Turn to Acts chapter 9. Acts
chapter 9. I was thinking, as Curtis was
praying, he mentioned about many of our members under the weather. They've gotten COVID. You know,
every time we get sick, it ought to remind us how frail we are.
When Curtis mentioned that, I thought, Lord, how frail we are. It ought
to remind us how much we need the Lord Jesus Christ. Something
that we can't even see can lay us low. Something so much as
just a little germ can lay us low. And it ought to teach us
how frail we are in our need and dependence on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, in Acts chapter 9, The focus
is going to be turned to this man named Saul of Tarsus. And we know him, of course, as
Paul the Apostle. We have his conversion. And in
his conversion, we have a pattern of how God saves sinners. He saves us in the same way that
He saved Paul. He was illuminated. He heard
a voice. Now, we don't hear an audible
voice, but we hear His voice. And I realize this, that when
any preacher speaks and preaches in the power of God's Spirit,
you are hearing His voice. John said, I am a voice. I'm just a voice, but I am a
voice. I'm His voice to this congregation. This morning, I'm
His voice. And I pray to God that we hear
His voice, even me. I pray I heard it before I came
out here, but I pray I hear it again this morning, that I hear
His voice. But what we are going to see
here is the conversion of the Apostle Paul, the conversion
of a sinner, the chief of sinners. Now, if God says the chief of
sinners, He's not going to have any trouble with me and you,
is He? if he's already saved the chief. But I tell you this,
in this tribe, there's nothing but chiefs. We're all chiefs
of sinners, all of us, every one of us. So what we have here,
we have here Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee of the Pharisee. I liken it like this, because
I'm going to speak after this in Titus. And Titus preached
to the Cretans. And they were the opposite. They
were very immoral, just lived in debauchery. Paul was the far
right. The Cretans were the far left. They were so liberal and so out
there in left field with their moralities. And Paul was on the
far right. He was so strict. austere and
hard. You know, he's with that group
that got the woman that was caught in adultery and threw her at
the Lord's feet and said, now let's see what you're going to
do with her. We're going to have a stoning here today. So Paul
here, he's a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he was a true Hebrew
from birth, he was a law keeper, very religious man, very righteous,
moral man outwardly, and a very lost man. Very lost. No one would have thought that.
No one who knew him, who knew the Pharisees, would have thought
they were lost. But they were very lost. And
it says, this man was breathing out threatenings and slaughter. He tried to slaughter the church
of God. He hated the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that being so, he hated God. Because Jesus Christ is God.
Scripture says, He that honors not the Son honors not the Father.
Our Lord said, He that has seen Me has seen the Father. They're
one and the same. And the enmity that was in His
heart all along finally came out. It was there. It was there. It just took the right situation
to bring it out. That's all it takes. You know,
you and I, we know we're sinful. We know that. But usually we
don't know how sinful until a right situation comes along and it
brings that out. And you think, whoa, it's still
there. You know that as believers. You know, whoa, that's still
there. You know, it's frightening. It
is to me, it's frightening how sinful I am. How wretched I am. You know, one of my greatest
prayers continually is that the Lord would not only forgive me
of my sins, but put in check, keep in check that sinful nature
that I have, that He will not let it break out. Give me power to restrain that. inward corruption. Now Saul did all that he could
do to stamp out the name of Jesus Christ. He persecuted the church
and wasted it. That's what he says in Galatians
1.13. He mentions persecuting the church and wasting it. He
made it his life's mission. This was his life's mission,
was to get rid of that way. That way. That's what he wanted
to do. He wanted to get rid of that way. In verse 2, he went
after any of this way. This way of righteousness. This
way that gives God all the glory. This way that exposed Him for
who and what He was. He went about to destroy this
way. This way that glorified God and
laid men in the dust and made the Pharisee equal with the publican. He wanted to get rid of this
way. It was too offensive, too offensive. And so we have him
on his journey in verse three. He's on his journey. He's going
to go to Damascus. You know, that was 130 miles
from Jerusalem. And he didn't get in a car and
drive over there. It was a, I think it was what
I read. It was a six day journey. He
heard that there were believers in Damascus, and he was willing
to travel for six days to vent out his hatred against this way,
against the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. I mean, that
to me, when I read that again this week, I thought, how much
hatred must there be? for someone to take a six day
journey, not a comfortable journey, just so he can vent out his hatred
against the gospel, against Christ. And so he's on his way to Damascus
and he's gonna bring men and women bound to Jerusalem. He got a letter from the high
priest that he can get men and women. It made no difference,
it made no difference. If there was a woman that believed
the gospel, and say her husband didn't, her family didn't, he's
going to take her out of that house by force and take her to
prison. It didn't matter to Paul. He
had no feelings either way. If they believed the gospel,
he was going to put them in prison. So as he journeyed, someone said
he was hell-bent and hell-bound on his way to Damascus. And as
he journeyed, suddenly, You know, that seems to be how it happens,
doesn't it? One day, you're sitting here, you're listening, or you're
not listening, really. You're sitting here, and you're
hearing. You know, there's a real difference between hearing and
listening. You know, Vicki, I was telling her something the other
day, and just that fast, she said, what was it you said? I
said, you weren't listening. She said, yes, I was. I said,
no, you were hearing, but you weren't listening. There's a
different, I didn't say it like that. I didn't say it quite like
that. But you were hearing me. You
know, everybody here right now, you're hearing me. But that's
a whole lot different than listening to me. Listening, you're taking
it in. It's like listening is like drinking
water out of a glass. You're thirsty, you're listening.
Listening is when it's pulling you into it. I like what Mike
Barker said one time when he was, Henry was preaching. And Henry had finished preaching
and Mike was just sitting over there. And Henry looked at him
and said, mentioned to him about coming up and lead the singing.
Mike said, you caught me listening. You know, every now and then
we get caught listening. And so here's, this is what happened.
Suddenly, suddenly he heard a voice speak. And when he heard this
voice speak, he listened. God arrested his attention. God
arrested him and there was a light, a light brighter than the noonday
sun. And that's bright, isn't it?
A light so bright that it makes the sun look like a candle. And
it shined round about him. And this light was from heaven.
It was from heaven. Saul's on his way to arrest these
believers, and instead, the judge of all the earth arrests him,
and from that time forth, you know what Paul called himself?
The prisoner of Jesus Christ. The Lord arrested him, and this
great light shines about him, and for the rest of his life,
Paul called himself the prisoner of Jesus Christ. If God is ever pleased to save
us, the first thing He has to do is arrest us. Bring us under
His authority. We're under it anyway, but to
bring us under it in a way that we know it. We know we're under
His authority. And secondly, if the Lord saves
us, there's got to be light. There must be a light from heaven.
It must come from the Father of lights. God must command the
light of the gospel to shine in our hearts and give us a knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of that man, Jesus Christ. Now that light that shined around
about him, it covered him up completely. In other words, he
was completely illuminated. God must illuminate our understanding
Because our understanding until that happens is darkness. If
the light, the Lord said, if the light in you is darkness,
how great is that darkness? He's talking here about our understanding.
He illuminated his understanding. There must be an illumination
of the heart and of the mind before we can see and know the
Lord Jesus Christ and before we can understand the gospel.
and our need of it, our need of Him. Now, if you'll notice
here in verse four, what happens, the sinner is brought down. He
fell to the earth. Old Paul was riding high until
he met God. Until he met God, he was riding
high. The Lord Jesus Christ must bring
us down before He can raise us up. You've heard this many times
before, and it's so, and we need to hear it again. He must strip
us before He can clothe us in His righteousness. He had to
take the self-righteous clothing off from the apostle, from Saul
of Tarsus. He had to strip him of his self-righteousness
before he could be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
You remember in the Old Testament there was to be no mixture? When
they sewed clothes together, there was to be no mixture? You
couldn't sew wool and linen together? You couldn't sew these different
materials together? You cannot sew your righteousness
and the righteousness of Jesus Christ together. They don't mix. One of them has to go. One of them has to go. And I'll
tell you what, the one that has to go is our self-righteousness. And every one of us, even the
vilest of sinners, you can think of the vilest of sinners, they
are still self-righteous. They are still self-righteous. They'll find something in their
character or in their background they can reach to and hold themselves
up. I don't care how vile they are,
they'll find something. They will find something. But our Lord brought him to the
ground just like He did Zacchaeus when he climbed up that tree.
He says, Zacchaeus, come down. There's got to be a coming down
before there can be a raising up. There's got to be a breaking
before there is a healing. You don't heal something that's
not broken. David said that he has a broken heart. He said,
God will not despise a broken heart, because the broken heart
is of God. He has to break our hearts and
make us see what we are. And then he gives a revelation
here in verse 5. Paul says, Who art thou, Lord? And I think at
this time when he says, Lord, he knows this, this one that
has spoken to him is above him. He is above him. And then the
Lord reveals Himself. I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. Boy, what a revelation. What
a revelation. I'm Jesus whom thou persecutest. Someone said that Paul was 28
years old when the Lord was crucified. That he was about around the
age of 28 years of age. So Paul knew who Jesus Christ
was. He knew Him. As far as just knowing
something about Him and seeing Him in Jerusalem, he knew it.
But listen, not until we see Christ do we really understand
our sin. I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Sin didn't trouble Paul until
he met the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know that? Isaiah didn't
cry, woe is me, until he saw the Lord high and lifted up,
and his train filled the court. If you read the first six chapters
of Isaiah, he woes this one and this one. I mean, he's woeing
everybody. And then finally, he sees the Lord high and lifted
up, and he says, woe is me. Woe is me. I'm undone. And I dwell in the midst of a
people who have unclean lips, and they're undone also. Not until we see Jesus Christ
by faith do we begin to have a real understanding of sin. Until then, sin is a bad habit. Sin's in a bottle. But it's not
something we are until we see Him, until He makes Himself known
to us. Then we begin to see what we
are. Then we begin to see and understand
sin. And then we see His submission
here in verse 6. He was trembling and astonished. And He said, Lord, what wilt
thou have Me to do? He submitted to that One whom
He once hated. He was willing to submit. It
says in Psalm 110, thy people shall be willing in the day of
thy power. That's when you and I are truly
willing to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ in the day He conquers
us by His grace and by His Spirit and by His power. Paul submitted
to Him. Our Lord is able to break the
wild ass's coat. He's able to do that. Remember
when they went and they got that coat on which no one had ever
been ridden? No one had ever sat on it? Or
broke it? Our Lord sat on it. And it rode
right into town with Him. They didn't try to throw Him.
When He's ready to break me and you, that's not a problem to
Him. He can break us. And I thank
God He has the power to break us. And then He gives verse 7
here, we see a particular call goes forth. No one else understood
the voice there. He heard a voice, but they heard
it and they didn't understand the voice, but He did. He did. How many times have I seen this
over the years? That someone hears the gospel,
and they request to be baptized, the Lord has saved me, and others
sitting there lost, and they don't hear a thing. They hear
the same message. They hear the same message. They
hear the same preacher standing there talking and using the Word
of God, but one hears the voice. One hears the voice. One day,
many of you, you heard the voice of the Lord. And Saul heard the
voice. The Lord spoke to Saul's heart.
And Saul understood the Lord speaking to him. He didn't call
the others at that time, he called Saul. That's who he was calling,
Saul. And he became very real to the
Lord Jesus Christ. It was a particular call. It
was a convicting call. It was a gracious call. But my
friends, it was a call. It was a call. It was a call
from darkness to light, from sin to righteousness, from death
to life. It was a powerful, convicting
call of God. The Apostle Paul thought that
at one time he was alive, but he said in Romans, when sin revived,
I died. He realized he was dead. in trespasses and sins. He realized
that the very law he thought he was keeping slew him. He was breaking it. At every
breath and every step, he was breaking it. I think here in
verse 8 and 9, we see a conviction of sin. And I can't read all
these verses. We'll never get through this.
But in verse 8 and 9, for three days, he could not see. He sat
in darkness. God left him for three days before
he sent Ananias. He left him for three days sitting
in darkness. I have no doubt, I have no doubt
that God is convicting him of sin. That he's sitting there
remembering, meditating upon his conduct. Stephen's face comes
before him. All those others that He cast
into prison are coming before Him. All His life, His life is
coming before Him. He's being convicted of His sin. Conviction of sin is real. There is no salvation apart from
a real conviction of sin. There has to be. The Holy Spirit
convicts us of sin, judgment, and righteousness. And this is
what's happening. He's under a real conviction
of sin. The Pharisee of Pharisees is becoming the chief of sinners. You know what? That took the
power of God to bring him to this place. It takes the power
of God to bring us to the place where we are the chief of sinners. And when that happens, we don't
look down on anyone because we're not high enough to look down
anymore. We're on the bottom. We're in
the dust. You know, when you have been laid in the dust, you
can't look down on anyone. You're as low as it gets. And
that's where God put Paul. He put him in the dust. And then
God, in verse 10, God prepared and He called Ananias to preach
to Saul. He's preparing the preacher.
And he prepared the sinner to meet. Did we look at that last
week? Philip and the eunuch. God prepared Philip. He prepared
the eunuch. And then they met. This happens
every time. It happens every time. God prepares
the sinner and the preacher. And sooner or later, they are
going to meet. They might meet in a Bible conference somewhere
down the road. They might meet here this morning. I don't know. But they're going to meet. They're
going to meet. God's going to see to it. So
God prepares Ananias, and God prepares the heart of the sinner,
you see there in verse 11. Paul sees this, or Ananias sees
this in a vision, and God prepares him, and then God prepares Paul
for Ananias coming. And God says to Ananias, He says
in verse 11, Behold, he prayeth for the first time, for the first
time in Paul's life. He prayed. He prayed for the
first time. And I'm sure he was praying.
You know what you think he's praying about? You know what
I think he's praying for? Mercy and forgiveness. That's what the sinner was praying
for. Lord, have mercy. What did that sinner smote upon
his chest? That publican that smote upon
his breast, what did he say? Lord, be merciful to me, the
sinner. And now the Pharisee becomes
the sinner and he's praying the same prayer. Be merciful to me,
the sinner. That's what he's praying for.
He's in anguish over his sinfulness. If our sins never cause us anguish,
something's wrong. Something's wrong. Because the
Holy Spirit is going to make us to understand our sins and
sinfulness. And it's going to be painful.
There's going to be spiritual pain over that. He gave Saul a special revelation
of Ananias there in verse 12. He's gonna sit and he's gonna
listen to God's preacher. Now listen, here's a man who
was used to being at the top. Here's a young man. He's used
to everybody listening to him. He is used to having the authority. And when he walked in the room,
he walked in the synagogue, you know, Paul was somebody. Well,
Paul, you're not somebody now, you're a sinner in need of mercy.
Now shut up and listen. And he did. He did, he shut up
for the first time. For the first time, the man who
knew everything sat down and shut up because he didn't know
anything. He realized, I don't know anything. I don't know anything. Been so stupid all my life. So
he's gotta sit and listen to God's preacher. You know, I've
learned this, when I was a younger man, I didn't know much about
this, but now, if I'm talking to somebody about the gospel,
and it starts to be more of an argumentative, I stop, it's over
with. It's done, I am not arguing with
anybody over the gospel. I don't want this to sound arrogant,
but I know the gospel, I understand it. And if someone is lost or
some religious person starts talking to me about it, I don't.
There's one particular person that I know, every time I get
around this person, every time, he calls himself a preacher. Every time he wants to start
up a conversation. Now, I'll say a few things, and
when it starts in the wrong direction, I find an excuse to leave. I'll
come up with some harebrained excuse to walk out. Because I'm
not going to stand there and debate and argue the gospel. You can't learn anything until
you shut up. Until you shut up. You convince
a man against his will, he's unconvinced still. But when God
makes Himself known, God is the one who convinces us. Who does
it say convinces us of sin and judgment and righteousness? It's
the Spirit of God. It's the Spirit of God. You're not going to argue anyone
into faith. And so Saul has to sit and listen. I know this, and this will sound
arrogant to some people, this will sound arrogant to some people.
But I know this, I know preachers are held in a bad light nowadays,
and rightly so, because of all the stupidity that goes on in
preaching. Other than Jesus Christ, now
this is, I thought about this statement before making it. Other
than Jesus Christ, The most important person that'll ever come into
your life is God's preacher. That's the truth. That's the truth. Other than
Jesus Christ, there's none greater than Him, but the most important
person that ever came into my life was Him in my life. I believe that's so. I know it's
gonna sound arrogant to some, but that's so. When God sends
his preacher, God's with you. God's with you. So God sent his preacher. And Ananias, you know, in verse
13, 14, he says, oh, I've heard about this man. His reputation
precedes him. I'm afraid of this man. How much
evil he's done to your saints. And God says, don't you worry
about it. Don't you worry about this man.
He's mine. He's mine. We should never doubt
God's power and ability to save anyone. You know, there's no
one on this earth. There's no, no, there's no, I
don't care. Think of who it is. The worst,
the worst of leaders, the worst of men in history, the worst
of them. God's able to save him if he
will. Like that leper said, Lord, if you will, you can make me
clean. You can save me if you will. And God said to Ananias in verse
15, go preach to him. He is a chosen vessel unto me. We don't preach. God's preachers
do not preach hoping people will accept Jesus Christ. We do not
preach hoping that you will accept him as your personal savior.
I preach because I know this. I preach with hope. I preach with expectation, because
I know this, God has chosen vessels out there. God's going to conquer
some sinners. He's going to conquer some sinners.
He's going to save them. Christ said He came into the
world. Paul said this. Paul said, He came into the world
to save sinners of whom I'm chief. Christ Jesus came into the world
not to make it possible, He did not come into this world to make
salvation possible. He came into this world to save
sinners. Are you a sinner? That's the question. Are you
a sinner? Are you a biblical sinner? Everybody
else say, well, yeah, I'm a sinner. I'm not perfect. Are you a sinner
according to the word of God? None good, no, not one. He says here, he said, you go
preach to him. He's a chosen vessel to me. He must suffer,
verse 16, he must suffer for my name's sake. Everyone whom
God saves has a place in the body of Christ and a measure
of suffering to do for Christ. We all have one. We all have
a measure of suffering for Christ's sake. And then Ananias comes
into the room, verse 17, he says, brother Saul, brother Saul, Our
true brothers and sisters are the Lord Jesus, those who the
Lord saves. That's our true brothers and
sisters. And he says to him, God has chosen you. God's chosen
you. This doctrine of election is
a source of great comfort to God's people. It's a source of
great comfort to a guilty sinner. It comforts this sinner. It comes
from this sinner because it tells me that if He chose me, and He
chose me before the foundation of the world, what am I going
to do that surprises Him now? Nothing. He knows every thought
that I'll ever have before creation. I will do nothing that will take
God by surprise. And yet he chose me, loved me,
and put away my sins. That's great comfort to me. And
then he says in verse 17, 18, Paul, Saul received thy sight. He tells him to receive his sight.
He now sees Jesus Christ as his Lord. Now when he calls him Lord,
he knows who he's speaking of, the sovereign of the universe,
the God of heaven and earth. He knows him as his Lord, as
his substitute, as his righteousness, as his all in all. And then Paul
is baptized, just like everyone else. Just like all the other
sinners. He rises up and he's baptized. He confesses the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we confess him. We
follow him in believers baptism. And then after that, verse 19,
20, he fellowshiped with God's people. And he began to preach
the gospel, the gospel he once destroyed, he began to preach
it. And people were amazed at the change that had taken place
in Saul. I tell you what, if there's no
change in us, there's been no salvation. There's no change. And Saul preached. He preached
the Lord Jesus Christ. And there in verse 23, you see
what happened after that. And after that many days were fulfilled,
after he preached the gospel, the Jews took counsel how to
kill him. Now he's on the run. Now they're after him. He tried
to kill all those who believed. Now they're seeking his life
for believing. All right, that's how God saves
sinners. Paul's a good pattern of how God saves sinners.