Probably most who listen to this
radio program are religious. You probably attend a church
somewhere and you're biding your time this morning until you go
to your church. I want you to listen very carefully
as I tell you a story from Acts chapter 22. It's a story about
a religious man a religious leader. He didn't even know God. He thought
he did, but he didn't. He didn't know Christ. He didn't
know himself. He didn't know the truth. And
I contend that most do not. Most modern Christians, so-called,
and preachers all believe the same things, whether they be
Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists, Methodists, Lutheran, Presbyterian,
German Baptists, Church of the Brethren, Pentecostal, Most believe
and say the same thing. Here's what they say, that God
loves you. Jesus died for you. Won't you
accept Jesus as your personal Savior? Let Jesus into your heart. Make Jesus Lord of your life.
If you accept Him, if you make this decision for Him, if you
let Him be your Lord, you are saved. In other words, they're
saying salvation is your decision, not God's. It is your choice,
not God's. It's not what God does, not what
Christ did, but what you do. That's all a lie. It's all a
lie. Nowhere in the Bible does it
say any of these things. Nowhere. At no time did any prophet,
apostle, or evangelist ever stand up and tell everyone, God loves
you. Jesus loves you. Jesus Christ
never said that. Surely, if that's the message
to tell everyone, surely Jesus Christ would have stood up and
told everyone, God loves you. He never did. Nowhere at no time
did any of the apostles ever say that. Jesus died for you. Jesus loves you. Nowhere at no
time. In the book of Acts, you know
the message at Pentecost, Peter never said anything about God
loving anybody. No, sir. In fact, the word love
is not found in all the book of Acts. Nowhere in the Bible
does God or God's prophets or God's apostles ever tell people
to accept Jesus, to let Him into your heart, to make Him Lord.
No, sir. Because salvation is of the Lord,
not man. Salvation, Psalm 3 verse 8 says,
belongeth to the Lord. It's His to give, not man's to
accept. Salvation is by the will, the
choice of God, not man. Salvation is God accepting worthless,
guilty sinners, not them accepting Him. Salvation is because of
what Jesus Christ did for these people. Salvation is God giving
man a new heart, not letting him into your evil heart. Salvation
is Jesus Christ speaking to you, calling you, because He said
He's the shepherd and His sheep hear His voice. Salvation is
Jesus Christ telling you He is Lord, not you letting Him be
Lord. This is what happened to Paul,
the apostle, on the road to Damascus. This is what happens to every
single person that God chose and God saved, religious or irreligious. In Acts 22, verse 3 and 4, Paul
is recounting his story. And he says, I was a man born
a Jew in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, brought up in this city, Jerusalem,
at the feet of Gamaliel. In other words, Paul said, I
was raised a religious man, by a religious parent. He said,
I taught according to the law, the Bible. and was zealous toward
God as you all are this day. He believed in God, he thought.
He didn't know God, though. But he believed the Bible. He
could probably quote a great deal of it, but he didn't know
the truth. In verse 4, Paul said, I persecuted
this way unto death. I persecuted this way. Jesus Christ said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. In other words, he's saying salvation
is my way. Salvation is by me. Salvation
is by Jesus Christ. Who he is, what he did, who he
did it for. Not man's decision, man's will,
man's choice, man's works. Salvation is Christ. He is the
way, the truth, and the life. You don't decide to be in the
way. He puts you in the way. You don't
decide to believe the truth. He gives you faith to believe,
to love the truth. He gives you a fear of the Lord.
You don't decide to have life. You're given life. Christ said,
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. You're chosen. You're given to Christ. And the
Holy Spirit comes in time to what I'm doing now, preaching
the truth, and opens blind eyes and deaf ears to hear the truth.
It is Christ's voice, His Word. Paul hated all talk of salvation
by Jesus Christ. Paul hated that it was not his
will or his choice or his works or his righteousness that was
his salvation, but completely of someone else, and that is
Jesus Christ. And so did most people today,
most religious people. Paul said in verse 6, I made
my journey when I was making my journey. There was a way that
he thought was right, but the end would have ended in destruction
as it is with every single person. And he said in verse 6, suddenly
there shone from heaven a great light round about me. Suddenly a great light shone
round about me. Christ is the light. Saul, or
Paul, didn't see the light. The light saw him. Paul wasn't
looking for the light. Paul was blind. The light found
him. He was given light. The light
surrounded him. Paul didn't accept the light. The light accepted him. The light engulfed him, Christ. He's going to find out who Christ
is. He's not going to accept Him.
But Christ has come to tell him that He has accepted Paul. In
verse 7, Paul says, I fell to the ground. I fell. The fear
of the Lord is a beginning of wisdom. When you finally find
out and know who the Lord is, you don't accept the Lord in
whose hands your breath is. You fear Him. You fall before
Him. You bow to Him. You find out
that He's Lord. You don't let Him be Lord. You
find out He is Lord, always has been, always will be. He's your
Lord. You don't make Him Lord. He is
your Lord. Verse 7, Paul says, I fell to
the ground and I heard a voice. Christ said, my sheep hear my
voice. He spoke to Paul, and here's
what he said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Now this
is the only question that Jesus Christ asked him, and he didn't
ask him for information. It was a question that paralyzed
Paul with fear. A question that convicted him
of his rebellion, his hatred of the true God, the true Christ.
And what he's telling Paul is, you're fighting God. Jesus Christ
is God. And if He doesn't show mercy,
you're a goner. Paul said, verse 8, Who art thou,
Lord? See, he didn't even know who
the Lord was. You're not going to make Him
Lord. He's finding out who He is. Paul was religious. Paul could quote the Bible, but
he didn't even know who Jesus Christ was. He thought he was
a mere mortal man to be accepted or rejected or whatever. But
Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, the God of the universe, the
creator of all things, in whose hands our breath is, whose decision,
whose choice, whose will it is whether we're lost or found,
whether we're saved or damned, whether we live or die. Jesus
Christ must reveal Himself, must give life. Verse 8, the Lord
revealed Himself, said, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecuted. I am. I am that I am. So many times the Lord Jesus
Christ said, I am. That's the name that Moses heard
on Mount Sinai. I am. Tell them I am that I am. I am the way, Christ said. I
am the truth. I am the life. I am the door.
I am the bread. I am the Good Shepherd. I am
that I am. I am Jesus of Nazareth. That man who walked this earth,
raised in Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, is none other than the I Am,
the unchanging God. Verse 9, Paul said, They that
were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid, but they heard
not the voice of Him that spake to me. They didn't hear. Christ
said, My sheep, hear My voice. My sheep, He called them in John
10. He said, They were given to Me
by My Father, elect, chosen of the Father and given to Me. bought
by the blood of Christ, given to Christ. Sheep, not goats. They're goats and they're sheep.
Sheep are going to hear His voice. Christ said in John chapter 8
to some, He said, Why do you not understand My speech? Because
you cannot hear My Word. He said in verse 47 of John 8,
"...he that is of God heareth God's Word. You therefore hear
them not, because you are not of God." Oh, God's sheep hear
His voice. And Paul heard His voice, and
those other men did not. Why? They weren't chosen to hear
it. That's the truth. In verses 9
and 10, it says, they saw the light but didn't hear His voice.
Men see the Bible, see the truth, but they don't believe it, and
they don't hear the truth. Verse 10, Paul said, What shall
I do, Lord? Or that is, what are you going
to do with me? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, go into Damascus,
and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed
for thee to do." Appointed. Later, Paul wrote in the book
of Romans, he said, for whom God did foreknow, he did predestinate. That is predetermined. All things
were predetermined, known unto God. or all his work from the
beginning of the world. This man was chosen by God to
do what God had willed for him to do. And here's what God did. He sent a preacher named Ananias,
a devout man. He came unto Paul and said, Brother
Saul, receive thy sight. And he said, to God of our father
that hath chosen you, that you should know His will, see the
just one, hear His voice, be His witness. And Paul arose and
was baptized, calling on the name of the Lord. Did you hear
what Ananias the preacher said to Paul? He said, God hath chosen
you. He did not say, God loves you,
Paul. Jesus died for you now that you
have accepted Him as your personal Savior and let Him into your
heart. No, no. seeing that Paul now feared the
Lord, seeing that Paul had seen the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,
seeing His sovereign power over him, He was in the Lord's hand,
and hearing Paul ask the Lord what he was going to do with
him, then the preacher said, God hath chosen you. God hath
called you. God hath appointed everything
about you. God hath chosen you to call on
Him, to believe on Him, to hear His voice, to repent. He said,
God hath chosen you to know His will, that salvation is by the
will of the Lord, that everything is by the will of the Lord, that
not man's free will, Paul now knows that God alone has free
will, doing as He will with whom He will. He's chosen you to know
that it is God's will, to see that just one, to see that there's
just one, one way, one name, no other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved. Just one, one righteousness,
one mediator between God and men. The just one, justified
only by Him. And hear His voice. Hear the
truth. And he said, and you will be his witness, verse 15, you
will be his witness unto all men of what you've seen and what
you've heard. Now Paul is going around telling
people not what he did with Jesus, but what Jesus did with him.
Not how he accepted Jesus, but how he was now accepted in Christ. What about you? Do you know this
Christ, the true Christ? Have you heard His voice? Have
you seen His glory? I pray that the Lord will reveal
Himself to you.