Participants: Jim & Mark Howard
Series Code: ABOTB
Program Code: ABOTB00012B
00:02 Welcome back. We are studying the book of Acts. We're in
00:03 chapter 9 and we've been looking at the conversion of Saul and we 00:07 just before the break looked at how God put Saul in connection 00:12 with his church in the person of Ananias. We're going to pick up 00:16 there in Acts chapter 9 and in verse 13. God has just told 00:21 Ananias where to go; Go to a street called Straight and 00:26 Ananias says in verse 13, Lord I have heard from many about 00:30 this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem 00:35 and here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who 00:40 call on your name. He was a little bit nervous about it. 00:43 But the Lord said to him, Go for he is a chosen vessel of 00:47 mine to bear my name before the gentiles, kings and the children 00:51 of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer 00:56 for my name's sake. And Ananias went his way and, of course, he 01:00 goes to Saul. Now what really grabs me here, Jim, is I'm 01:06 trying to put myself... If we were to covet a Christian 01:11 experience we think of the Apostle Paul, the mighty Apostle 01:15 Paul. You know he wrote most of the New Testament or a good part 01:20 of it, powerful preaching and conversions. Oh, to be like Paul 01:24 Oh to preach like Paul as one hymn says. But it's interesting 01:29 where God directs Ananias to Saul he says, He's a chosen 01:35 vessel of mine to bring my name before gentiles, etc., and I'm 01:40 going to show him how many things he must suffer. So he's a 01:44 chosen vessel to suffer and we don't really pick up on that as 01:49 often. So of course if you look at the ministry of Saul in one 01:54 place he was stoned and left for dead. He went through ship 01:59 wrecks and he went through times of scarcity of food, he went 02:03 through times of being beaten with 40 stripes minus one which 02:07 was the greatest amount in judgment and mercy mingled in 02:11 the Jewish mindset that you could give a man. 02:14 It's interesting I can imagine as the Lord communicates to Saul 02:18 You know, there's so much that appeals to our heart about being 02:23 chosen. He is my chosen vessel. You can see how that would warm 02:27 somebody's heart until he said now... 02:30 Oh you've been chosen. Great! What am I chosen for Lord? 02:33 To suffer. Oh really. And then the Lord is unfolding to him 02:36 now you're going to be beat with 40 stripes minus one. No, no you 02:40 already covered that. Oh that was another time, it's going to 02:45 to be three times. So you just think of this and yet Saul was 02:49 more than willing now for the Lord that he was fighting 02:54 against to suffer for his name's sake. We see this as a 02:57 characteristic in the New Testament church as well. 03:01 You almost get the sense that the Apostle Paul was really just 03:10 wanting to do the will of God and while he fought his 03:13 conviction for a long time because it would require 03:17 surrender of pride and other things, when it really was 03:21 opened to his view on the road to Damascus, it really didn't 03:26 matter about the suffering. He had a love and a commitment that 03:30 really made the suffering just something that would give him 03:34 a sense of honor that he was able to suffer for his Lord 03:38 especially he had to deal with the guilt and shame of the 03:41 persecution that he was a part of with the saints of God. 03:45 That's right. Just so our viewers understand, we're back 03:49 and forth between Saul and Paul. Saul was the Hebrew version of 03:53 Paul and the Bible calls him by both in the New Testament. 03:56 So we'll toss that back and forth, but we're talking about 03:59 the same individual here. That's right. Now if we look in 04:03 verse 17 it says that Ananias went his way and he entered the 04:07 house just as he was instructed it says and laying his hands on 04:12 him he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you 04:15 on the road as you came has sent me that you may receive your 04:19 sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now first thing 04:24 I want to point out here is notice the obedience of Ananias. 04:28 I mean you heard his fear as we talked about earlier but now he 04:33 comes right into the room where Saul is, the great persecutor of 04:37 the Christians, the one who is wreaking havoc and causing all 04:41 this unrest and discomfort among the whole church and he comes 04:46 right in and with just courage and faith says the Lord appeared 04:51 to me, he sent me to give you your sight back by laying on of 04:55 hands and, boom, he does it, and immediately, the Bible says in 05:00 verse 18, There fell from his eyes something like scales and 05:04 he received his sight at once and he arose and was baptized. 05:09 Now scales falling from the eyes Certainly the Apostle Paul was 05:14 able to see again physically but in a very real sense this whole 05:19 experience had removed the scales from the Apostle Paul's 05:23 eyes, Saul at this point, to where he can actually see for 05:28 the first time what he has done and who Jesus really is. 05:33 That's right. You know it makes me think of what Paul writes in 05:38 II Corinthians chapters 3 and 4 about how there were some he 05:43 addressed as having a veil over their hearts and they were 05:48 blinded when it came to reading the Old Testament because that 05:53 veil would be taken away in Christ. That's really what his 05:57 experience was when he opened his heart to Christ he saw 06:00 things in a whole new way. Yeah, and I can't help but think 06:04 of my own conversion again. That is conversion. That's what 06:08 he's talking about. It's like suddenly everything you look at 06:12 in your life looks different. It's like putting on a different 06:16 color glasses and now you see everything differently and 06:20 you're like oh I can't believe that I didn't see 06:23 that before and I can't believe I didn't recognize that before. 06:27 That is what was happening to the Apostle Paul here with the 06:30 scales falling off his eyes. I think it's valuable to note as 06:33 you look in verse 19 and he received food and he ate finally 06:37 and that was encouraging and he spent time with the disciples 06:40 at Damascus which was probably a little fearful for them but 06:43 they were beginning to trust Paul. Then in verse 20 it says 06:47 immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues that he 06:51 is the Son of God. Wow! He was just converted and it says 06:56 immediately. You know the best time for someone to share their 07:01 faith is just as soon as they experience their faith. As soon 07:05 as someone is convinced of the word and as soon as someone 07:09 receives the gospel, as soon as someone has that conversion 07:13 experience with Christ, they need to begin sharing that right 07:17 away while it's pressing upon their heart. If they don't you 07:22 find that as the days and weeks and then years go by it becomes 07:26 actually harder and harder for someone to come out of their 07:29 comfort zone and share their faith. The Apostle didn't let 07:32 that happen. Immediately he went and preached that Christ is the 07:36 same Christ that he was saying was an imposter. He immediately 07:39 went and starting proving from the scripture that he was the 07:42 Son of God. That's right. It's just like 07:43 honestly physical exercise when you haven't exercised for a 07:47 while, the longer you go the harder it is to get started. 07:51 But if you continue every day and you stay at it you get 07:56 stronger and verse 22 tells us that Saul increased all the more 08:00 in strength and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus 08:04 proving that this Jesus is the Christ. We don't think of Saul 08:07 as one who needed to increase in strength but we need to keep 08:11 this in mind, Jim. Repeatedly we see it with the other apostles, 08:14 the fishermen, we see it with Saul. We don't have any record 08:18 of Saul doing a lot or preaching prior to this. Now he was an 08:21 educated man, he was very sharp in his intellect, but here it 08:25 says he increased in strength and we're not talking about 08:28 physical strength, it's spiritual strength. 08:29 It was because immediately he began preaching. 08:30 immediately he began preaching. And the implication to us that 08:35 as he began to use what he had it gave him proficiency in his 08:39 preaching and proclamation and sharing of the truth and that 08:42 is how it works with every one of us. I remember they first 08:46 time that I ever shared the truth, I was petrified to share 08:50 the truth and I still get nervous, but the more you do it 08:53 the more the Lord increases your abilities. 08:56 That's right. We've talked about how nervous you get before you 09:02 have to present a program like this in front of cameras. 09:05 But you know after you stretch yourself the Lord can help you 09:09 and he can grow you and we've got to do that if we're going to 09:12 grow. You can't be strengthened unless you exercise. Now if you 09:16 look at verse 23 you see some interesting events happen in the 09:20 life of Saul. It says now after many days were passed the Jews 09:24 plotted to kill him. Now these same ones he was their champion, 09:29 but now they're plotting to kill him. They turned pretty quickly. 09:32 But their plot became known to Saul and they watched the gates 09:36 day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night 09:39 and let him down through the wall in a large basket. So he's 09:43 already having to escape. When Saul had come to Jerusalem he 09:47 tried to join the disciples but they were all afraid of him and 09:51 did not believe that he was a disciples. It's like that with 09:54 us sometimes too. I won't forget when I first began to go through 09:59 my own experience with the Lord. Before that I was a very worldly 10:04 young college student and you as my brother were quick to 10:10 point that out to me. I remember still when news traveled to you 10:15 that I had been reading my Bible and really excited about it that 10:20 you said well Jim? Jim doesn't have a religious bone in his 10:24 body. And you know what, I didn't. But the Lord was putting 10:29 that there and it's just natural that when... 10:31 A prophet is without honor in his own home and among his own 10:34 countrymen. That's right. When people first, 10:37 and even sometimes for a while after, see the change that 10:42 happens to a person through the gospel of Christ and through the 10:44 gospel of Christ and through the power of the word, it takes some 10:47 time sometimes before they trust that that's genuine. That's a 10:51 good lesson for a lot of our viewers who maybe have recently 10:55 come into a faith in Christ or particular truths and their 10:59 family doesn't want to initially support that. But sometimes 11:03 it takes a little bit of time and that's what it was like here 11:06 It goes on to talk about how Barnabas took him and brought 11:09 him to the apostles, declared to them what had happened on the 11:13 road to Damascus and then it says in verse 29, And he spoke 11:16 boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the 11:20 Hellenists but they attempted, there it is again, to kill him. 11:24 So it's fascinating that all this is happening and now twice 11:28 after Paul's conversion, in the same chapter, he's already got 11:31 these people trying to kill. This was fascinating. In verse 11:35 31 it says then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee 11:40 and Samaria had peace. So before Saul was converted the church 11:45 didn't have peace. Now that Saul has been converted, the church 11:49 has peace but Paul doesn't have any because people are after him 11:53 Well the chapter then progresses and we don't have time to get 11:58 into a lot of it but we come to the raising of the dead of a 12:03 woman by the name of Tabitha or Dorcas who had been very helpful 12:07 to the church in meeting the needs of the church and Peter 12:11 had happened to be nearby in Lydia and he had healed a man 12:15 name Aeneas and when this healing took place and the 12:18 people in Joppa heard about it where Dorcas was 12:22 they sent for Peter. 12:24 The Bible tells us that Dorcas had died and they had washed 12:27 her body and evidently prepared for burial and they said he's 12:31 got to come quick. In other words, they couldn't just leave 12:34 here there forever but it's interesting that they must have 12:37 felt that Peter would be able to raise her from the dead because 12:41 of the works of Jesus that they had seen him do even though this 12:44 hadn't happened in the New Testament church and sure enough 12:47 the Bible says Peter comes and he raises Tabitha, Dorcas, from 12:51 the dead and of course the whole church rejoices and it became 12:54 known throughout all Joppa and many believed on the Lord. 12:58 So not only was there physical healing that happened here but 13:01 through this physical healing, as is often the case, many 13:04 believed on the Lord and we need to remember there's a close 13:07 connection between physical and spiritual healing and we as 13:11 Seventh-day Adventists promote a strong message of health and 13:14 there's a reason; because the health of the body and the 13:17 restoration that comes through that is directly tied to 13:21 spiritual restoration. Well friends, we're out of time. 13:25 So we look forward to diving back in to chapter 10 on our 13:28 next episode of Books of the Book. See you then. |
Revised 2014-12-17