If you will, be turning with
me to Acts chapter 9. It's my last time to speak here,
so I would like to thank you for having me and your pastor
inviting me here. The food's been wonderful. The
fellowship's been so much better. And the food's so good, I didn't
think it could be any better. Delicious and wonderful. The title of the message tonight
is The Blessing of Blindness. The Blessing of Blindness. The Lord Jesus Christ is longsuffering to his people all our lives,
all our lives, from the first moment we're conceived until
we take our last breath in this world. He's patient with us, slow to anger. He's longsuffering
towards us. And he's long suffering towards
this because he promised his father to glorify him. And glorify him he shall. He
has and he shall. And he laid down his life and
poured out his blood. and bought them and redeemed
them out from under sin, out from under the bondage of iniquity,
out from the dominion of that old serpent. And He'll save us. He will save
us. And He's longsuffering. Paul
said that. Paul said that he was a pattern
of the longsuffering. of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord's not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And He's
going to make sure by His power and grace that all come to repentance. And once we're converted, We
were converted over and over and over again. Our conversion
just begins once He's converted us. And we've got to be blinded over
and over and over again. Let's start tonight here in Acts
chapter 9 and verse 10. There was a certain disciple
at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a
vision, it's called a vision because Ananias didn't see this
with his physical eye, but he saw it by faith more clearly
than you can see with your physical eye. And the Lord said in a vision,
Ananias, and he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord
said unto him, Arise, and go out into the street which is
called Strait, and inquire in the house of Judas. For one calls
Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he prayeth." and have seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in
and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight. He's seen that he might receive
his sight. He has seen in a vision that
he's going to receive his sight. Well, how did he see this if
he hadn't yet received his sight? What he saw in the vision, he
saw by faith. And that's the substance of things
hoped for. That's the evidence of things
that are not seen. The sight that he was to receive
was he was just going to have his physical sight restored back
to him so he could walk on down the road. Be thankful and consider it a
mercy of God's grace to you who believe that you live in a place
where you can see plainly A place where there's an oasis,
where you can hear the gospel preached and you can hear it
plainly declared. And you can tell just as clearly
and easily the difference between this place and the next place
down the road. Because here, it's so cut and
dry. It's just so much more obvious. Where I am, it is so subtle. Not to a believer, but to anyone
seeking the Lord, it's so subtle. Because you'll read, and it'll
sound like it's the Five Points of Calvinism. You'll read a statement
of faith, and I would literally stand here before you and preach
to you each statement, and some of those statements of faith
that I've read. They're that solid. But when
you listen to it, you don't hear Christ Jesus the Lord exalted. And so much of what we hear is
about repentance. We need to repent. So much of
what we hear is, you need to believe on God. So much of what
we hear is, you need to pray. So much of what we hear is, you
need to obey the Lord. And all of those things are true.
All of those things are true. And everything that we just read
about in this verse right here, behold, he prayeth. In this prayer that happened
here with Saul of Tarsus, these blessings that God gives repentance,
faith, prayer, a heart to truly pray to Him, following Him. Later we'll see here where he
was following Him in baptism. But these things that are given
to a believer are given to a believer spiritually, and they're spiritual
blessings. And you and I can't see them,
and no other man can see them in you with the physical eyes. You can't see them. Can you tell
me what repentance looks like? I can't tell you what it looks
like. Can you tell me what faith looks like? I can't tell you what it looks
like. Can you tell me what praying
looks like? I can't tell you what it looks
like. I really can't. And all these things, we can't
have any of these things. We can't have obedience without
any of these things. And therefore, I really can't
tell you what obedience looks like to the Lord. But I know
what it is. I know what it is. I know what
these things are. Saul of Parsis had to be blinded
from what he thought these things looked like. He had to be blinded
from what he thought these things looked like so that he could
actually behold all of these things. And he beheld all of
these things in one person, and that person is the Lord Jesus
Christ. In verse 1, we read, And Saul,
yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples
of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters
to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this
way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound
unto Jerusalem. This right here is what we think,
brethren. And tonight, I'm talking to God's
children. I'm talking to His people, His
elect people. Those of you that have been brought
to trust Him and called out of darkness, and to you who have
not yet been called out of darkness. And I pray He might be pleased
to do it. But this is what we think. Every elect child of God, this
is what we think, as we come into this world, born in Adam,
this is what we think religion consists of. Right here, what's
in these first two verses. Breathing out means that this
was the soul and heart of all of Saul's religious devotion. Every bit of it. And here's the
sum and substance of all of it. It was threatenings. It was threatening. Threatening people. Threatening
people. To make them do what you think
is repentance. To make them do what you think
faith looks like. To make them do what you think
praying looks like and what obedience looks like. Threatening. And it's all slaughter against
the disciples of the Lord, every bit of it. By nature, we cling
to false prophets, and we cling to a false way, and we cling
to that which is totally and completely a lie. And we hate
the disciples of the Lord. By nature, that's what we do.
And he went unto the high priest, It is all about worshiping an
earthly, carnal, high priest. And I'm not talking about the
fellow with the silly hat that wants you to kiss his ring. That's
obvious. That's obvious. It is men standing
behind pulpits. It is men and women sitting in
pews who really and truly We consider ourselves, by nature,
our own high priest. We just don't need one. If we're
going to go to someone for understanding, we're going to, just as Brother
Bruce said, we're going to go to us first and reason from us
out. We're going to go to our high
priest first and reason out. And here's what it is, too. It's
desiring letters. It's desiring a legal letter
that'll tell us we're right to do what we're doing. We have
the authority to do what we're doing because we have a legal
letter that tells us we can do this. And with that legal letter,
here's what we'll do. We will go to men and women and
we will bind them because our legal letter says we have the
right to do this. and we'll bind you and we're
going to carry you to our earthly sanctuary, to our earthly city,
to our earthly Jerusalem. Don't worry about heaven. Just
come to the church. Just join the church. We just
want you to join the church. That's what we want. We want
to bind you and bring you here to our earthly Jerusalem. Bam. Hand and foot. Saul had We've read what it says
to the Philippians. And Saul had, he was raised up,
you know, a Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised the eighth day, he
said, as touching the law I was blameless. And when he says that,
touching the law I was blameless, and I was a Pharisee of Pharisees,
he's not simply talking about Touching the law, meaning the
law that came from Mount Sinai, the law of ceremony and the moral
law. And he's not simply talking about
that. He's talking about more than
that. He's talking about as touching the whole Word of God. I thought I was blameless. He
had the Old Testament Scriptures just like you and I have. And
he could open his Old Testament Scriptures, and he could look
into them and roll them out on his scroll, and he could read
how Abraham left everything and followed the Lord. And so he
said, I'm going to do that. I'm going to leave everything,
and I'm going to follow the Lord. He could read David's words where
David said, I pray in the morning and at noon and at night, and
he hears me. And he said, So I'm going to
pray at those times. I'm going to pray in the morning,
I'm going to pray at noon, and I'm going to pray at night. He
knew Solomon said, when he dedicated that first temple, he knew Solomon
said, if any man will turn to this temple and pray. And so
if he wasn't able to go up to the temple, wherever he was at,
he'd turn to that temple and he'd pray towards that temple. And when the Pharisees When he
came in association with the Pharisees, and they had all the
commandments of men, the doctrines of men that they taught as if
they were the commandments of God, he added all those to himself
too, and said, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees. Here's the point
I'm making to you, brethren. My little son, I can take this
book right here, and I can give it to him. And he can look right
here and he can say, that's an A, Daddy. And he can look down
here and he can say, that's a B, Daddy. And he can look over here
and he can say, that's a C, Daddy. But he can't read these words. He can't understand these words. He has no knowledge of these
words. He knows letters. But he has no understanding and
no knowledge to be able to read this and understand it. And a
man just like that can turn to the epistles and he can read
in James, or in Acts here, where later on you see where it says,
when Peter was in prison, there was some gathering together to
pray. And he can say, okay then, we
need to all gather together and pray. Now you listen to me, what
I'm telling you. I'm not discouraging anybody
from repentance or faith or prayer or any of these things. But what
I want to point out to you is we can look at the thou shalts
and thou shalt nots and read them. And anybody with basic
reading comprehension can see that says thou shalt not commit
adultery. And we can go our whole lives
thinking we've never committed adultery, thinking God will receive
us when we enter into glory because we've never committed adultery.
And by the very fact that we think we're righteous by that
law, we have played the harlot against God Almighty and broken
the whole law. But we don't understand that
unless God gives us a spiritual understanding that that's what
that law actually says. I'm not interested in seeing
groups of folks get together at a church building when in
reality they've just been bound and threatened and bound hand
and foot and brought there. That's not impressive to me.
It's not impressive to me at all. What I want to know is who
brought you there? Who drew you there? Who brought
you to that place so that you could come there just willing
and eager and just desires to just have some, a crumb drop
from his table. You see here, he had those things,
and he thought he had light. He called that light, but he
had no light. He thought he had some power
in the strength of his own hand. He was running as hard and as
fast as he could, and he was feeding himself with his repentance. He was feeding himself with his
faith. He was feeding himself with his prayers. He was feeding
himself with all his sacrifices that he had made. In Isaiah chapter
1, the Lord said, He spoke to Judah and Jerusalem through Isaiah,
and He referred to, that's representative of the church and kingdom of
God, and He said, He said, I've raised up a people, I've raised
them up, I've raised up a people, children, and they've rebelled
against me. And he tells us that by nature we are dumber than
an ass, more stubborn than an ox. And he says, why should I
stricken you anymore? Why should I bring any more?
Why should I smite you anymore with this, with, with, with desolation
in your land and with floods and with strangers entering your
land and destroying it? Why should I do it? You just
revolt more and more. They weren't running away out
into the streets and immorality and all these things. You know
what they were doing? They were coming. When these things would
happen, and they would see something, a tornado like we see, or a flood
like we see up in Iowa, Indiana, you know what they'd do? They'd
go out there to that sacrifice that they had been feeding. They'd
just fed these. They had taken them and they
fed it, and they looked him over, and there wasn't any spots on
him. He wasn't torn and lame at all. It was exactly like God
said, bring them. And they brought more of them,
more of them, more of them. And they weren't out there under
the groves and in the high places worshiping. He said, you come
and tread my courts doing this. You come to my appointed place
of worship, to my house of prayer doing it. And he said, and you
multiply your prayers. Pray more and more and more and
more. But there's a problem. There's a problem. He said, when
you come, what's the purpose of this? When you come, what
is the purpose of this? And He said, when you come to
appear before Me, and the word there is, to be seen of Me. To
be seen of Me and to be seen of all the men around you. That's
the purpose. That's why you come. You come
here to be seen of. The Lord said, you come here
to be seen of Me and all the people around you. And there's
a problem with that. The Lord's people don't come
to be seen of the Lord and to be seen of men. We come to see
the Lord. We would see Jesus. That's who
we come to see. And he said, he said, I didn't. This is not my will. I will not. He said, away with it. It's an
abomination. It's vain oblation. All of it's
vanity. And Saul had all these things.
And with his physical sight, he had all these things, and
he looked at those things, and he said, I am so righteous. I am so righteous. And so the
Lord beheld him. Comes to this big tree of sinful
flesh named Saul of Tarsus. And where men might look upon
it and think it ought to be bearing fruit and all there was about
it was just leaves blowing in the wind like the fig tree came
to. And this fig tree of sinful flesh costs all has got to be
cursed by the Lord and it's got to wither and die so that the
Apostle Paul won't ever look to it again for any fruit whatsoever. That's got to happen. The Lord
told the disciples that day, if you have faith as a grain
of mustard seed, you could say unto this mountain,
remove from hence and be cast into the sea and it be removed.
Why on earth would a believer want a mountain to be thrown
into the sea? Why would we want a mountain to be thrown into
the sea? When we began looking to this flesh, and we began trusting
in this flesh, and the accuser of the brethren begins to try
to lead us back to that law, to that Mount Sinai, we awake,
we see that law flaming against us. So that mountain quaking,
and it's like a volcano before us. And we have to be turned
to Christ in faith to behold it in Him. That mountain's been
extinguished by His mercy and grace in the sea of His love. And he's beheld Saul for a long
time, and he's suffered a long time with Saul of Tarsus and
all this religion, and he's watched him be overtaken and possessed
with this dumb spirit, and there's foam at the mouth, and to be
thrown down and spread forth his hands and make multiple and
multiple and multiple prayers, and he's just taken away with
a dumb spirit. And the Lord said, this kind
goeth not forth but by prayer and fasting. And you know what
prayer and fasting is? You know what fasting and prayer
is? It's to be brought to where we don't look to the strength
of our own hand anymore to feed us and to nourish us and to sustain
this flesh. It's to be brought to the place
where we're not praying anymore to be seen of praying. Prayer
is drawn out of us. And we behold the object of the
fast. We behold Him in whom all our
sufficiency rests. We behold Him who makes intercession
for us. We behold our Advocate with the
Father who goes to the Father and makes intercession on our
behalf and meets God. And God beholds Him as altogether
lovely, as well-beloved, as well-pleasing in His sight. And we haven't
repented. We haven't believed God. We haven't
prayed a prayer at all until the power of the Lord Jesus Christ
makes this old flesh die and wither away. And He brings us
to the place to where we truly just say, I'm not looking anywhere
else. I'm just looking at Him. I can't
feed myself. I can't feed myself. I can't
do anything to sustain myself." And there's where he brings us. And you know how he does it?
It says here, as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly
there shined round about him a light from heaven. That's what
we've got to have, a light from heaven. And here we have two
things that we read about as we read here. A light and a voice. A light and a voice. Faith sees
a light and faith sees a voice. The carnal eye can't see light.
The carnal ear can't hear this voice. Faith hears it and sees
this voice. And this light and this voice
is our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's who we've got to see.
That's who we've got to hear. This is the season of love. This
is the time of love. He suffered long with Saul, and
now is the time when he must come to Him. This is the day
of power right here. And He's coming to Him now. And
He's going to bring this man down. He had no life, so the
first thing He does is engulf him in light. He thought he was
somebody and that he was worthy of some kind of praise and recognition
from God Almighty. And it says here, he fell to
the earth that he might behold. He just dust. He just dust. How many of you ladies, how many
of you go out every day and gather you, take you Your little dust
broom will go out there and gather you up some dust outside and
walk in the house and sprinkle it around all over your furniture
in your house. You don't do that, do you? You
do the opposite of that, don't you? You take that dust and you
sweep it off and you try to get rid of it, don't you? When we're
left in our sin and our rebellion, as long as we're in our sin and
our rebellion, what our Lord Jesus Christ suffered long with
was us, in all our religion, Going out and just gathering
up dust, dust, dust and sprinkling it all around and saying, boy,
this looks good. And he's got to bring us to see
salvation is the opposite of that. Salvation is taking the
dust and saying, I don't have anything to do with dust. And it says here, he heard a
voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? You mean, This religious devotion,
this act where I've gone and I've got my legal documents,
and I'm going 150 miles from Jerusalem to Damascus proving
my sincerity and my devotion. You mean all this is persecution
against the Lord? The Lord says, Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou men? Well, I'm going to kill these
disciples. Why persecutest thou me, Saul?" And we think we're wise and intelligent
and have so much knowledge and understanding, and we're brought
to hear this voice. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? And we're confronted with our
own ignorance. We're confronted with our own
self-delusion. and self-deceived, whereby we've
deceived ourselves for all this time. And we're brought to say,
Who art thou, Lord? You know what he's doing right
here, Bruce? He's praying. He's praying. Who art thou, Lord?
Praying is speaking with the Lord. Praying is speaking with
the Lord. And he's saying, Who art thou,
Lord? You know what believers ask?
This believer sitting right here in front of you, you know what
I ask very often? Who art thou, Lord? Who art thou,
Lord? And he's brought to ask this
one as Lord. Anybody that could come and arrest
me and knock me down into the dust and speak to me and blind
me is Lord. He's Lord. And he says here,
and the Lord said, I'm Jesus whom thou persecutest. It's hard
for thee to kick against the bricks. And he trembling and
astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? We have to
be made willing. We have to be made to say, Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do? This is the way I'm going. This
is the way I've been running. This is the direction I've been
going. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? What wilt thou have
me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise,
and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou
must do. And the men which journeyed with
him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. There's
some folks sitting here right now, because it's this way everywhere
the Lord's people meet. There's some folks sitting here
right now who, as bad as you'd like to jump up and walk up here
and punch me right square in the nose for what I'm saying,
you're speechless. And you hear a voice coming forth. But you see, not the Lord Jesus
Christ. All you see is somebody trying
to take away the defense and the refuge that you think is
going to protect you. All you hear is somebody trying
to take away what you've spent all your life building up by
your own hand. We were talking about it this
week. Every, every denial of the truth is a defense for a
lie. Every denial of the truth is
a defense of a lie. If I can say a man's not born
of God and he's not recreated anew and made a partaker of the
divine nature, I could be defending the lie that I wasn't really
born totally depraved by natural generation either. There's a
lie behind every denial of the truth. And we've got to be brought
to this place to where we're blinded from everything we think
is good and religious and acceptable to God. We've got to be brought
and we've got to be blinded from all that. And Saul arose from
the earth, verse 8, and when his eyes were opened, He opened
up his eyes now. That means, brethren, that when
he saw this light and heard this voice, his physical eyes weren't
even open. That's what it means. And now
he stands up and he actually opens his physical eyes, but
he doesn't see anybody. Now, it's different here than
what it's talking about when those fellows stood speechless.
And they heard a voice, but they didn't see anybody. They didn't
behold the Lord who was speaking. They didn't see the light and
hear the voice. Not the Lord Jesus Christ. But when He stands
up here now and He doesn't see any man, what it means is, is
His physical sight is gone. It's blind. He's blind. He's been blinded. He don't see
these fellows around Him that gave Him all His confidence.
We like safeties in numbers, you know. He didn't see all these
fellas around him. And if God speaks to you right
now, wherever you are sitting right there, all this multitude
of people around you will fade into obscurity. You don't see
them anymore. All of his religious endeavors
and everything he had done is gone. He can't see them. Everything
that's done by the carnal hands has to be seen of men. When you're
blind, you can't see them. You can't behold them. He's blinded
now. He's blinded. And they led him
by the hand. This has got to be humiliating
for him. Isn't it? Big Saul, going down
there just with his chest poked out, and now he's being led like
a little child. That's what we got to be humiliated. We've got to be humiliated. Humiliation
is humiliation. It's humiliating. We got to behold it. There's
nothing to be proud of in us. There's absolutely nothing to
be proud of in us. And they brought him to Damascus.
And now look at this. He was three days without sight,
and neither did eat nor drink. The three main senses of religion. The three main senses of our
carnal hearts. that we boast in and we put our
confidence in, brethren, the three main things are sight and
eating and drinking. Whatever we put into our mouth
or whatever we abstain from putting into our mouth. That's our righteousness
by nature. Whatever we can see and behold
around us. That's our righteousness by nature.
That's what we cling to by nature. But for three long days he lays
here and he doesn't see anything, and he doesn't eat anything,
and he doesn't drink anything. But you know, he didn't do those
three things. But you know what he did? When
he's laying there and it doesn't look like he's doing anything
whatsoever, whatsoever, you know what he's doing? He's repenting, he's believing,
and he's praying, pouring out his soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. You know why? Because the Lord
Jesus Christ turned him. The Lord Jesus Christ revealed
himself and gave him that heart to behold him by faith, and the
Lord In all of this, the Lord drew out of him, drew out of
him an earnest desire to be heard. Please hear me. Please hear me. Every single day of our lives
since the first hour we believed, if we continue to repent and
we continue to believe, And we truly pray. We do it, brethren,
because the Lord Jesus Christ has done to us over and over
what he did right here to Saul of Tarsus. I wonder, I wonder
how many prayers I prayed simply to consume it upon my lust. And
it just drifted off into the wind because that's where it
needed to go. I wonder, I wonder how many times
when I thought I was truly praying, when it was just vain repetition. That's all it was. I don't know how to pray. I really
don't know how to pray. It's getting to where the extent
of my prayers is about that. Help, Lord, just help me. I'm not interested in getting
together with a group of folks and praying. I'm more concerned
when I get together with folks and pray, I'm more concerned
that it's just an abomination to God, what I'm doing. In every single trial that we
face, every single obstacle we face in this life, every single
barrier is just as big a barrier, is just as big a mountain that
has to be removed as what had to be removed right here for
Saul to repent and believe and pray to the Lord. Every one of
them. And therefore, every one of them.
In every one of them, we have to be brought by our Lord through
His graciousness to us, through His suffering with us, suffering
long with us, being patient with us, in spite of us, because He
loves us everlastingly, because He poured out His life and bought
us and redeemed us. He's not going to cast us away.
But we're so rebellious that we fly up and we do, you know,
take it in our own hands and we don't want what he wants.
We want to have it the way we want it to be and we want it
to be the way we want it now. But he brings us again. He brings
us again at the end of it. Just like he did Abraham. Abraham
went three long days through that trial and he didn't tell
Isaac because Isaac said, He thought they was going up there
to offer up a lamb. He said, where's the lamb? And he didn't
tell his servants. They didn't know what they were
doing. When a man's brought into true affliction, when a man's
brought into true trial, brethren, there's one he wants to go to.
He don't want to go to a high priest, an earthly high priest,
or a preacher, or anybody else. He's drawn out to want to pray
to his great high priest who's been touched with the field of
his infirmities, that he knows hears his prayer, because he's
the one that drew him to himself. And when that trial, no matter
how severe it may be, when we're brought to the end of that trial,
you know where we're brought to see? You know where we come
to at the end of that trial? The same place Abraham came to. We behold the ram caught in the
thicket. Every time. every single time. We behold our Lord Jesus Christ.
Laying down His life force behind us with His own blood. And we
behold that by His mercy and grace He'll never let us go.
He'll never let us go. And we just lay there. We just lay there. And we don't
try to feed ourselves anymore. We don't try to strengthen ourselves
anymore. We don't do anything but lay there. Just pray to Him. And thank Him. And thank Him
for bringing us to Him. And we wait. We just wait for
that breath. That's where we come to. Every
time. When we first believe, in every
time. That's where He'll bring you,
brother Bill. That's where He'll bring you. Sister Mike, that's
where we'll come to. That's where He brings us. This family right here that's
hurting together because of these sufferings and trials, that's
where He brings us. And He don't leave us. He won't let us go. And even the one that he brings
to speak sweet words to us, this one Ananias, you know what his
name means? Of whom the Lord hath graciously
given. That's what his name means. Whom
the Lord hath graciously given. And he comes to him, he said,
I've heard of this man. You see your brother, your sister
in a trial, and boy, It's just no doubt about it. They just
rebelled. It's not acting in a manner that's
becoming a holiness whatsoever. And the Lord gives you a heart
to take the oversight and to just be kind to them and just
try to point them to Christ. And you're hesitant. You don't
really want to do it. You don't want to say anything
because you've... I've heard of this man. I've seen him. I've
seen what he did. Just like Ananias had seen Saul
in all his rebellion. But the Lord says, He's a chosen
vessel unto me. That was a chosen vessel unto
me. Go now. Go now. And speak to him. I'll tell him what things
he must suffer. You just go speak to him. And
Ananias went to him, and Ananias walked in. And can you imagine
Ananias, that picture there? And Ananias walks in, and there's
this one who has threatened the church and held the men and women
and wreaked havoc in the church. and done all these things, and
he walks in there, and he's just laying there, doing nothing through
the natural eye. He's doing nothing. And he walks
in there, and he laid his head on him, and he said, Brother,
Brother, isn't that another gift? We come to see everything He's
done for us, and His long-suffering is just all abundant gifts. We
can't run from Him. Because of this grace he's given,
he says, Brother, the Lord, he sent me. He sent me. He sent me that you might receive
your sight. And I don't imagine at that time
his physical sight was anywhere near important to him at all,
as it was back there before the Lord ever worked his work to
him. He had spiritual sight. He never had it. He said he has
spiritual sight now. And he sent him in the way, and
he sent him. And what did the Lord tell Peter?
Lord, he said, Peter, Satan desires you that he might sit you as
wheat. But I've prayed for you that your faith fail not after
you're converted. Just like what Saul. What happened
to him here now? After that's done, you go teach
your brethren. Go tell them what you've learned
from this. And the Lord raised this man up, and he sent him
on his way, and he went into the very city he was going to
persecute, and he went into the very synagogue where he was going
to, to the very people he was going to buy. And now he has
the only weapon that he has is a spiritual weapon. He don't
have any other weapons. He just goes in there and preaches
Christ Jesus the Lord to them. And he said from that day forward,
I'm not looking to that wisdom of men anymore. All I want to
do now is preach the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all I want to
do. Proving, it says here, proving. Look here, verse 22 at the end.
And Saul increased the more in strength. That don't have anything
to do with physical strength. He decreased in physical strength
every day. He increased more and more in
spiritual strength. And it says here, he confounded
the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ. His being there was proof. He's a token, a trophy of God's
mercy and grace. And I want you to turn back,
look back up here with me, this one thing. I want to show you
this one thing here. This is an amazing thing now. You really
want to repent? You really want to believe the
Lord? You really want to pray? This is the only way it happens.
And when it happens, though, this way, the Lord says this. There, verse 11, at the end,
Behold, he prayeth. It doesn't look to me like Saul
really could be looked at and said, He did this. He's praying to me. He repented. He believes me. He's praying
to me. I like a good, a well-trained
dog. I like a well-trained dog. And
I had a friend down in Ruston, Louisiana, when I was in college.
And he had, he trained Labrador Retrievers for the state of Louisiana.
Trained them to beat drug dogs. And he was a good dog trainer. A good dog trainer. And I've
seen him, he'd have five dogs down there. And he'd set them
all out, and they'd all line up one by one, right there in
a row. And he'd take five bowls of dog
food, or five bowls, and he'd spread them out there, metal
bowls. And he'd take dry dog food, makes a lot of racket,
you know. He'd take dry dog food and pour
it in each one of those metal bowls. And those dogs would sit
there and never move a muscle. And he'd pour that out there,
and he'd say, Molly, Molly go over there. She'd eat her food.
She got through, she'd walk back over there, sit down. He'd call
the next one's name. He'd walk over there, eat that
food, walk back, sit down. And he'd go one by one like that,
through them all, and they'd just sit there. And sometimes
he'd try to trip them up, trip them up. He'd say, instead of
Molly, he'd say, Polly, and she wouldn't move. He'd say something, you know,
rhyme with her name. She'd say it, but she wouldn't break. And
then my friend would sit there and he'd say, look what a good
dog that is. That is a That dog is so smart. That dog is so faithful to me. That dog would do everything
I tell that dog to do. And that dog didn't do one thing
to learn how to do that. That dog didn't do one thing
to learn that. He taught that dog everything it knew. But he
didn't sit there and pat himself on the back. All he did was say,
behold, my dog. The Lord said, Behold, he prayeth,
he prayeth. That's the blessing of being
blinded.