So, we come to the Word of God
this morning. The Word of God, the Bible, is
the soul food. of God's saints, who are God's
saints? They're all who, by the work
of the Holy Spirit, have been brought to spiritual life to
see and to believe the truth of Him, that He is, and the gospel
of His grace. And this is the food for our
souls, for our souls are hungry and thirsty without that which
He gives us, without that spiritual nourishment which He gives us.
Man shall not live by bread alone. says Deuteronomy, and Jesus quoted
it to the devil in the temptation. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We spent
the best part of six months from early January right through to
last week in the Old Testament prophecy of Zechariah. And in
there, in vision, in implicit mystery was the triumph of the
kingdom of God. That's what the scripture is
all about, is the triumph of the kingdom of God, that God's
kingdom will triumph. That's what it's all about. And
in Zechariah, he was some 500 to 550 years before Christ came,
and then 60 years after Christ came, in AD 60, The Apostle Paul wrote the passage
of Scripture that I want to start looking at, which is the Epistle
to the Colossians. So some 580 years later, we have,
in the New Testament, of the same Word of God, explicit gospel
clarity. In Zechariah, it was implicit,
in vision, in mystery, sometimes crystal clear, other times shrouded
in mysterious words. But in the New Testament, it's
explicitly clear. Nevertheless, they're in total,
total agreement. Because why? Why would they be
in total agreement? Why would a man, Zechariah, 580
years before Paul wrote this epistle, why would it be the
same? It's the same Holy Spirit who inspired both. So why do
we preach? Why do we preach to this world?
Why do we think it important to rent this room, to gather
together, to broadcast on the internet? Why do we preach? It's
to call God's people out of the darkness of this world, out of
the darkness of life as it is without God in the flesh, and
to bring them by the truth of God and the food of spiritual
nature in this book, bring them to that marvellous light. And
why do we teach? It's to give God's people, to
give his saints clarity regarding God's revealed will concerning
his kingdom. And what will that do? Well,
number one, it will give confidence that when they're asked a reason
for the hope that is in them, 1 Peter 3.15, they will be able
to give a reason confidently of the hope that is in them.
For we have a hope. And what is the hope? It's the
triumph of the kingdom of God. And secondly, why do we teach?
So that they can teach others also. And hence the baton of
heavenly truth is passed from generation of believer to generation
of believer. And so we come to Colossians.
this morning. We come to Colossians, and my
text is very, very simple. Just the first phrase, Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ by the will of God. I don't want to go any further
than that this morning. I want to look at the situation
when Paul wrote this letter. Secondly, I want to look at Paul's
origins. Where did he come from? What
were his credentials? And thirdly, I want to look at
his conversion and apply it to us. So what was the situation
when he was writing? Well, it was approximately A.D. 60, 60 years after Jesus was
born in Bethlehem. And Paul was a captive in Rome. He was under house arrest in
Rome. He'd appealed to Caesar in the
trial of the Jews. And as a Roman citizen, he'd
appealed to Caesar. And so Felix said, appeal to
Caesar you will go to Caesar so off he went but look what
they did at the end of Acts I'll read this out to you Paul dwelt
two whole years in his own hired house under house arrest and
received all that came in unto him And what did he do? He preached
the kingdom of God and taught those things which concern the
Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. There
he is, under house arrest, a captive in Rome by the will of God. He's
soon to be executed by the vicious Emperor Nero, soon to be put
to death. He knew this was coming. And
he's writing. to a company of believers that
it seems he had never visited in actual fact. Despite all of
his travels, he seems as though he had never been to Colossae.
There was a company of believers in the Gospel of Christ, and
they were in Colossae, near to Laodicea. You can go there today. It's in inland southwest Turkey. You think of a map of Turkey,
and just go in a bit from the southwest corner, inland, and
that's where you get Laodicea and Colossae. They were close
together. They had a pastor there, it would seem, a man called Epaphras. And he had visited Paul in Rome. And on his visit, he had given
Paul news of the believers there in Colossae and Laodicea. And
that prompted Paul to write this epistle that we have before us. He gave news of the progress
of the believers of the church there, of the dangers that they
faced. And that was the motivation for
Paul to write. Does it ever occur to you that
we have the epistles that we have in the Bible, in the New
Testament, a large number of them, 14? Because I believe he
wrote Hebrews as well. If you count Hebrews, it was
14. We have these epistles, why? Because Paul was confined in
Rome under house arrest, but given the liberty to preach.
Isn't God good? Here today, generations down
the centuries, generations of believers, their souls have been
fed by that which the Holy Spirit gave Paul to write when he was
under house arrest in Rome. Oh, we must get him out at all
costs. No, no, no, no, he's there for a reason. according to the
will and purpose of God. And what it seems is that a colossi
false teachers had crept in. Is that a shock? Is that a surprise?
Is it not exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ told his churches
to expect, told his people to expect? He said, from amongst
your own people, wolves will rise up amongst you, false teachers
will rise up amongst you. danger to you, peddling falsehood,
peddling that which is not the truth of God. Just like the parable
of the tares, the weeds, sown amongst the wheat. That's the
situation we're in, in this world. And what these false teachers,
it seems, and we'll get to it in due course as we look at the
epistle, but they were peddling false doctrine. They were peddling
not the Christian gospel, but humanistic philosophy, the philosophy
that was more akin to that of the Greek philosophers, worldly
philosophy. They were peddling mosaic ceremony,
that you can only be right with God, not just by believing the
gospel, but by obeying all these rules and regulations of feast
days and this practice and that practice. and they were leading
the church away from what you read in Colossians chapter 3
and verse 11. There's neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor
free, but Christ is all and in all. That was his doctrine. Christ
is all and in all. That was his doctrine. is the only way 2,000 years ago
people found peace with God, and it's the only way today that
people find peace with God. To know that Christ is all and
in all. That's it. Paul is moved by the
Holy Spirit by being inspired by the Holy Spirit to exalt the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is what we must do. God
is supreme. Christ is our God manifested,
and to call God's people to him. But before we get to his message,
let's think about this writer, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God. Let's think about him. He was
Saul of Tarsus, as Peter read to us in Acts chapter 22. He
was Saul of Tarsus. who became known as Paul the
Apostle. You say, you're going to preach
Paul this morning. Shouldn't I preach Christ alone? Yes. I
determined, said Paul himself in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse
2, I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and
him crucified. So shouldn't we just do that?
Well, my hope is that by considering what God did with this man Saul
of Tarsus, that Christ will be exalted. So let's look at his
origins and let's look at his conversion. Paul's origins. Let's just refer to Acts 22,
which was read to us before. And verse 3 of Acts 22, where
he says this, because he's giving a defense, he's giving a defense
to Jews that were examining him. And he says, men and brethren
and fathers, hear ye my defense which I make unto you now. And
he spoke in the Hebrew tongue, so that impressed them, because
he was multilingual, but he spoke in the Hebrew tongue. He says
in verse 3, I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus,
a city in Cilicia, that's in south Eastern Turkey towards
Syria southeastern Turkey towards Syria is the province of Silesia
It was a Roman province a city in Silesia yet brought up in
this city, which city is in Jerusalem He's giving his defense in Jerusalem.
I was brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel who was
a great teacher and and taught according to the perfect manner
of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God as ye
all are today. Saul was his Hebrew name. He was born in Tarsus, in Cilicia,
a Roman province of Jewish parents, and his father was a Pharisee. He says that. This is all scriptural.
This is all according to the record that we have in his various
epistles and the Acts of the Apostle. He was a Pharisee, the
son of a Pharisee. But why was he a Roman citizen?
Which he used, which he used in the providence of God later
on. Why was he a Roman citizen? Because
his father was a Roman citizen, because he was born in the province
of Cilicia, which was Roman. and his Roman name was Paul. It's not like in the case of
Peter, Simon, you will now be called Peter. His Hebrew name
was Saul, his Roman name was Paul, and that's what he became
known as. In Acts 13 and verse 9, Saul, it says, who was also
called Paul. He was educated in Jerusalem
by this man Gamaliel, who was an expert in the Jewish law,
in the Old Testament, in the writings of Moses and all the
other prophets. He was highly respected in other
historical writings. Gamaliel has a great reputation. And Paul, this man, Saul of Tarsus,
was educated by him. And he was taught the strictest
brand, the most accurate brand of Jewish pharisaical religion. And he practiced it, and he was
good at it. If you turn back just one page
in your Bible to Philippians chapter 3 and verse 5, he tells
us, he says in verse 5 of Philippians 3, that he was circumcised the
eighth day, exactly as the scripture required of the Jews. He was
of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew
of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, Concerning zeal,
persecuting the church. Persecuting the church. Touching
the righteousness, which is in the law, blameless. Did he say
he was sinless? No, he didn't. He didn't. He
didn't say that. But what he meant was, according
to the way in which he was judged by the standard of the Pharisees,
none of his fellow Pharisees could bring any accusation against
him that he wasn't doing the job of being a Pharisee properly. Doubtless, Doubtless, this man
Saul of Tarsus sided with the rulers in Jerusalem at the time
of the crucifixion to destroy Jesus and his followers. But
the death of Jesus didn't end the movement. To him, to Saul
of Tarsus, this movement of Jesus, this Christianity, was a pernicious
threat and his objective was to persecute it to extinction. As he says in Acts 22 and verses
4 and 5, he says, I persecuted this way unto the death. I wanted
rid of them. Binding and delivering unto prisons
both men and women that said they followed this way. We're
not going to have it It's such a threat to the Jewish religion
and our order We're not having it and also the high priest doth
bear me witness and this I think he's referring to somebody that
they could call on to give testimony that all the estate of the elders
from whom I also received letters unto the brethren and went to
Damascus and to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem
for to be punished. That's what his purpose was.
He approved of Stephen's martyrdom. In Acts chapter 7, In verse 58,
Stephen, one of the first deacons of the church, set aside. He
was a man who was powerfully gifted by God to preach the gospel
of grace in the very earliest days of the church. They found
him and they brought him before the council and they found him
guilty. They said he blasphemed because
he'd seen heaven opened above him and he told them how hypocritical
and wrong they were to do what they had done. And it says, they
cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses
laid down their clothes at a young man's feet whose name was Saul.
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit. And he kneeled down and cried
with a loud voice, lay not this sin to their charge. And when
he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul was consenting unto
his death. Saul was consenting unto his
death. In Acts chapter nine, Acts chapter
nine, verses one and two, if we just look there, 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 they found any of this
way, any people following this sect of this Jesus, whether they
were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. This
saw was a key pawn in the determination of Satan to try to crush the
church of Christ. If you look over, or just remember,
Revelation chapter 12, there in that vision of John in the
Revelation in chapter 12, he sees a woman clothed with the
sun, which is clearly the church of God. And then in verse three,
another great wonder appeared in heaven, a great red dragon,
which is the devil. Just to summarize it quickly,
the objective of the devil is to destroy the things of God. The woman is going to bring forth
a child, that's symbolical of the church of God, the people
of God, the line of God, bringing forth Christ, the Messiah of
God. But the devil must have that
line destroyed, and he waits there for the woman to be delivered,
ready to devour the child as soon as it's born. and he thinks
he's succeeded when he dies on the cross, but no, he's caught
up to heaven, and he has the victory, and the people of God
have overcome Satan with the blood of the Lamb. In verse 11,
they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and the result of
that is that Satan is cast out of heaven and cast down, and
as a result, he's absolutely furious. Verse 13, when the dragon,
when the devil saw that he was cast onto the earth, He persecuted
the woman, he persecuted the church, he persecuted those who
said they followed this way of the Lord Jesus Christ. He persecuted
the woman from which the Lord Jesus Christ came. And to the
woman were given two wings, and then, well, jump down to verse
17, and the dragon was wroth, he was angry, furious with the
woman. and went to make war with the
remnant of her seed, which kept the commandments of God and have
the testimony of Jesus Christ. This man Saul of Tarsus was a
key pawn of Satan in trying to crush the church of Christ. He
was that key pawn. If you look at Galatians chapter
one, Galatians chapter one and verse
13, Paul tells the Galatians, ye have heard of my conversation
in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted
the church of God and wasted it, and profited in the Jews'
religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more
exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers, listen to this,
but when he pleased God. who separated me from my mother's
womb, and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that
I might preach him among the heathen. Immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood." There he is, doing what he wanted to
do to destroy this religion of God, this new religion as he
saw it. He was above all of his equals. He was more exceedingly
zealous But God had other ideas. When it pleased God who separated
him from his mother's womb. Not when by human reasoning he
changed his mind. Not by human reasoning he made
a decision to become a Christian, as many will try to tell you.
No, it was when it pleased God. When it pleased God who caused
him to be born, separated him from his mother's womb. To do
what? When it pleased God to reveal
his son in him. Has God been pleased to reveal
his Son in you? So then, what happened? This man, Saul, breathing fury
out at the Church of God, was transformed by the will of God. Why was this man the one that
was chosen? Why was this man? Again, Acts
chapter 9. Acts chapter 9. And verse 15,
you know he was struck by the brilliant light that blinded
him on the road to Damascus. There he is going, 100% intent,
absolutely livid. He'd go out of his way to find
them and to crush them and destroy them and to bring them back prisoners
to Jerusalem to be punished. And there he is, and in an instant,
A brilliant light shines from heaven, a brilliant light so
bright in the heat of the noonday sun, so bright that it totally
overcame him, it blinded him, it brought him to his knees.
In verse 15, He'd then been, he'd asked, who
are you, Lord? And he'd been told to go into
Damascus and somebody would come and show him what he was to do.
And that man was Ananias. And Ananias was told by the Lord,
go and see this man, Saul of Tarsus, for he's a chosen vessel
of mine. And he said, I can't do that. He's a dangerous person. But
God told him that's what he had to do. So in verse, In verse
15, the Lord said unto him, to Ananias, go thy way, go to where
I'm telling you to go, for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to
bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of
Israel, for I will show him how great things he must suffer for
my sake. And Ananias went his way, and
entered into the house, and putting his hands on him said, brother
Saul, The Lord Jesus, the Lord even Jesus, that appeared unto
me in the way as thou camest has sent me, that thou might
receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And he got
his sight back. He was a chosen vessel of God. Why him? He was a chosen vessel
of God. There's no other rational thing
that we can say. We can't say it's anything in
the character of the man. In the character of the man and
the objectives of the man was the very opposite of what we
would think was suitability to be a chosen vessel, to go and
proclaim this message. I mean, just think how staggeringly
different that is. Here's a man who's determined
to destroy this thing, and he's the chosen vessel that's going
to lead its promulgation in the world. That's why, because he
was chosen of God. Christ's most ardent enemy was
to be made his prime ambassador. Isn't that... I can't... I've thought about this a lot,
and it just staggers me the more I think about it. Think about
it. His most ardent enemy made his prime ambassador. You see,
the will of men, the apostles, when Judas Iscariot betrayed
Christ and... He was gone and there were only
11 of them left and Christ had returned to glory and they thought
they better get together and choose another one because there
were supposed to be 12 of them. And in Acts chapter 1 you see
that the 11 men, the apostles, they had their will exercised
and they chose one called Matthias. to be the twelfth apostle. And they thought, well, that's
it, good. But God had different ideas. You read about Matthias
twice in the New Testament, both in Acts chapter one, and then
you never hear another thing about him. Because why? Saul,
Paul, was God's chosen vessel to bear the gospel to the Gentiles. Think of the drama of it. On
the Damascus road, a blinding light, a voice from heaven. There,
who was it? It was Christ in unity with his
people. Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus
whom you persecute. I am Jesus. But he's not persecuting
Jesus, he's persecuting these followers. No, that's one and
the same thing. Christ and his people are one,
and they were persecuted by Saul. Who are you, Lord? Who are you?
He's brought to his knees. This man breathing out fire against
these people, he's brought to his knees. Who are you, Lord?
I am Jesus, the very one that you're persecuting. How are you
persecuting him? By persecuting his people. He's
the savior, Jesus. He's the God-man. He's the Supreme
Lord of all. And here we have instant submission.
What will you have me to do? Here's this man breathing out
threatenings against them, seeking to destroy them. What will you
have me to do? Answer. carry my name and carry
my message to the world around. And so he then testified. Again,
Acts chapter 9. It's amazing how quickly that
this was done. In verse 20, straightway, when
he'd got his sight back, when he'd recovered his strength,
straightway, immediately, he preached Christ. Where? In the synagogues. in the Jewish
synagogues. He preached Christ. He had letters
to the synagogues to round up anybody that followed this way.
And here he is, the man coming to destroy them, and he's preaching
the one he came to destroy in the very synagogues of the people
that he was coming to for their support to destroy these people.
And he preached, what did he preach about him? He preached
that Christ is the Son of God, that he's the manifestation of
God. But all that heard him, this man, Saul of Tarsus, all
that heard him were amazed and said, is not this he that destroyed
them, which called on this name in Jerusalem and came here to
Damascus for that same intent, that he might bring them bound
unto the chief priests? and he increased more in strength
and confounded the Jews, who had been his colleagues in that
religion, confounded the Jews at Damascus. How? What was it
that he confounded them with? He proved that this, this Jesus,
was the very Christ, was the very Messiah of God. He preached
with power, confounding the Jews. What was his message to the world?
What was that message and how did he get it? I think we already
read it, didn't we? Galatians chapter 1 and verse 11. Yes, we won't read that again.
But it wasn't delivered to him by man. He wasn't taught it by
man. It was the direct revelation
of God. He preached that the one who
he had persecuted, whose church he had been intent on destroying,
he preached that this one was the promised Messiah, was the
promised God-man who would come to save his people from their
sins, who would do that which was necessary to satisfy the
justice of God in the place of his people. He preached that
this was what all the Old Testament pointed to. He preached that
those words in that Old Testament spoke of him, of Christ. And
he did it with great power and great conviction. The manifestation
of God to man. the one who alone had redeemed
his people from the curse of the law, to take them to eternal
glory. This is what Paul, this man,
Saul of Tarsus, Paul, the Roman citizen, this is what he came
to preach. And he was confirmed by divine
anointing. It was God that showed him these
things. It wasn't from man, he says in
Galatians 1. I didn't get it from man, I wasn't
taught it by man. It was God that revealed it to
him. He, who was not one of the original
apostles, but one, as he says himself, in a certain place,
he says, I was one born out of due time. Yet he was truly an
apostle. He was affirmed by the other
apostles that he was an apostle. Apostle means messenger of Christ. One who possesses and produces
the Apostles' Doctrine. That's what the early Church
continued in, breaking of bread and the Apostles' Doctrine. He
had that Apostles' Doctrine. He pronounced that Apostles'
Doctrine. It was given to these Apostles
by God, and they wrote it down in the Scriptures until the Scripture
was completed, and now we have it, so we don't have any more
Apostles today. What an honour, what an honour. But what did
this man, Saul of Tarsus, become Paul the Apostle? What did he
think of himself? Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother. He's just a brother
to other believers. If he was here today in this
room with us, you who believe, he would say, you're my brethren.
You're my brethren in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know when John,
in Revelation, keeps wanting to fall down and worship at the
feet of the elder that tells him these things, and the elder
says, don't do it, I'm just one, just like you, and that's what
this man said. I'm just like you. Timothy, our
brother, and so to all God's people. So what made him what
he was? in the plan of God's kingdom.
What was it that made him what he was? 1 Corinthians 15 and
verse 10. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 10. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. And this grace which was bestowed
upon me was not in vain. It's by the grace of God, by
the gift of God, by the choice of God, by the sovereign will
of God. It's the grace of God. that took
this raging enemy and made him his prize ambassador. God's grace made him and worked
in him. You know, it's God that works
in us, both to will and to do. You work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling. Why? Because it's God that works
in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. In his
flesh, Paul admitted he was nothing. He said, in Ephesians 3 and verse
8, he said, unto me, ooh, you're quite important, Paul, aren't
you? You're the chief ambassador of the church of Christ. No,
he said, I'm less than the least of all the saints. Unto me, who
am less than the least of all the saints, is this grace given. Why, Paul? That I should preach
among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. the riches
of Christ that you can never get to the bottom of. That's
what he was, less than the least of all the saints. 1 Timothy
chapter 1 and verse 15. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. What do you think of yourself,
Paul? of whom I am chief. I'm the least of all the saints,
I'm the chief of sinners. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 9,
the verse before, I am the least of the apostles, and I'm not
fit to be called an apostle. Why? Because I persecuted the
church of God, but by the grace of God. I am what I am. The least of the apostles. Made
what he was by God's will. Made what he was by God's purpose
and grace. There's no hint, is there, of
any papal pomp here. What about all his pharisaical
zeal and efforts? He was so good at being a Pharisee.
What about that as his confidence for eternal life? Philippians
chapter 3, again, in verse 7. What things were gained to me
that I was a Pharisee and that I was very good at it? What things
were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless,
and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things. And do you regret that, Paul?
Do you grieve over it? Do you sorrow over it? I count
them but dung. that I may win Christ. They're
all rubbish and done, that I might win Christ and be found in Him.
For Paul, knowing that he was certain to die for his faith
in Christ, his message remained solid to the end. He knew he
was going to die, but his message remained solid. Christ is all
and in all. That was it. As simple as that.
What a great theologian. Christ is all and in all. I'm
reminded As I quote often, the little story of Happy Jack, you
know, this man that was brought to faith in Christ, was brought
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ by grace. And they asked
him, could he join their church? And they asked him, are you fit
to join our church? What have you done? What have
you said? What theology do you know? And his answer was consistently
the same. I'm a poor sinner and nothing
at all. And Jesus Christ is my all in
all. And that was the message of Paul. I'm a poor sinner and
nothing at all. Jesus Christ is my Lord. Whatever
he's made me and used me to do, it's of him and not of me. What's
your philosophy of life, Paul? Philippians chapter 1 and verse
21. He says this, for to me, to live. What's your philosophy of life?
For to me, to live, is to go all the places I really want
to go and have all the experiences in life I really want to have
and to have all the possessions that I really want to have and
to do well and have a fantastic career. No, for to me, to live,
is Christ. But what if you die and you haven't
seen all of these things? To die is gain, is gain. What can this world offer that
the kingdom of God will not give in abundance more and more? His
past he counted as worthless dung. Why? Because he had found,
as he said, the pearl of greatest price. And when you found that
pearl of greatest price in that parable, of Jesus, everything
else, doesn't matter what it is, what the world values it
as, is sold because that one thing just trumps everything
else by grace. Oh that God might be gracious
to you. Let's just apply it in a sentence
or two. You who believe can identify
to some extent with Paul's experience of grace. You've been stopped
dead in your tracks by the message of God's kingdom. You've sought
the way, the truth, and the life, and you've found it in Christ.
You've found it abundantly. There's nothing better. You've
found it in Christ, the liberty that's in Christ. But others
have heard. Others have passed by. without
bothering. Others have dismissed it. Others
have postponed a decision, like who was it? It was Agrippa, wasn't
it? King Agrippa told Paul, when I have a convenient time, I might
listen to you. Postponed it, rejected it. Will
you not now think how true must this gospel be to take a man
like Saul of Tarsus and make him the Apostle Paul of Jesus
Christ by the will of God? Amen.