EPISODE 54 ACTS Chapter 9 "The Chosen Instrument"

Well, we've reached Acts chapter 9. And to those of you who are just joining us for the first time, we welcome you to Share the Word. Now, let's see. In chapter 9, we see the most unlikely turnaround in history, when the radical Saul of Tarsus meets the risen Christ on Damascus Road. Let's listen in and find out what happens. Acts chapter 9: The Chosen Instrument.

Do you realize how many familiar phrases have entered the English language from the Bible? The King James Version in particular, because that was the dominant translation in English for a few centuries. Because I like language and I'm also pretty familiar with the Bible, I notice these idioms being used a lot. A language scholar named David Crystal set out to figure out just how many there are in current English, and he arrived at the number 257. For example, we say, The writing is on the wall when an outcome seems certain. Why do we say that?

Well, it comes from a story in the Old Testament prophetic book of Daniel, chapter 5. Look it up and see how that phrase originated. Or how about this strange one? I made it by the skin of my teeth. You know what that means: just barely, by the narrowest of margins. But did you know it's a phrase from Job chapter 19 in the Old Testament?

And there are, by his count anyway, 255 others. By the way, this indicates to me just how saturated England and America were with the Bible 200 to 300 years ago. Maybe that explains, partially anyway, why these became certainly not perfect, but great cultures. Christianity heavily influenced them. One of my favorite biblical idioms comes from the passage in Acts we've arrived at today, chapter 9. We'll get to it in a few moments, but the chapter begins this way.

Meanwhile, Saul was breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked them for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners back to Jerusalem. Wow. When we last heard about Saul of Tarsus, he'd been brought back to Jerusalem from Cilicia by the Jewish leaders specifically to head up the persecution of the Christian community. He was the most radical Pharisee I guess they could think of. So Saul was authorized by the chief priest when he got there to do whatever was necessary to destroy Christianity in its infancy.

Interestingly, then it was apparently referred to, as you read here, the Way. I'm not sure if that's what the Jewish authorities were calling the early Christians or how they self-identified, but in any case, the Way, I'm sure, comes from Jesus' claim to be the only way to be saved, to be the way to eternal life. Remember John 14:6, one of Jesus' I am statements? I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one will come to the heavenly Father except through me. Saul went on a rampage, and with a bunch of deputies just as fanatical, they were terrorizing and imprisoning the early Christians in Jerusalem. This reign of terror caused a lot of the followers of Jesus to flee the city.

But he wasn't satisfied to only chase Christians out of town. He was so determined to destroy Christianity that he actually asked for and got warrants to pursue these Christians wherever they fled. One place some went for safety was Damascus, Syria, more than 150 miles away. But the Jewish Sanhedrin had a good deal of authority over the Jewish community there, apparently, so with documents authorizing their arrest and return in his hands, Saul and his posse set off after those Christians who escaped him there. Which brings us to my favorite biblical phrase that's come into the English language. On the last day of their journey, Luke describes what happened to Saul like this.

It was about noon, he writes, and as he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around Saul. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Saul was stunned. Looking up, all he could see was intense brightness. He knew that he must be looking at a heavenly being. Peering into light like that that he'd never seen before, he struggled for a response and said, Who, who, who are you, Lord?

The reply came, I am Jesus, whom you've been persecuting. Saul's mind must have reflexively responded, No way, that's not even possible. I bet he was trembling in fear right then, expecting to be destroyed. But the Lord said to him, Rise up and enter into the city, and you will be told what you must do. Then as instantly as it appeared, the intense light was gone, like someone just pulled the plug on a thousand spotlights that had been trained directly on him. Saul rubbed his eyes, and then he rubbed them again, but he only saw blackness.

Peering into the brightness of Christ's glory had actually blinded him. Those who were traveling with Saul saw nothing unusual, Luke was told, except Saul hitting the ground and acting strangely. But they heard something. To them, though, the sounds were unintelligible. Jesus was not talking to them. The phrase I love that derives from this dramatic encounter is Damascus Road experience.

Ever heard that? I think it's safe to say our phrases blinded by the light or eye-opening experience and even seeing the light all originate directly from this account. They all derive from how this fanatical Christian hater, Saul of Tarsus, was stopped dead in his tracks, confronted with how completely wrong he was, and forced to turn around 180 degrees in his thinking and beliefs. That's a Damascus Road experience, when someone realizes suddenly they have been completely and utterly wrong, and realize they have to make a complete turnaround in their minds and hearts to bring themselves into alignment with reality. The Apostle Paul later described this dramatic encounter as Jesus arresting him that day on the road in Philippians chapter 3, verse 12. He was on his way to arrest Christians, then suddenly he himself was confronted by the risen, glorified Christ, who arrested him.

Saul had to be led like a little child the last leg of that journey into Damascus, and for three days he sat in the darkness, unable to eat, trying to process what all this would mean for him. He was so deeply imprinted by this dramatic, life-changing experience that afterwards, whenever given the opportunity, he retold this remarkable encounter with Jesus, which caused him to go from the number one enemy of Christianity to its greatest proponent. That was the original Damascus Road experience. While he sat alone in blindness, trying to come to grips with how wrong he had been, a Christian leader in Damascus named Ananias was spoken to by the Lord in a vision. God told him about Saul and instructed him to pay him a visit. He told him the street where he could be found and whose house he'd even be at.

This was definitely a divine appointment. Incidentally, the street God pointed Ananias to, called Straight Street, still exists in Damascus to this day. Thinking about what God asked him to do, though, Ananias recognized the name Saul. And boy, did that send up red flags. He started to protest, Lord, isn't that the guy that's been harassing your saints in Jerusalem? He was coming here to harm your followers.

But God responded reassuringly and clearly, Ananias, go. This man is a chosen instrument of mine to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and to their kings and to the people of Israel. So Ananias went, no doubt with some trepidation, but he went to find Saul of Tarsus on Straight Street. I can't go by this without commenting on how Ananias used the word saints in verse 13. Notice it's simply used as a synonym for Christians. Older translations to English say saints.

More modern translations may use holy people to translate the word, or something similar to that, because unfortunately the word saint has evolved in meaning over the centuries and is now misused by some religions. For them, a saint designates someone holier and higher than the rest of us, closer to God than the rest of us, than ordinary people. But that's just a made-up concept. In the New Testament, as here, consistently, when you see the word saints, it simply refers to Christians. None of us, of course, are in and of ourselves holy. We're only holy because Christ's righteousness has been applied to us when we believed in Him.

But don't be confused by the terminology. Ananias was clearly referring to the believers in Judea Saul had harmed as saints. And believe it or not, if you're truly a believer in Jesus Christ, you, my friend, are a saint too. I'm definitely not a mechanic or a builder, but I have been around some guys who are really experts. One thing I've learned from them is the value of having exactly the right tool for a specific job. For some jobs, the exact tool is actually indispensable.

You can't do it without the right tool. That's exactly what God meant when he told Ananias that Saul of Tarsus was his chosen instrument, the perfect tool for a big job God had in mind. As unlikely a character as Saul was, from all Ananias had heard about him, God nevertheless saw in this man the perfect person to lead the breakout of the gospel into the larger Gentile world. Why was that? Well, for one thing, Saul was highly educated. Tarsus, his hometown, was a leading university center in the Roman world.

Safe to assume, and from the kind of knowledge and reasoning skills we see later from him, that Saul got a first-rate education as he was growing up in the Greek classical sense. Then remember, at some point, he was sent by his father, probably as a later teenager, to Jerusalem, where he studied under Israel's greatest teacher, Rabban Gamaliel. He learned the Old Testament scripture from the best and became a Pharisee, deeply committed to the faith of his fathers. Furthermore, Saul had inherited from his father Roman citizenship. That was a great privilege in that world and would open many doors for him in the first-century world. And on top of all these advantages, what made Saul the perfect instrument to penetrate the Gentile world with the gospel was his zeal, his indomitable spirit.

He was not a man who could be stopped. When he believed in something, when he felt called to do something, he was going to accomplish it or die trying. Saul had everything it took to be uniquely used by God to take the gospel of Christ to the first-century Roman world. But it was his character, I think, above all, that enabled him to become the leader of a movement that planted Christian churches throughout the empire, that caused opponents to refer to this man as the man who turned the world upside down. But we're getting ahead of our story. Right now, Saul of Tarsus was just at the beginning of his metamorphosis.

Like an ugly caterpillar inside a dark cocoon, turning by God's creative power into a beautiful butterfly, he was thoroughly being remade in heart and mind as he sat in the darkness on Straight Street. When Ananias found Saul, he greeted him with the words, Brother Saul, the Lord has appeared to you on the road, and he is the one who has sent me. Those must have sounded like the best words Saul ever heard. I mean, just to hear another Christian he had come to Damascus to harm call him brother, and then imagine the relief he felt to be assured by Ananias that what happened to him on the road was no bizarre mental break or unexplainable phenomenon, but was indeed the Lord Jesus himself who spoke to him from that light. Ananias laid his hands on Saul, and at once the blindness lifted, and the Holy Spirit filled him.

The first thing he wanted to do was be baptized into Jesus' name as he had seen the believers doing in Jerusalem. The second, pretty sure, was find something to eat. Ananias soon introduced Saul to Christians in Damascus, and off the bat he began attending services at Jewish synagogues, testifying to what God had done in his life, insisting now that Jesus, in fact, was the Son of God. I would have loved to have heard one of his first messages, wouldn't you? Saul had literally seen the light, and now he started to see everything, absolutely everything, differently. The Jews who heard him in Damascus were astonished.

They said, Wait a second, isn't this the guy who was sent here by the chief priests in Jerusalem to arrest Christians? The word Luke used means they were completely baffled. Yet it was hard to argue with Saul's personal testimony, and Luke notes that he was also very effective at sharing the gospel, even as a new believer. Saul understood the power of his testimony, also the power of being able to accurately share the truths in God's Word about Jesus' identity. Plus, he spoke with passion and conviction, and these things made him very persuasive. That's an excellent formula, by the way, to communicate the gospel in any era.

Luke notes that some gave him a fair hearing and were persuaded, while others among the religious Jews in Damascus turned on him now that he had joined the Christians. Saul learned quickly that when he shared the gospel, some were drawn to it, others were repelled by it. Like when I turn on my bright back porch light on a summer night. Some creatures, like flying insects and moths, are drawn to that light, while others, spiders and creepy crawling creatures, are repelled by it. Have you ever noticed that? Those who were repelled by the gospel's message in Damascus began to plot how they could kill Saul to stifle the news of his embarrassing conversion and prevent him from persuading others to follow Jesus.

They had plans to actually ambush him if he left the city and had men watching all the gates. But God protected Saul because he had plans for him, and he safely escaped Damascus one night as his Christian friends let him down over the city wall in a basket. And he slipped away unnoticed into the desert. You know how when you're watching a movie or a miniseries and onto the screen comes the caption, Some years later? Luke could have said something like that here at verse 26. The fact he didn't may mean he didn't think it was pertinent to his account, or maybe he wasn't aware of this interlude.

But we learn from Saul himself—you didn't figure this out, spoiler alert—becomes better known as the Apostle Paul. We learn from one of the Apostle Paul's inspired New Testament writings that after escaping Damascus that night, he went into the desert southeast of Syria and stayed there for three years. This is Galatians chapter 1, starting at verse 17. What exactly was he doing there during that time? We can only conjecture, but I'll give you my best guess. The other disciples of Jesus were prepared for him for about three years to become his apostles, remember?

Paul emphatically makes the point in Galatians chapter 1 that he was also called to be an apostle by Christ, called personally. He wasn't a convert of other men or prepared for that office by other leaders. He was called by Jesus Christ himself. So I believe the three years he spent in Arabia were time dedicated to his preparation. Christ had chosen him as an apostle to spearhead this very specific task for which he was the chosen instrument. And in those three years, he no doubt spent a lot of time in study, meditation, instruction, preparation by God himself for the great mission ahead that he would lead.

After that three-year interlude, Luke says that Saul did in fact return to Jerusalem. As you might expect, the early church leaders there, including some of Jesus' original disciples, were very wary of him. When they last saw Saul in their city, he was leading a violent persecution against the church. They may well have heard rumors of his conversion far away Damascus, which I'm sure seemed hard to believe. And then for three years, they'd heard little, if anything, of Saul. The more cautious among them felt this was some kind of elaborate plot, maybe some ruse to get Saul inside their organization where he could do worse damage than he'd done before.

But one leader stepped forward. Listened to Saul's testimony, believed he was sincere, and vouched for him. That was Barnabas, who we've met earlier. He played the pivotal role in persuading the other apostles of Jesus to accept Saul. His time in Jerusalem then on that visit was quite short. He was now like a stick of dynamite to the Jewish leaders.

He boldly went out engaging the Jews in the city in the synagogues and so on, proving from Scripture that Jesus was the Messiah, the very same synagogues where Stephen had preached. Then, as you can imagine, that aroused fierce opposition, and the leaders of those synagogues wanted no part of him. Some were plotting how to kill him, in fact. So the believers in Jerusalem, not wanting to see happen to Saul what had happened to Stephen, persuaded him to leave the city for his own safety. They took him to Caesarea, where he boarded a ship for his native Tarsus. There he'd be out of the reach of Jerusalem's religious leaders.

Luke notes that after that, a period of peace was restored again in Jerusalem, and the number of believers began growing again. You know, I've heard people with too much time on their hands try and split hairs over when exactly Saul became a believer. But whenever he himself told how he became a Christian, he always went back to that unexpected encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road. For him, that was the moment he recognized Jesus was in fact divine, that the early Christians were right in claiming he was the way to God. That change of heart was when Saul was born again, to use Jesus' term. And in that moment of repentance, turning around and faith, believing into Jesus, Saul's life shifted onto an entirely different course.

My dad always told anyone who would listen that he made the decision to embrace Jesus as the Savior he needed, lying in bed one night when he was 29 years old. He'd been witnessed to by some Christians, some teenage girls, in fact, younger sisters of my mother, whom he'd met while on a sales trip through Birmingham, Alabama. He was deeply impacted by what those girls told him about Jesus, why he came, what his death on the cross meant for him. As he thought about all these things, he said he wasn't able to sleep that night till he reached out in faith and embraced Jesus as his personal Savior and leader too. And boy, did his life change. I heard about a guy who used to work with a friend of mine who was driving across New York State on the highway, listening to a message on tape that a Christian friend from work had given him.

He said it seemed like the speaker was talking directly to him. After he heard a clear message about Jesus, who he was, why he came for us, this fellow pulled his car over to the side of the road, prayed and accepted Christ right then and there, with 18 wheelers whizzing by him. My point is, there are no magic words or special place this must happen. You don't need to compare your experience with Saul's dramatic experience, with my experience or anyone else's. The only common denominator in being born again is being convinced of who Jesus Christ really is, and in faith reaching out and embracing him as the Savior you need. And that's the gospel truth.

Wow, did you see what I just did there? Gospel truth. That's another idiom that came into our English language from the Bible, as we were talking about at the outset. We use gospel truth, don't we, to mean something that is certain, that is undeniable, you can count on it. It doesn't matter who you've been up till today. If you feel impressed that what the New Testament authors are telling us about Jesus being the way to have your sins forgiven, being the way to be reconciled to God, believe it.

Receive Him. If you invite Jesus into your life as your Savior and leader today, you will be born again to God's family too. That's the gospel truth. And if you make that important decision, I hope you will drop us a line at info at sharetheword.org and tell us about it, because we'd love to hear from you. Thanks, Paul. You know, sharing the big ideas of the New Testament chapter by chapter gives us such a rich, wonderful, and important picture of each chapter.

And the fact that we're able to share all of this information with everyone from around the world is a testament to just how far we've come in history from when the apostles began their Great Commission. Please take a moment and visit sharetheword.org and check out all we offer. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.