If you have your Bible open to
the book of 1 Timothy, in chapter 1, look down at verse 16, verse
16, where Paul is writing to Timothy and he says, Howbeit
for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ
might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern, for a pattern
to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting. I wanted to read this text of
Scripture this morning. It certainly found a place in
my heart and my soul as I meditated upon it. And I trust this morning
that the Lord will give us a few words that we might be able to
say to your edification, to your up-building this morning, and
that it might be a challenge to those who are strangers to
the grace of God. The writer of this text was at
one time a stranger to the grace of God. Maybe you didn't know
that. But one time the man Saul of Tarsus, as he was known at
that time, he was outside of Christ. He was not in the Lord
Jesus, and he needed mercy. He needed mercy from God and
he needed life to be given, that life which is everlasting. He needed that to be given to
his soul. And so he reminds us here, he
says, how be it for this cause I obtained mercy. He did obtain
mercy. He received mercy from the Lord,
and he was forgiven of his sins. He was pardoned of all of his
iniquities. He was a great sinner. Fact is,
he said on one occasion that he was the chief of sinners. And he says, I obtained mercy,
that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering. In other words, when you look
at Saul of Tarsus, as he is described in the Scriptures, It's a wonderful
thing that our Lord, and a condescending thing on the part of our Lord,
an act of mercy and grace, that He would show forth long-suffering,
long-patience to Paul, and that He would put up with him, as
it were, in his sin and rebellion and his murderous ways, until
such time as he would be pleased to save him. and God was long
suffering with him. And Paul says, I was a pattern
to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting,
lest any should despair, saying that they were such great sinners
themselves, that God would not touch them, or that God would
not save them. Paul said, I was a pattern. God
made me a pattern And he says, I was this pattern to them which
should hereafter believe on the Lord Jesus to life everlasting. So now you might think that the
conversion of Saul of Tarsus, those of you who are familiar
with the ninth chapter of of the Book of Acts and maybe the
22nd chapter of the Book of Acts, you might feel that Saul of Tarsus,
his conversion was certainly not a pattern that God would
follow in the salvation of all of his lost sheep. But if you
were to look at it and examine it carefully, I'm sure that the
Apostle Paul was not wrong. And now he has been in the mercy
of God, he's in Christ, and he makes this statement that he
was a pattern to those that should afterwards believe. And of course
he was a pattern to us, showing us the mercy of God, and the
grace of God, and the patience of God, and showing us that God
saves the chief of sinners. Now in order for us to understand
maybe a little more about what Paul meant by this, let's turn
back to the 9th chapter of the book of Acts. And here in the
9th chapter of the book of Acts, I believe we see how that in
the conversion and in the history of Saul of Tarsus, how that he
was indeed a pattern of all who come to know Christ in reality
and truth. Now we want a true experience
in the grace of God, do we not? We want truly to experience what
a believer must experience in order for them to be in the family
of God and to be in Christ. And we read beginning with verse
1, 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, any of the way of faith, any of the way of faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ, any of the gospel way, whether they
were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. Now in these two verses it is
revealed to us that Saul was an enemy of the people of God
and thus was an enemy of God himself before he was converted.
And we want to say this morning that all men by nature, every
son of Adam that comes to experience the true grace of God, They all
were at enmity against God. They in their flesh could not
please God, and they hated what they ought to have loved, and
they loved what they ought to have hated. They were enemies
of God. All men by nature born into this
world are separated and alienated from God by their sin. The Bible tells us in Ephesians
chapter 2 that we or we're all dead in sin in a
state of nature. And so we were as Saul of Tarsus,
although we might not have been as vocal as he was, and possibly
we were certainly not as rebellious in the outward sense of the word,
in that we were threatening slaughter against those who were followers
of Jesus. But we certainly were at enmity
against God. We certainly did not love God
by nature. We were actually hateful in our
ways toward the living God. And so as Saul of Tarsus went
about to slaughter the people of God and to put them in prison,
we see that the Lord had intent toward him, just as He has intent
toward all of His sheep to bring them into a saving relationship
with Himself. even though they are enemies
of God by nature, even though they are separated from God and
their sins, as it were, are crying out for judgment and for the
wrath of God to fall upon them. God has good intentions toward
His lost sheep, and He will save them, and He uses Saul here as
an example or as a pattern. Now you say, I always thought
that the conversion of Saul of Tarsus was something extraordinary. Certainly wasn't normal. But
my friend, this is a normal conversion. A normal conversion. God saved
an enemy of His. And all men by nature are God's
enemies. And then it says in verse 3,
And as he journeyed, He came near Damascus, and suddenly
there shined about him a light from heaven. Now in the 22nd
chapter in verse 6 of the book of Acts, we read these words
concerning Saul of Tarsus, and it came to pass that as I made
my journey, Now it's evident here that the Apostle Paul, that
he was on a journey, that he was going his way. The Bible
says that we all like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone
to our own way, and the Lord hath laid on Jesus the iniquity
of us all. But the point I want to make
is that he was going He was going as He would. He was on His way
to accomplish what His whole wicked, sinful heart would want
to accomplish. And was that not true with you
and I before God saved us? We were on our way. We were on
the way. The Bible says that there is
a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death. And we were on our way. We had
a way in which we felt we should go. And as we quoted out of Isaiah,
it was a way like a wandering sheep. It was a way that had
to be corrected. We had to be turned from that
way that we were in. And so saw Tarsus as he journeyed. Oh, I trust that God would be
pleased to stop you in the way that you're journeying, because
the way that you're going is unto judgment and eternal wrath. The way you're going is away
from God. You're going away from the ways
of God and from the Word of God. And so you need to be brought
back. You need to be brought into THE way, the way of Christ,
the way of the gospel, the way of true hope in the Lord Jesus
Christ. You need to be brought back to
that. So every man by nature is on his journey. He's on His
journey. Oh, we trust that God will intervene
and cross your path and bring you to Himself, lest He should
abandon you forever in your way. In your way. Because the worst
thing that God Almighty could do is to leave you to yourself
and to your way. If He leaves you to your way
and to yourself, you are most surely going to experience the
wrath of God forever and ever, just like Saul of Tarsus was
if God hadn't crossed his path and caused that light to shine
down from heaven. Now then, so we've established
that all men are enemies of God, like Saul of Tarsus, and that
all men are taking their own way away from God and into judgment. And so the next thing we see
here is after the light shined around about him, this light
that was from heaven, said of God, miraculous indeed, And anytime
the light of God is flipped on in a man's soul, the Bible says
that God commands the light to shine out of darkness. And Paul
said, He shined in my heart. And certainly, whenever God is
pleased to turn that light on, this is a miracle of grace that
a man who was unable before, and certainly had no inclination,
To be humble before God, this light came around about him,
and verse 4 says, and he fell to the earth. And he fell to
the earth. This is a wonderful statement.
And I think that it corresponds with what happens in a man when
God brings true conviction upon his soul. When God is pleased
to reveal the light to a man, and he discovers himself, what
he is before God. When he discovers his sinnerhood
before God. I remember reading in the book
of Job, Job was a righteous man, and felt somewhat self-righteous
until God revealed Himself, made Himself known to him. And I remember
reading where Job said that, I heard of you with the hearing
of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, and he says, I repent. in dust and ashes, and woe is
me, woe is me. And he's a sinful man. He sees
himself, he sees God, he changes his view of God, and he changes
his view of himself. And this is what happened to
Saul of Tarsus. God revealed himself to him,
and immediately he fell to the earth. Reminds us of Peter, when
the Lord Jesus walked on the water, Or when he caught all
the fish, I think it was. And Peter told the Lord, he said,
depart from me because I'm a sinful man, O Lord. Depart from me because
I am a sinful man. And then remember Isaiah, in
Isaiah 5 and 6. When Isaiah, the year the king
Uzziah died, he said, I saw the Lord. And he was high and lifted
up, and his train filled the temple. And he said, woe is me,
for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of
unclean lips, because mine eyes have seen the Lord. Woe is me.
Woe is me. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God of hosts. And so, beloved, we recognize
that when a man sees God and sees himself, he goes down. He's stripped. He's brought down
in his own estimation. He's brought low. And we've often
reminded you that a man must be lost before he can be found.
No man is saved before he gets lost. The Son of Man has come
to seek and to save that which was lost. And until a man gets
lost, plum lost, until he knows that he's lost before God for
the one of love and faith in Jesus Christ, then, my friend,
he will not look up. But as Saul of Tarsus was struck
to the earth, it is evident that God was bringing him down. Down,
sinner! Down. And when the Lord Jesus
calls Zacchaeus down out of the tree, He said, Come down. And
a sinner must come down. He must be brought down before
God lifts him up. He must be killed before God
makes him alive. He must be wounded before God
heals him. The sinner must be brought low
before God and stripped of all of his self-righteousness and
brought to see himself as God truly sees him. And that was
evident with John the Revelator. You know, when the Lord revealed
Himself to him. The Bible says he fell at his
feet. He fell at his feet. And whenever
a man truly is convicted and brought to see the awfulness
of his sin, then, my friend, he will fall before the Lord. And so this is what we have here.
We have Paul as a pattern of how God saves His sheep. Okay, and then the next thing
we see here is how that, in verse 5 and 6, how that Saul responded
to this one who had revealed himself. And he said, Who art
thou? Lord. Now that is significant. because he asked, Who art thou,
Lord? Who art thou? You've revealed
here the light, you've brought the light, and he said, Who art
thou? And the Lord Jesus had said,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Who art thou, Lord? Now,
beloved, we recognize that Jesus can only be called Lord truly
by the Holy Ghost. A man can probably parrot what
somebody else says about Jesus being Lord, but no one can truly
say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit. And so here,
we find Saul of Tarsus, now God is doing a work in his soul,
and he asked him, who art thou Lord? And then in verse 6, And
he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me
to do? Now beloved, one of the things
that is prevalent in our time and has been, maybe we should
say for the last 35-40 years in America, is this preaching
that you can have Christ to be your Savior and not your Lord. that you can have Christ to be
your Savior, then somewhere down the road, if you get ready to
do it, or if you want to do it, you can make Him your Lord. But
beloved, this is erroneous. This is error. And you say, well,
but there's a lot of good men who believe that in their hearts. Well, I want to say, and I want
to point this out to you, that I do not believe that an individual
is any better in his heart If he's not right in his heart,
then he's certainly not in his head. And normally the reason
why he's not right in his heart is because he's wrong in the
head. Now, if you're going to be right about Jesus Christ and
the position He ought to occupy in your life, you've got to be
right both in your head and your heart. Now, we know that there
are many who have told us that maybe they're considering making
Jesus Lord. But the Bible teaches that God
already has made Christ your Lord. He is the Lord of His people. And that when we make a confession
of faith, we confess Jesus Christ to be Lord. That's what we do. Now, I understand that you say,
well, I'm not really interested in Him being my Lord. No, what
you want to do is go on and live carnally, fleshly. You want to
go on and follow the ways of the world. You want to go ahead
on and you want Him to be your fire insurance from hell, but
you're not interested in Him being the Lord of your life. Now beloved Paul recognized immediately
that this one who had crossed his path was the Lord of glory
and he would be his Lord from there on out. That he would dictate
to him what he would have him to do and he would be serving
him, he would be bowing to his will and doing his will, he'd
be following his word from there on out. He knew that. And we
want everyone who makes a profession of faith in Jesus Christ in this
church to understand that Jesus is Lord. and that we bow our
knee and our hearts, we bow in our hearts unto His precious
Word, into His way, and we will follow His way. We must submit
ourselves unto the Lord, and we see that here. And the Lord
said unto him, You rise, go into a city, and it shall be told
thee what thou must do. And so a believer is somebody
who follows Christ and follows the orders of the day. He obeys
Christ, he honors Christ. Now the Bible says that those
who say, Lord, Lord, there are many of those who will not enter
the kingdom of God. They say, Lord, Lord. They're
polyparitan what somebody else said. But when one says that
he's Lord by the Holy Ghost and bows their knee in submission
and surrender and does the will of God from their heart, those
people are saved people. And that's what our Lord says
in Matthew 7 in verse 21 and 22. He says that It's not everyone who says, Lord,
Lord, but they that do the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Those that do His will. And so Saul said, he said, you
go, I'll show you what you must do. And beloved, God has a plan
for every one of His children. He has a plan. He has a way.
He has a work, He has a will, He has a desire for every one
of His children. And those that profess faith
in Jesus Christ should every day be on their knees seeking
the Lord as Saul did here, Lord, what will you have me do? What
will you have me to do? What do you want me to do? Well,
Paul was the pattern. And if we go outside of that
and tell people, yes, you can have Jesus as Savior, but not
as Lord, we're lying to them. Because that is heresy. That is not the truth. And I
hope this morning that if you've heard that philosophy or that
heresy, that you'll reject it from your mind and say, If I'm
a true child of God then my life is to be used for the glory of
Jesus Christ who loved me and saved me out of the sin that
would sure to damn my soul to hell. Now the next thing we see
here in this pattern is in verse 10. We see here in verse 10 of
Acts 9 where the Lord sent Ananias, who was his servant. And there
was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said
the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here,
Lord. Behold, I am here. Now this point
is that conforms to the pattern that is a preacher to Saul of
Tarsus. He sent a preacher. And I believe
that if God intends to save you, that he will cross your path
with a gospel preacher, with one of his servants, with one
of his witnesses, He will cross your path, and He will use that
man to point you to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says
plainly in 1 Corinthians 1 that God has chosen through the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. And in Romans 10, it
is, if you want to turn over there, if you don't, just listen
as I read here a couple of verses out of Romans 10. beginning with verse 13. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call
on him whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? How are they going to hear without
a preacher? Now some people may feel that
Preachers are not necessary and that really it's not very important
to sit under the sound of a preacher. Somebody preaching the gospel,
somebody preaching the word. I already quoted out of 1st Corinthians
chapter 1 that God has chosen through the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe the preaching. Save them that believe
the gospel that he preaches. Now we know that in the Old Testament
God raised up prophets and sent them. The Bible talks about God
getting up early and raising up prophets and sending them
out into the world. God sends preachers. And then
we read about John the Baptist, how that God raised him up and
he was a man sent. from God. And whatever your idea
of preachers are, I was struck by something this week that I
read out of the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 1, in verse 1, you don't
have to turn there, and here's the opening verse of the book
of Ecclesiastes, the words of the preacher, the son of David,
king in Jerusalem. Now do you know that if preachers
We're talking today, and if a man was the son of David, and if
he was king of Jerusalem, he would say the words of the son
of David, king in Jerusalem, the preacher. Because the idea,
you know, that the preacher is significant or very significant,
is not to be found among us. We have very many people who
just say, well, you can take them or leave them. But my friend,
according to the Word of God, you cannot take them or leave
them. And it was necessary that God
raise up a man and send him to Saul of Tarsus, and that man
was Ananias. And if you ever are saved, if
God ever reveals His Son to you and makes Him known, and if He
means to use you, He will cross your path with a preacher. Somebody
will speak to you, witness to you, bear the testimony of the
gospel unto your soul. And I believe this is very important. Now, another thing that I wanted us
to see is what this preacher preached. to Saul of Tarsus. And for that, I invite you to
look over in the 22nd chapter of the book of Acts. Acts chapter
22. And I begin here with verse 14. What did the preacher have to
say? This preacher God sent. to Saul of Tarsus. We're talking
about the pattern here. What does a man, a preacher,
what will he have to say? What will he have to say to your
soul? What will he say? Well, and he said, verse 14,
The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know
his will, see that just one, and shouldest hear the voice
of his mouth. Now this is the six points, as
it were, that the preacher spoke to Saul of Tarsus. The first
is that the God of our fathers chose you. This is no accident
that the Lord has shown the light from heaven upon you. No accident that He sent me.
No accident that your path has been crossed. No accident, because
God on purpose, He purposed to save you. He chose you in old
time. Paul later wrote, according as
God had chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. That's
the statement he made. He implied that all of God's
people are elect of God, chosen of God, and that when God saves
somebody, it's not by accident, it's on purpose. And not only
that, but I believe that Ananias told him this because he needed
to know that he needed to know, Saul of Tarsus needed to know
that God could have passed him by. He could have left him in
his sin. He could have left him to die
and go to hell. But the God of our fathers hath
chosen thee. And everybody that God saves,
they also ought to know that. That God didn't have to save
them. He could have saved somebody
else. He can save anybody that he wills to save. That he purposes
to save. But you know, we're living in
a time, of course, when most people feel they have a claim
on God. By nature, they don't. But they
feel they do. But we know that there were two
thieves that hung on the cross with the Lord Jesus. He saved
one of them, and the other died and went to hell. We know there
were two men that came down from the temple, the publican and
the Pharisee. One of them went home justified,
the other went to hell. Now my friend, listen to me.
God chooses those that he will save. And that's the pattern. Everybody that God truly saves
are chosen of God. They're chosen from old eternity. God set his love and affection
upon his people in old time. And in time, he brings them savingly
to himself. And that's what Ananias told
Saul of Tarsus. Now then, do you think that it
was that God had chosen Saul, but not you? You say, well, I
believe I'm saved. If you're saved, God chose you.
God chose you. If you're a believer, then God
chose you to salvation before the beginning of time. God hath
from the beginning, Paul said on one occasion, chosen. He was
speaking to the Thessalonian believers. God hath from the
beginning chosen you unto salvation through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. God hath chosen you from the
beginning. And so we need to keep this in
mind, and Saul needed to hear this, because his doctrinal stand
and position in the writing of scripture was formulated by this
statement made to him. Saul, you have been chosen of
God, that thou shouldest know his will. that God might reveal
some things to you and show you some things and show you what
he wants you to do. He has a will for you, as we
mentioned earlier, that you should know his will and see that just
one. Who is that just one? The Lord
Jesus Christ. And Saul of Tarsus, through faith,
saw the just one. Every believer sees that one
who was the just one who went to the tree for the unjust. Do
you know that we are the unjust and the Lord Jesus is the just
one who makes intercession for us. He revealed the God who is
absolutely just and the justifier of all those who believes in
his Son. the just one and Saul saw the just one and should hear
the voice of his mouth. We're told in the gospel of John
chapter 10 that my sheep hear my voice and they know me they
follow me they hear my voice and so here's the pattern they
hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ the voice of his mouth
If you never hear any, if you don't hear any other voice except
mine, you'll go to hell. The voice you must hear is the
voice of the Master who said, come unto me and I'll give you
rest. Come unto me. Come unto me. Take
up your yoke and follow me. Come unto me. And so the voice
of His mouth This is the pattern to have you heard from Christ
in the Word. Now He's not going to come speak
to you audibly, but through the Word, through the Bible as it's
preached, as the message goes out, the voice of His mouth is
heard. And they that hear His voice
shall live. They that hear His voice shall
live. You mean He's in the business of talking to people? He is.
He's called out people that are in this congregation. He calls
them out. He visits their souls, and they
know they've heard from Him. They know that they've heard
His voice through the Scriptures. Okay? And then He says, For thou
shalt be His witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and
heard. You're going to be my witness.
Now, beloved, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've
met Him, if He has called you out, and if you know that He's
chosen you to life everlasting, you cannot help but be His witness.
You cannot help but testify every opportunity you have of His saving
grace and of His abundant mercy toward your soul. You just must
do that. And you will do that. It will
be spontaneous. You cannot help it. You will
speak. You will speak out of your soul
those things that the Lord has made known to you and those great
things that He has done for you. You will bear witness of those
things. And now in verse 16, and now
beings that you know that you were chosen of God, and that
His will will be made known to you, and that you've seen the
Just One through the revelation of the Scripture, and that you've
heard from Him as a sheep and followed Him, and now that you're
going to be His witness, why don't you just get up and confess
Him? He says, and now why tarriest
thou? Arise and be baptized, and wash
away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." In other words,
confess Christ, confess Him in baptism, submit yourself to water
baptism, identify yourself as one who is a believer in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Identify yourself with the church
of the Lord Jesus that has been given the commission to go into
the world and preach the gospel and baptize men and women and
making them disciples. Now, beloved, here we see this
challenge that Ananias presents. You're to be baptized not to
wash away your sins, but because your sins have been washed away. Our sins are washed away in the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no water anywhere that
can wash away sin. Sins are washed away through
faith in the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so arise
and be baptized, and then because of your relationship with the
Lord, continue on calling on the name of the Lord. These are
the people that are truly saved. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. Well, whoever is saved shall
call on the name of the Lord. And that's what Ananias is saying. So you see, this is not a fall
removed. We haven't stretched anything
to make it cover the pattern. This is the pattern of how God
saves people. how He saves His sheep and brings
them into the fold. I trust this morning that the
Lord will give you remembrance of what you've heard and that
if you're here and you are a stranger to the grace of God, that the
Lord will use this very clear message to speak to your heart
and to bring you to a saving knowledge of Himself. I'm going
to have Pat