Thank you, Brother Paul. Good
to be here with you this morning. Paul's introduction, he's talking
about asking how long I've been down there where I am. I've been
there, I'd say, about 42 years, in my 43rd. And a whole lot of
folks down there that particularly think I've been there too long. But that's with the Lord. At
least that's what I try to tell myself and them. I've been in
the book of Acts for some time. This is the second time through
here in my ministry. And so I thought I'd try to bring
something this morning that's somewhat fresh on my mind. So
if you turn your Bibles to the 22nd chapter of Acts, I'll try
to bring a few thoughts from there. Acts 22. Now, of course, you know, we have
a recording of this experience that Paul is testifying of in
the ninth chapter of Acts. That's where his conversion took
place when he was He was caught up very high in his religion,
Judaism, and he was very zealous for what he believed from the Jewish aspect. As a matter of fact, he was so
zealous that he was going about arresting and bringing into custody
those that followed Christ, those that believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ, people like us. And he was on his way to do just
that. He was on his way to Damascus. He had arrest warrants in his
vest pocket. And he was going to arrest men
and women, bring them back to Jerusalem, try them, and if need
be, they'd execute them. And he confessed to that. in
his testimony, but also in other parts of his writings, that he
was guilty, guilty of bringing men and women to the state of
death because of what they believed, and confessed it with great grief
in his heart, remorse. So we'll look at that this morning
just for a little while, Acts chapter 22, and we'll begin there
in verse number 1. He's before the Jews again. Always he's confronted by the
Jews. They hated Paul. Paul loved them,
but they hated Paul. He had a great burden for them.
A great burden for his national people. I testified of that in
the Roman letter. He desired their salvation. But of no avail. They were so sold out to what
they believed. Just like our world today. People
are sold out to what they believe. Maybe it's just as wrong as it
possibly can be, but they're wedded to it. They won't turn
it loose. And only God can break a man
from there. Only God. I don't care how much
arguments we give. use apologetics and convince
men that our doctrine is right and theirs is wrong, unless the
Almighty God breaks into that blinded mind. And nothing blinds
the mind any more than false religion. I mean, man comes into
this world naturally blinded, but once he's wedded to some
kind of religion, it violates the gospel. to the gospel of the grace of
God, unless God breaks in, you cannot pry that fellow loose
from it. He's going to hold on to it.
That's his hope. You're trying to rob him of his
hope, take it away from him. And he'll fight you for it. I
mean, literally, he will fight you for it. And that's a fact. That's just so. And I've experienced
that over the years. So in Acts chapter 22, Paul's
standing on the stairway. Already he's in Barnes again. They have him handcuffed. And
he's standing there between two Roman soldiers. And he asks for
just a word. He wants a word to say to his
fellow Jews. And he begins to speak to them
in Hebrew. And of course, the Roman soldiers that have him
in custody don't know what he's saying. They don't have any idea. But he's talking to those Jewish
relatives out there, those relationships in the Hebrew language. He said,
Many brethren, father, hear ye my defense, which I make now
unto you. And when they heard that he speak
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
of Sicilies, yet brought up in the city at the feet of Gamaliel."
Boy, that's saying something there. I mean, here's your number
one professor among the Jews. I mean, this fellow's got all
the credentials. He's a doctor of the law. He
knows everything that there is to be known about Judaism. And
Paul said it at his feet. That ought to have impressed
him a little bit, should it? Well, we'll see. He goes on talking,
he says, and he taught according to the perfect manner of the
law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God as ye all are this
day. And I persecuted this way unto
the dead, binding and delivering into prison, both men and women. It was also the high priest that
gave me witness. And all the state of the elders,
from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to
Damascus. That's where I was going. I was
on my way to Damascus to bring them which were there,
bound unto Jerusalem. for to be punished. He came past
it as, I made my journey. It was coming out of Damascus. It was about noon, he says. Now,
keep that in mind, about noontime. That's when the sun shines bright,
isn't it? Well, he's going to see a light
that outshines the sun. The glory of Christ. Has that
glory shined into your heart? Man is not converted until the
glory of Christ is revealed to him. Shines into the heart. That's what dispels darkness.
That's what brings you out of darkness into light, is the glory
of Christ. You know everything in this book
about Christ, but if you've never seen the glory, which is revealed
in the gospel, If you never see that glory, you're none the better
off. But Paul saw the glory. He says, And I fell to the ground,
and heard a voice unto me, and this voice was saying, Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me? Two things to keep in mind here.
He saw something and he heard something. He saw something. Sight and sound means everything. See something
and hear something. Always said this. Fella, it's
just as impossible for a man to say what he doesn't know as
it is for him to come from where he hadn't been. A lot of folks
trying to do that. A lot of fellas trying to do
that. Hadn't been there, hadn't got nothing to say. Hadn't got
anything to say at all. Verse 9, 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. Another place it said they
heard, but they only heard a sound. They didn't hear the voice. They
didn't hear the articulation. Only Paul heard that. It's like
sitting here in this congregation. Here's a fellow over here. He
hears the articulation of the voice. He hears the gospel in
the voice. Well, it's going all over the
auditorium. But here's a guy over here. It doesn't make a bit of sense
to him. But this one here is picking up on everything that's
said. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. That's what's going
on. That's the operation of the Spirit of God. Working in this
heart and bypassing this heart over here. That's what we call
the sovereign grace of God. The discriminating, sovereign
grace of God. God works in the heart that he's
pleased to work in. And we cannot. dictate to God
where he must work. So that's what's going on here.
These fellows didn't hear a word and didn't understand what the
light was. Only one man did, the Apostle Paul. Then he goes on. It says, And
they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid, but
they heard not the voice of him that spake with me. And he said,
this is what Paul said, Paul said this to the Lord, he said,
What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to him, Arise,
go to Damascus, and there it shall be told thee of all the
things which are appointed for thee to do. And when I could
not 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 to Damascus. And of course,
you know the story here. Ananias, a man of God, a devout
man, was sent by God to Paul. Scales fell from his eyes, and
he was able to see somewhat. And he told him what God had
for him to do. All right, let's back up here
just a little bit, in a word or two, and I'll be through. I think we have here the great,
the great, the great practical question that Honestly, it comes
to every man that comes to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and
as his Savior. As his Lord and as his Savior. He doesn't save you until he's
revealed to you that he is your Lord. That's the first thing
we see here, isn't it? Lord, what will you have me do? First question you ask, who art
thou, Lord? He wanted the identification
of the one that was speaking from heaven. You know, the Jews
were broken from this plurality of gods, the old heathen way
of selecting this god and that god
and the other god. They were broken from that in
the Babylonian captivity. That was one of the purposes
of God, of incarcerating and bondage those Jews for 70 years. They were back and forth, back
and forth. Sometimes worshiping the true God, and then off again
on a tangent working among the heathen and worshiping with the
heathen the false God. God got a bait of it and sent
them over into Damascus under hard bondage. And they were there
70 years. Seventy years they were in that
bondage. broke them from worshipping other
gods. And when they came out of that
bondage, we have no record whatsoever that the Jews ever worshipped
other than the one true God from heaven. And so Paul knew this. He knew that only Jehovah spoke
from heaven. But the confusion in his mind
was, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And Saul is trying to put this
together in his mind, persecute his family. I'm on my way to
Damascus to arrest those who call themselves
Christians, those who follow Jesus of Nazareth. So he says,
Lord, who art thou? And this is awfully important.
Jesus Christ identified himself as Jehovah, Jesus of Nazareth. End of interrogation. Paul asked
no other question except the second question, Lord, what wilt
thou have me do? He asked for no proof, Paul,
none whatsoever. That's all he needed. He knew
that only Jehovah spoke from heaven. And the glory of Jesus
Christ had been revealed in his soul. And so the bottom line then for Paul
was, what do you have to do? And I say that, my dear friends,
that is the absolute most important question in the working of salvation,
the operation of the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, that is
the proof in the pudding. When a person is converted to
Christ, when he's seen the glory of the Lord, there's absolutely
no doubt in his soul that Jesus of Nazareth is the Lord of glory. Now, what will you have me do?
What do you want me to do? In other words, he's ready.
He's off to the race, the Christian race. He wants an answer to that particular
question. I think it's a standing proof
of its practical character that the Bible makes this the first
question as soon as there's a move toward heaven. We find it in
the Scriptures in several places. As a matter of fact, on the day
of Pentecost, 3,000 Jews were converted. at the preaching of
Peter. And he's preached Jesus of Nazareth
as Lord of Glory. It's this same Jesus whom you
have crucified, you've slain, God has raised up and made him
both Lord and Christ. That settled it with those Jews. 3,000 of them. Can you imagine
that? 3,000 of them. It was settled in their hearts.
What do you have us to do? Men and brethren, what must we
do? No argument. What must we do? You take the old heathen, the
Philippian jailer over there. That fellow didn't know a thing
in the world about the gospel. He never heard of, I mean, not
even a speck of the gospel. low-hardened Gentile jailer. I got a fellow in my church.
He worked for the Sheriff's Department there in the county. He's been
there for years now. But they assigned him to the
position of jailer there. And that's a hard jail. It's
a holding jail in the Atlanta area. I mean, it's 300, 400 prisoners. And some of them are the toughest
in the country. They hold them there for trial. And this guy,
this fellow that's in the church there, he's the jailer. He has to deal with those criminals
every day. It's a hard job. It hardens a
man. It does. But this old jailer,
there he is. He's doing his business, doing
his work. They bring Paul and Silas. Cast them into the inner
prison. Shackle them. Close the bars on them. The old
jailer goes about his business. During the night, he hears these
two fellows praying. He hears these two fellows singing. Something is going on that doesn't
make much sense to him. But all of a sudden, the Spirit
of the Lord moves on that old fellow's heart, opens his heart
to the glory of Christ. Can you imagine that? God does a little work of supernatural
substance. He shakes the foundation upon
which the jail is founded upon, and the old jailer puts it all
together. He says in his heart, this must
be of God. And he flies in. He comes running
in. And before Paul and Silas, he
cast himself down. Here's his question. Sirs, what
must I do to be saved? Sirs, what must I do? He's already converted. His heart's
already changed. Now he wants to know what to
do. Isn't that the way it goes? That's the order. It's pretty
simple, isn't it? Man says he's saved. Well, what are you going
to do for the Lord? You're His. You belong to Him. He's your Lord. He's your Master. He's the one that's going to call
all the shots from here on out. So what are you going to do? You're going to serve Him. You're
going to walk with Him. Whatever capacity of life that
He chooses for you to walk in, That's your will. Why is it your
will? Because it's His will. And you
want His will. You want your will to be swollen
up in His will. That's Paul. He's testifying
to that here. He made a show of it, three trips
around, three circuits around Asia. It's been about 30 years. from the time that God converted
him to the time he's making this particular testimony, speech
before these Jews. He's been busy for all those
30 years. He's been busy. My soul. I mean, just traveling. Almost
a single-man expedition. Three trips. Three circuits around
Asia. That's one of the most amazing
things to me, how that one man could carry the gospel to so
many people. And it didn't stop there. You
know, the gospel just continued to make its circuits on and on
and on. And finally it circled around
to you and I. And it came through this one
man, Paul. Paul. I told the folks here when I
was going through this recent charity, praise be unto God that
God did convert Saul of Tarsus, put upon him the burden of the
gospel, to carry that gospel to the far ends of the known
world at that time. He did that. He did it. And so here we have him. He goes
and makes one last particular and clear stand before his people
there in Jerusalem, and before they cart him off to Rome eventually. He'll give this testimony one
more time before Agrippa and Felix, and it doesn't vary. The details do not vary. It's
the same testimony, the same confession. You know, we only
have one testimony. We only have one confession.
And just wherever we have the opportunity, we give it, you
know. We don't change it. Just tell folks what Christ did
for you. What Jesus did for you. That's
all Paul did. That's fairly simple, isn't it? Well, that's the way it ought
to be. It ought to be simple. It should be simple. All right. May the Lord bless it to you.