a little bit. This man is a defender of
the gospel. And he was the one that got the
churches to accept Saul slash Paul. He was the one, his word
means son of encouragement. And that was the kind of guy
Barnabas was. He's the kind that picked you up when you fell down.
He didn't just stand there with his hands on his hips and say,
look what a mess you got yourself into. You call yourself a Christian. No. In this very same Barnabas, he
knew, I'm sure Paul had already expressed what he thought of
Mark leaving. But Barnabas comes to Paul and he says, let's take
Mark along. He probably feels bad about what
it, now this isn't quoted, I'm adding this part, but Barnabas
is probably saying, he probably feels bad about leaving. Feels
like he's been set aside. Let's take him along, let him
know. Failure's not withstanding. He's part of the kingdom and
a useful person. And that old legalism reared
up its ugly head and Saul was zealous. And he said, no. And so Barnabas
said, OK, Paul. And Barnabas took Mark. And he
and Mark did some work together. And then Paul picked another
companion to go along with him. But here's the thing. This legalism
never left Paul altogether. And later we read that Paul says,
bring Mark. He's been useful. He realized
what it was. But a lot of people, they're
bound up in sin, and we all are. I mean, in this flesh, we're
bound up in sin. It's part and parcel of us. And we think when
God saves us that that means that we're not going to be struggling
with that anymore. No, it means the struggle gets worse. It means
now God has created within you a spiritual nature that despises
the things that you once delighted in, but that doesn't mean you
don't still delight in them, because that flesh still does.
And then you find yourself in the midst of it again, and you
think, oh, how could this happen to a child of God? Paul says,
I'm an example of the infinite mercy of God in Christ. I'm not recommending that you
go tell other people what things you have done, because like I
said, we don't need to know that about each other. But I do know
that it's in our nature. We have much that's hidden, much that we hold secret from
everyone else, and we put on our smiles at church and act
like we're confident. But deep down inside we're thinking,
how can I be a child of God? Certainly, that failure has separated me from God or
proven that I never was united to God. But what did Paul say? That in me, God might demonstrate His infinite
patience. Now, I'm not excusing sin, whatever
form it takes. Sin is sin. As Brother Mahan
used to say, there are no small sins because there's no small
God to sin against. But according to the word that
God gave to the prophet Isaiah when he said, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, so I would bring to you, the child of God, this
comfort, even in the teeth of your sin, your great sin, your
horrible wickedness. God is infinitely patient with
His people. He knows what you are. He doesn't
excuse what you do. He doesn't say it's okay. He
may discipline you. In fact, He will. What child
is there that's not disciplined by His Father? But the Scripture still stands.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. That's pretty plain. Sin is worthy to be grieved over,
but a believer need never think that his sin has separated him
from God. Why? Because his sin separated
the Lord Jesus from God. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? And inasmuch as the spotless
Son of God was forsaken in behalf of God's people, God's people
will never be forsaken, period, full stop. Paul's conversion was a pattern
of God's infinite mercy, patience, and grace. And then Paul's conversion is also a pattern of the process of conversion. I've got five things listed here,
but it won't take us long to get through them. Now, that doesn't
mean that every conversion experience is as dramatic as Saul's was. You know, so far as I know, Saul's
the only one to whom the Lord Jesus Christ appeared like that.
So don't be expecting that. And your natural rebellion against
God may have not been so dramatic or outwardly obvious as with
Saul. But that's what Paul's saying. He saved me the very
worst. so that it could be written,
as it were, in bold letters and underlined how it is God saves
a sinner. And this pattern, in some fashion,
is always followed. When God would bring a person
to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he finds them in abject rebellion
against him, pursuing a legalistic way of life. Every unbeliever
is a legalist. You say, well, there are those
who are antinomians. Antinomians are legalists. Why? What's a legalist? The easiest
definition of a legalist is this. It's somebody who thinks that
something that they do causes or at least contributes to their
salvation. That's what a legalist is. Now
most often we associate legalism with the law revealed at Sinai.
And that was the one, that was the particular form of legalism
that bothered the early church, particularly the Jewish ones.
After all, God had saved them out of that. And it seemed quite
natural to them that there was still some sense in which they
were under the bondage of that law. That's what the book of
Galatians was written about. But every unbeliever has something
that he believes about himself that gives him at least a hope
that God likes him and will have him. Every one of them. So what about
the atheist? Well, he's a god unto himself. He believes that he's pleasing
to himself. And the antinomian, and that
word means against law, but really all the antinomian does is make
up his own law. That's all, but it's still law. Church I was raised in didn't
hold the Ten Commandments over our head, but they said, don't
go to movies, don't dance, don't listen to rock and roll records. Somehow or another, country got
a pass, even though they were singing about the same thing. And somehow or another, you could
watch a movie. If it was NBC Monday Night at the Movies, that
was okay. Couldn't go to the theater. Church I was in, you could not
use alcohol as a beverage. Someone said, my aunt claims
she uses alcohol for medicinal purposes. And near as I can tell,
she was sick every day of her life. Rules, rules, rules. Yes, there's
ways we ought to live, and they all come under this category
of love. Oh, legalists. God finds us in that, finds us
in love with ourselves, finds us enamored of ourselves, finds
us thinking that somehow or another God should accept us. After all,
we're not as bad as this guy over here. How is legalism known? It's known by the bondage that
it produces. Now, our translation hides this
a little bit. When it talks about them being
arrested or imprisoned, It's all the same word in the Greek,
and it means to be bound. He wanted letters so he could
bind people and bring them back to Jerusalem, tie them up, chain
them up, whatever. And that's what legalism is all
about. That's why in Hebrews chapter
2, it says that Jesus Christ, through his work, delivered those
who through fear of death were all their lives subject to bondage. Now what's the fear of death?
The fear of death arises from the knowledge that after you
die, you meet God, there's going to be a judgment, and it's not
going to go well with you. That makes us fear death. And religion uses that natural
Fear of death, and it's legitimate outside of Christ, should be
afraid of death. But uses that natural fear to
keep people in bondage. My friends, when you feel the
bondage, one of two things is true. You're an unbeliever, or
the guy you're listening to isn't preaching the gospel, one or
the other. Because the gospel is about being free of that bondage.
Paul the legalist, I want to bind these believers. And the result was, God set him
free. He found out he was the one that
was in bondage, not them. Oh, legalists can't stand freedom. OK, I better move along. Secondly, conversion always involves
a personal encounter with Christ. I'm glad he called me to preach
the gospel, but I've never saved anybody, and I can't do it. And
it won't matter whether or not you ever hear me, but it will
matter whether or not you ever hear Christ. And while you're
not going to see him like Saul did, you're not going to be on
your way somewhere once it flashes all around you and you're knocked
down to the ground and you're made blind and you hear a voice
and all of that, but this is true. The Lord Jesus Christ,
through His Spirit, comes to every one of His elect, and He
deals with them personally. That's why the same group of
people can sit and listen to the same messages being preached
week after week, and then this person over here, he believes,
and it's not for another 10, 20 years, the person over there
believes. It's in God's timing. It takes
a work of sovereign grace. It takes a one-on-one encounter
with the God against whom we've sinned. He must teach us the
gospel. That's one of the reasons that
we're very careful about using anything that might manipulate
people into making a profession of faith. Because if you believe
because of what I said, the sooner you get over that, the better.
I'm going to preach. I'm going to teach the truth
the best I know it. But my prayer is this, that the Lord Jesus
Christ himself will come through his spirit and speak his word
to your heart. Because if he does, nobody will
ever unconvince you of it. I don't want the responsibility
of saving you because I don't want the responsibility of keeping
you. I can't do either. Christ can. Thirdly, conversion
always results in prayer. God told Ananias, behold, he
prays. When God begins to show us who
we are and make us realize that for all our supposed righteousness,
whether we count ourselves righteous because we think we've done well,
or we count ourselves righteous because the things that he calls
sin, we just no longer call them sin anymore, whatever, he shows
us not only are our outward sins sinful, everything we did that
we thought was good was sinful, that there never was anything
good in us to attract his eye. And when that happens, we start
to pray. When Peter preached on the day
of Pentecost and he revealed their sin in their crucifying
of Christ, and when he got done, they said, what do we do? God had revealed to them how
awful they were, all the people listening to them. And admittedly,
this wasn't prayer, because they were talking to Peter. But I
mean, it was still the same thing. In a sense, they were in trouble.
They needed to know what can be done, if anything can be done. We have sinned against the Lord. Paul was praying. He was desperate. Paul the mighty was on his knees.
He wasn't standing on the street corner like the Pharisee the
Lord spoke of, saying, I thank you, God, I'm not like other
men. He was saying, oh, God, I'm the worst of men. He wasn't saying, I tithe, and
I fast twice a week. He was saying, I did those things
thinking God was pleased with them, and it was nothing but
filthy rags. Oh, God. What am I going to do? Three days he prayed. Conversion is always accompanied
by a declaration of the truth, usually through a preacher. God
sent Ananias. And Ananias Went to the house,
verse 17, placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother Saul,
the Lord, Jesus, who appeared to you in the road as you were
coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled
with the Holy Spirit. Now, our translation. has revealed something you don't
see in most English translations, and it's in the Greek. Most of
them will say, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to
you on the road, you are coming here, but that's not the way
it shows up in the Greek. It says, the Lord has sent me,
Jesus who appeared to you. Now when Ananias said to Saul,
both of them devout Jews, when he said, the Lord has sent me,
they would have taken that to mean Jehovah has sent me. And then he identifies who Jehovah
is, Jesus, who met you on the road here. He who is the truth, appeared to Saul, and God sent a preacher to him
to explain what was going on. Fifthly, conversion always results
in the ability to see. Verse 18, immediately something
like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized. And after taking some food, he
regained his strength. Ananias came. Ananias was just
sent there as a symbolic presence of the truth, because he was
a preacher of the truth. He laid his hands on Paul. Ananias
didn't have any power. But when he laid hands on Paul,
it was showing that the power of God comes through the gospel.
That which blinded him to everything just fell right off of his eyes
so that he could see. Says he got up. He'd been on
his knees or flat on his face praying. He got up. Why? His prayer had been answered. He was baptized. Now, he'd already been circumcised
as an infant. He'd already been brought into
whatever covenant they thought he was being brought into. This
baptism was not given to him as a replacement for circumcision. This was something performed
upon him as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's who baptism is for,
believers. Why? Because it is a testimony
that through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
the believer is without sin. For three days, Paul had been
going over his great wickedness and pleading with God and yet
not knowing If there was any hope for a man like him, and
Ananias comes and gives him a message, and this message was, I'm sure
it was the gospel, I doubt that everything Ananias said is recorded
here, but the gospel was declared to him, and this terribly wicked,
evil, violent, God-hating rebel stood up and boldly professed
that in the sight of God he had no sin. Because Jesus Christ
died and was buried and rose again. And when he did those
things, Paul was in him. He died with Christ. He was buried
with Christ. He rose again with Christ. He's
seated in the heavenly places with Christ. Baptism is a picture of salvation
by God's grace alone through the working of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what it is. And he was glad to profess it.
He said, I'm a wicked sinner, but here's a gospel suitable
for the chief of sinners. Now as for us, We're just people. Nothing special
about us. Nearly everyone here comes from
a particular ethnic background. A few of us
Gentiles mixed in among you. But that just means we're on
different branches that came from the same root, Adam. And
we are all alike sinners. We are all alike rebels. We sin in different ways. But
this is the same about all of us. We sin. We sin horribly and
wickedly. And every one of us here, from
the oldest to the very youngest, deserves an everlasting hell. And the only message that will
do any of us any good is a message that says that our acceptance
with God is not based in any way, shape, or form on what we
do. We still have the old legalism
in our flesh, and our sins trouble us, not simply because we hate
sin. We're worried what it's going
to do to our relationship with God. Let me put it this way. Your
sin as a believer will no more condemn you than your righteousness
as an unbeliever would save you, because none of this was ever
about you. We should do all we can to live
the way our Lord said we should live. We should do everything
we can to restrain the outbreaks of our fleshly sinfulness. But let us never think that our
failures have put us outside the favor of God. They can't. Paul said, I am persuaded,
neither death nor life. And he went through some this
and that, some opposites, and finally said, or anything else
will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that
is in Christ Jesus. If a person pursues a course
of sin and they don't care, that's a serious problem. Believers
desire to be rid of their sin, but they aren't ever going to
be rid of it. It's a struggle from day one. But know this. If you were ever in Christ, you
still are. And though you have horribly
sinned against him, the Father's house is always
there, and your room is always there, and the door is always
open. Prodigals are always welcome
home. And they were children as much
while they were prodigals as before they left. And when they
come home, they are no more children than they were when they were
living with the pigs. Our God is gracious. beyond our
ability to believe. And if you have not believed,
let me tell you this, the same thing applies to you. You need him. He will not turn you away if
you come. The problem with willingness
is not on his side. He is much more willing to receive
you than you are to go to him. Say, I thought you believed God
chose us. Yes, I do believe all of that. But that doesn't change
the truth. There's a promise. He that comes
to me, I will in no wise cast out. Just come. Tell him who
you are, chief of sinners. And cast yourself upon his infinite
mercy. And you'll spend the rest of
your life proving just how infinite that mercy is. But when your
life is over, you'll have nothing to fear because
you'll stand before God not dressed in your righteousness, which
was filthy rags. You'll be dressed in the righteousness
of Christ, which has always been your clothing in the sight of
God. And he won't be saying, well,
I guess I got to let you in. He'll say, welcome home, child.
Been waiting for you. Bernie and Scott, if you'd come
help us with the Lord's table.