Acts Chapter 9, the title This morning's message is so great a
salvation. I pray that you have your
listening ears on to hear what the Holy Spirit says to us
today. As you get a hold of what
happens here in Chapter 9, you will then understand the rest of
the New Testament in regard to Paul's letters.
If you can't grasp what Chapter 9 is really about, then you miss
out. As Paul continually in his
letters, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, so on Thessalonians
he refers back to the events in Chapter 9 of Acts.
Couple of questions as we start. How truthful is the salvation
that is spoken of in the Bible? I mean, is it real?
And you know, if you're saved and you know, if someone's a
Christian, we hear words like born again.
Billy Graham was asked why do you always preach born again?
He says simple, because Jesus said you must be born again to
enter the Kingdom of heaven. The Bible tells us, it says
these words. Jesus died for everyone, so that
those who receive his new life will no longer live for
themselves. That means when you become a
Christian, you stop living for yourself.
The old life gone finished. The old ways, old habits, old
plans, old goals, old directions changed.
Instead, they will live for Christ who died and was raised
for them. It goes on in that scripture to
say this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a
new person. You've changed.
The old life is gone. A new life has begun.
Baptism. When we have a baptism service
that's coming up in March, it's actually a funeral service.
It's a funeral service we take to the beach and we have the
people who say ask them have you received Christ as your Lord and
Saviour? Yes, I have received Christ as
my Lord and Saviour by faith. So now we take them into the
water and we have a funeral service and to the public, and
they expressing to their family, to their friends, and to the
Lord, I am dying to my old ways. And we lower them back as if
lowering them into the grave. That's the end of that person.
And then as they are raised up out of the water, Romans chapter
5 and 6 says now that they walk in the newness of life, they
yield their members, that is their hands, their feet, their
minds, their finances, their talents to the Lord.
That's what baptism is. It doesn't save you.
It's a demonstration that I am now a Christian and the old me,
that you knew how I lived, how I planned, is gone, Peter says on
Peter 123. For you have been born again.
He quotes Jesus, but not to a life that will quickly end.
No, your new life. So there is new life, and
salvation will last forever. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him
should not perish that it that means be dead.
Dead to the ways of God, separated from God.
That's what death is. But shall receive eternal life.
What is eternal life? It's forever when you get it.
The moment you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour,
you will live forever. You live forever.
Peter goes on to say. Your new life will last forever
because it comes from the eternal living Word of God.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
So a new life. Well, we've spoken about it.
But is the change because you see people go to church and
they're just the same, you know, they're, they're no different.
They're still angry, grumpy, they swear they carry on,
they're selfish, but yeah, that yet they still go to church.
Is change possible? Can a person receive Christ and
truly change? Yes.
Can a man or a woman who has lived a certain way or a
lifestyle that was previously wicked, sinful, deprived,
selfish, can that life actually change and begin to live for the
glory of God? Well, this morning the Bible
tell us that that change is absolutely possible.
This morning the Bible will tell us we are never to write anyone
off who we think is unreachable for God.
Just no chance. My dad, my brother, my son,
there's no chance. My son just went, listen,
there's no chance. You can't say that the first
martyr of the church. We did.
Acts chapter 8, a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Stephen was his name, chosen man of Horus, report full of the
Holy Spirit. Acts chapter 8, he preaches his
first recorded only recorded message and then he's killed.
He was arrested, brutally murdered.
It was murder because of his faith, because of his love of
Christ. Persecution following Stephen's
death is launched against the church in Jerusalem.
And the believers scatter for their lives because they're
threatened with death. And they take off except for the
disciples, Acts 8 tells us. And they scatter to the four
corners of the earth. And as they scatter, they take
the gospel with them. Wherever they go, men, women,
children, entire families are being hunted down, beaten,
arrested, gaoled, many put to death simply because of their
faith in Jesus Christ. And the leader of this
persecution on the church in Jerusalem, the head guy oversaw
the death of Stephen is a man called Saul.
Yet in our text this morning we'll see that Christ himself
will change the hunter Saul to the haunted God would bring Saul
into his Kingdom and change him to Paul.
Paul means little or small. Saul, the religious Pharisee
man. He could argue religion.
He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, member of the
Sanhedrin. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews
of the tribe of Benjamin. He was the overseer of the
church's persecution. He's in charge and that from his
high and lofty religious platform, God would bring this
man to the position of what? And what would he make Paul
Bondslave the lowest slave in the rank of a family?
He would bring him from this to this, a Bondslave.
But a Bondslave was someone who loved to serve the family in
which they were slaves. They would at a time in their
lives have an all, a wooden pig driven through their ear at the
door of the house, and they would remain in the family even
though they could go free. They said no, we want to stay
slaves to this family. That's what a bond slave was.
Paul's story of his conversion is found three times in
Scripture in great detail. It's first mentioned by Doctor
Luke, then testified by Paul on two more occasions.
Acts 22, Acts 26. The narration or the coverage of
Paul's conversion occupies more space in the Holy Scriptures
than the story of any other event in the New Testament
except that of the crucifixion of Christ.
This one then Saul still breathing threats and murder.
Notice this isn't oh you guys lock them up and then let them
go beat them up. No murder.
Still breathing threats and murder, putting to death
believers against the disciples of the Lord went to the high
priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues in
Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the way, the
Christians weren't called Christians then, they were
called those of the way. Because Jesus said I am the way,
the truth and the life. They were followers of Christ.
They were called members of the way where the men or women that
he might bring them chained from Damascus, a six day journey back
all the way to Jerusalem, have them put in gaol and have them
executed if possible. Saul heard.
There are believers in Damascus, Syria.
I'll go, but I need a bit of clout, so I've got to get the
letters so I can go to the synagogue's up there.
I need some finances. I need some men to go with me.
And so he gets all that, the high priest give it to him, and
off he goes. Saul actually thought with all
his zeal, he was serving God. You know, part of the Nazi Party
prayer and devotion was to serve God.
Let's swear to God to carry out the Fuhrer's plans.
Saul actually thought he was serving God by persecuting the
church. If a reporter from the Jerusalem
Times and had got to Saul said, Saul, can we interview you just
before you head off Damascus? Now you're going on this great
mission. Why are you doing all this?
Saul would have replied. Well, listen, this Jesus of
Nazareth, who was crucified dead, he's dead.
Don't expect me to believe that a crucified Carpenter from
Nazareth is the promised Messiah.
I know who the Messiah is. I know the Bible, or even our
law tells us in Deuteronomy 2123 does it not that anybody who was
hung on a tree is cursed? Bible does.
Thing is, why was Jesus cursed? He took on our curse, the curse
of death, so that we would be free from the curse.
Saul didn't know that at the time.
Do you think God would take a cursed false prophet, make him
the Messiah? This sect, the way is a
dangerous sect, and I'll wipe it off the face of the earth before
they destroy our historic Jewish faith.
Saul was blind, absolutely blind.
He knew the word of God. To be a Pharisee, you had to be
able to recite the Pentateuch first five books of the Bible,
off by heart, off by heart, to know every word.
Saul was blind, he would later write, Speaking of the nation of
Israel as they are today, 2 Corinthians 314.
But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same vial
remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, which is
all that the Jews look to because the vial is taken away
in Christ. When was the vial taken away?
When he was crucified, remember the vial was torn, the way into
the holy of holies was made open for all to come.
How? Through Jesus blood, the
sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Paul went on to say 2
Corinthians 316. Nevertheless, when one turns to
the Lord, the vial is taken away.
Jews who become believers. Go.
Now I see two on the road to Emmaus.
Well, you know, Jesus is dead. He we thought he was going to be
the one. Along comes a third person.
They don't know who it is. It's Jesus, but they can't
recognise him. Why are you so sad?
Oh, well, you know, we had this Jesus.
He was the rabbi and he did great things.
But now he's dead and he's buried.
And Jesus said all fools, and he gave them a Bible study of all
the things in the Bible in the Old Testament that mentioned the
suffering and persecution and death of the Messiah.
And their hearts burnt, their eyes were opened when he broke
bed bread before them, and he disappeared.
Saul at the time this time Acts Chapter 9 could not see Christ
in the Old Testament scriptures. Yet he knew the the Bible so
well. Saul stumbled at the cross of
Calvary. Daniel speaks about that the
stone doesn't he the stumbling stone. 1 Corinthians 123 but we
preach Christ crucified, Paul would later say to the Jew, and
he knows a stumbling block. I stumbled on it myself.
To the Greeks foolishness. Now that text has a whole new
meaning because Paul's referring it was me.
I stumbled on it juice first. Saul at this time was dependent
upon his own religious goodness. He goes into great detail in the
book of Romans about that Chapter 7, specifically his own
driven righteousness, Pharisee of the Pharisee Hebrew of the
Hebrews, born in the tribe of Benjamin.
But his righteousness was not the righteousness of God.
What does righteousness means? It means you're right standing
before God. It means you are right before
God. You're not separated from God by
your sins. Verse one tells us that Saul's
behaviour against the followers of Christ was that like that in
the Greek language of a wild animal tearing up its prey
filled with rage. Yesterday I was watching some
National Geographic lions and hyenas and how they fight one
another and how the lions would just RIP shreds out of the
hyenas. This is the same language.
Saul was like a wild animal when he got all the Christians.
You just put him in gaol, beat them, whip them kids all.
Even his breath was fuelled with violent rage.
Every breath it says. Then Saul still breathing
threats and murders his whole being.
So Saul wasted the churches in Judea.
Now he's off to Damascus. He's on the hunt, the hunt down
more followers of Christ, the way to do this he needed the
clout, the paperwork from the religious Jewish council in
Jerusalem to achieve this. They backed him with letters,
with men and all the resources he needed for the journey, 6
days to seven days from Jerusalem to Damascus by foot.
But something happened, got intervened in his life.
It says verse 3, as he journeyed, he came near
Damascus, nearly there, just a couple of hours out.
Suddenly a light shone around him.
Notice it says from heaven. The beam came shooting down from
heaven. This powerful light.
Heaven was the source. Then he fell to the ground and
he heard a voice saying to him, saw, saw.
Every time Jesus repeats your name, something important is
coming up. Why are you persecuting me?
Something happened that would radically change this man's life
forever. Literally.
I've been travelling for about 6 days thus far to this point.
It was noon, hot. Saul was not taking a break in
this period of the journey. Most travellers did.
But he said no, I want to get to Damascus.
I got I got people to get hold of.
And he was raging to get to Damascus as soon as he could.
Damascus was just a few hours away.
Coming into the view of the travelling party, suddenly Saul
is literally fouled by a beam of dazzling light, far brighter and
superior than even the brightness of the noon sun in
Syria. The Greek language tells us
specifically that the beam, the shaft, came from heaven.
And a voice pierces this dazzling light as Saul finds
himself stuck on the ground, stunned.
And it's a voice that the Bible says only Saul can understand
and comprehend those around him. The following men, they hear a
voice. They can't understand, hear or
understand any words that are being said.
In Acts 26, verse 14, Paul referring back to this time, he
says, when are all. So the whole crew of this
travelling party, when all had fallen to the ground, I heard a
voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, Saul,
Saul, why are you persecuting me?
And it's hard for you to kick against the goads.
The light, what was it? It was none other than the
actual brightness of the face of the Lord.
Jesus Christ, the glorified Saviour.
You remember back in the book of Matthew and also Mark it says in
Matthew 17 verse 2, Jesus is on the mount and he was
transfigured before James, Peter and John and his face it says
shine like the sun dazzled. His clothes became white as
light. Saul responds to the voice and
he said, Who are you, Lord? Then the Lord said, Oh man,
imagine these words. I am Jesus whom you are
persecuting. It's hard for you to kick
against the goats, Saul, Jesus is saying to him, when the
stones you approved of, you supervised, you watched over,
held the clothes of those who were throwing them.
When the stones fell against Stephen's body, they fell upon
me, me. So then remembered the face of
Stephen. Remember, it was the face as of
an Angel, how he had watched the rocks slam into Stephen's body,
smack into him, and yet Stephen did not resist or cover up.
Stephen's words rang in Saul's ears constantly from that moment
and again that day, and Stephen's prayer at the end, as
he breathed his laugh before he died, he cried out for
forgiveness to those who sailed him with stones.
Lay not their sins against them. So many goads saw all these, I
mean prodding you, you, you saw Stephen, you, you watched you,
you felt what was going on. You knew it was wrong.
Notice Jesus did not say, why are you persecuting the church
didn't say that. No, he said, why are you
persecuting me? Why?
Why does Jesus say that? And I want you to get an
understanding of what this gathering is.
This is a holy gathering. We use the term the body of
Christ. That's because we are, as we
gather here, we are the body of Christ.
Christ is here. People say, well, you know who
was at church today? I like to tell someone every
time. You know who's at church today?
Jesus. He was there in the morning,
he's there in the evening, and he'll be here Wednesday night.
He actually is because this is his body.
The church is Christ's own body, of which he is the living head.
The church is today the visible representation of Jesus Christ
in this fallen world. The the fallen world outside
should be able to look at us, the church, and go.
That's what Jesus is like. The way they act, the way they
live, the way they carry on their life, their living, that's
a representation of Jesus. The problem is what church is
reflecting to the world. Not too good, is it?
Saul's angry objection to Christianity was not that Jesus
had been crucified, but for Christ's followers to say that
the crucified, dead Jesus was the Messiah, the long expected
king. It was this claim that rattled
Saul's religious cage. Can't say that he's dead.
There was only one thing that would convince Saul.
Saul himself must see this dead Jesus of Nazareth, whom he knew
had been beaten, crucified, dead, then then buried.
He must seem alive. Saul here Note 2 on the the road
to Damascus. This is not a vision.
This is not a dream. Saul was too sane to base the
change of his life upon something like that.
Saul always referred to this moment in Acts Chapter 9 as
Jesus personally appearing and speaking to him.
Saul responds to Jesus voice. So he trembling and astonished
said, Lord, what do you want me to do?
And here's the deal. Saul is confronted with a living
Jesus. You see, that's the gospel.
I remember working with a guy. He was a grumpy old fellow,
always angry. Everyone knew he was just angry
all the time. Quick tempered.
Oh, always flying off the handle.
Anyway, talk to him about the things of the Lord.
He says, oh, look, I won't believe that there's life after
death, that there was a God until someone dies and comes
back from the dead. And I said someone did you see
so often, you know, you and I even at times you go, Oh God, if
God's real, what's then why is he doing?
Hang on a minute. An evil and adulterous
generation seeks after a sign. Jesus said I'll give you 1 like
that of the prophet Jonah. I'll be dead for three days,
three days after three days, I'll be alive.
The cross, the resurrection that Jesus Christ is alive is that
that is the foundation of all you and I need to have.
It breaks everything because death is our greatest enemy,
isn't it? What tears apart a family?
What tears apart someone more than anything else?
Death. It ravages us.
I've done funeral after funeral and I've seen the ravages of
death. I've seen the ravages of sin as
I'm there. And I see grandkids crying and
and, and others just weeping and oh, because they're not saved
and death is just just ripping through and, and, and Genesis
become so real, so tangible at a funeral because the wages of sin
is death. But Jesus came to conquer our
greatest enemy, that which held us all the fear of death.
We sang about it this morning. Wonderful songs.
Christ broke the chains of death.
After three days, nothing could hold him because he was
innocent. He took our sins, He buried
them, He paid for them. Then he arose from the dead on
the third day, and he's alive forevermore.
He's alive forevermore. Jesus is alive.
What's the gospel? The gospel is a person.
The gospel. The good news is that Jesus
Christ rose from the dead. That's the gospel.
He is the Messiah, the Son of God.
The gospel message has skin on it.
It's real. 1 John 1 The disciples go.
We touched him, we heard him, we felt him.
The gospel is a person and Jesus is his name.
Saul now had to repent. He's confronted, he's living his
life. This religious man fervent, He's
given all, and he's wrong. Not only is he wrong, he's
against God. Wow, he's devastated.
It's a difficult thing for a religious self righteous
Pharisee of the Pharisees to do to repent.
Saul discovered on the road to Damascus and this is the only
path to salvation. That he was a lost Sinner
indeed, and that all that he had done previously was trash.
Wow. Think of that.
All that he'd given his life and he was now in danger of the
judgement of God. For Jesus said to Saul, I am
Jesus whom you are persecuting. Wow.
Saul thought he'd been serving God, but in reality he'd been
persecuting him. When we, you and I look to our
own self righteousness, we too are guilty of the same sin as
Saul has that that of persecuting Christ.
Because when we say, well I know the Bible says, but I'll go to
God my way. This is what I believe.
This is what I'm comfortable with when we are saying his
coming, his death, his resurrection are not needed in
my life, that they have no value for me or to me.
They have no effect on me. Doesn't matter, I'll do God my
way. That's self righteousness, but
it's also persecuting Jesus. You see our self righteousness,
our self righteous lives, our own religious rules in reality
compared to God's perfect righteousness, the Bible
declares like filthy rags. Isaiah 64, six, But we are all
like an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are like
filthy rags. You should look that up and see
specifically what he's talking about.
Now. All of Saul's values changed, so
should mine when I become a believer.
Now he was a new person. Why?
Because he trusted in the risen Jesus Christ.
Saul was saved by God on the road to Damascus.
Why was he saved? Good on your soul, good chap.
Now off you go. Can't live your life.
Hold it. And I'm going to say it over and
over until Jesus comes. You are saved to serve.
You don't get saved. And well, I got my ticket to
heaven. Now I go off and please myself.
Live how we want to. You know, we're a young married
couple or a family. We're doing our own thing or
we're in our retirement now. Just do what I please.
Sorry. It don't work that way.
That's not how I read the Bible. You are saved to serve.
You will. I don't know if I want that.
OK. You don't have to have that.
That's your choice, but in the Bible it says we are saved to
serve in Acts 2616 because God had a special work for Saul Paul
to do Acts 2616. Paul referring back to this time
adds this, but rise and stand on your feet.
Jesus speaking to him, for I have appeared to you.
Notice it's not a vision. This is Jesus himself for this
purpose. Why?
To make you a minister. What's a minister?
A servant and a witness. Both of the things which you
have seen, and of the things which I will yet reveal to you.
I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from
the Gentiles to whom I now send you.
There's the job to open their eyes in order to turn them from
darkness to light and from the power of Satan.
That's the third thing to God, that they may receive
forgiveness, 4th thing of sins and inheritance.
Fifth thing among those who are sanctified.
How did it always happen? By faith in me.
The Hebrew of the Hebrews would now become the apostle to the
Gentiles. God has done this in our days.
How's that? God has taken selfish Australian
men, consumed with nothing but their own lives.
And men, Australian men are like that, their own importance,
living for pleasure, getting the next toy and change them to
devoted men of God now with a loving passion and are now to be
found teaching Sunday school children how to know to love
Jesus Christ through the word of God.
This legalistic Prince of religious prowess unashamedly
would become the great proclaimer of the Amazing Grace
of God. Romans chapter 123-4567 talks
about our sin and how we fail, how we struggle.
There's none righteous, no, not one.
We've all fallen short of the glory of God.
We want to do the right thing, but we go ahead and do the wrong
thing or what's going to happen to us.
Romans chapter right. There is therefore now no
condemnation to those who are what in Christ Jesus who work no
work no longer after the flesh, but after the spirit as a
dramatic change. What I what what God wants to
see and what we need to see what we see in Saul is that when you
become a believer, you actually change.
You're not the same, Jack, same Jill, as you always have been.
You look the same, and your family, your marriage, the way
you raise your kids, what you do with your time, what you do with
your finances, all that changes if you're a follower of Jesus
Christ according to the Bible. You see, up until now Saul had
been living a life of that, of a wild, angry animal fighting
against the promptings of God, the gods.
But then he would go on to say, I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. Why?
Now this verse has greater meaning now that we know Acts
Chapter 9, doesn't it? For it is the power of God to
salvation for everyone who believes.
And now these words become even more important.
For he says for the Jew first, that's me, the Jew first, that
was me and the Gentiles. Saul's been kicking against the
goads all his life. What's a goad?
A goad is a rod. It's about 1.8 metres long.
It either had a sharpened point they made on the end or they
sometimes they get a a bit of metal put on the end to cover
the end. And it was the jabbing and
directing as as they get the dirt off the plough, and also to
give the prod to the oxen, to the sheep every now and then.
Hey, this way Saul knew all about the goats.
But now grace, peace, forgiveness and humility fell
upon this angry religious man. And God would use him as a
vessel of honour to preach the gospel.
What's the gospel? That Jesus is alive, that Jesus
is the Messiah, He's the Saviour.
I want to ask you a question today.
As you sit here, are you still fighting, resisting God?
Are you still pushing against the gods?
Each time God prods you, you know there's something and God
prods you. That's what I want you to do.
And you ask and you push it away.
Stuff that God wants you to do. He wants you to get to know him,
read your word, pray, gather with the church, serve in the
church. And you, you push the pride, the
goat comes and you, ah, no, I'll just do my own thing.
You day after day, God still prods you still some 30 years
later, Paul would write that Christ had apprehended him.
You know in the police we call that apprehension rested.
The Christ had apprehended him on the Damascus Rd Philippians
chapter 3 verse 12. Not that I have already obtained
all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to
take hold of that which Christ took hold of me is why He
grabbed me. That is salvation.
Saul had set out to arrest others, and the Lord arrested
him. Saul had to lose his religion
before he could gain the righteousness of Christ.
And you're religious. You of course not go to Calvary
Chapel. You can be religious and go to
Calvary Chapel. In some of Paul's last words
before his execution in Rome, Paul would write one Timothy
1:15. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptance that Christ.
Jesus came into the world. Why?
To save sinners. That's his mission.
Of whom I am the worst, I'm the chief.
Of whom I'm the chief, I'm the worst.
Paul is saying if he can save me, there's no one beyond
salvation. Saul was then LED into the city,
couldn't see the angry bull at beginning of this journey, now
becomes a docile lamb needing to be LED.
His spiritual eyes have been opened, but for three days.
His physical eyes will be closed for that period.
For three days now, Saul would not eat, drink, but instead
fully consumed that now he had met with God face to face.
You can imagine his mind, him going over the things, those
three days. It's interesting.
It's three days, isn't it? Jesus of Nazareth, the one who
had suffered, who had been crucified.
But now he's alive, he's real. I've seen him three days.
Paul's old life now dead 3 days, but someday was coming.
New life there alone blind Saul would take account of what
previously he had considered important, and that he was proud
of. That's why we understand these
scriptures so much the more now. Philippians 3.
But what things were gained to me?
These I've counted lost for Christ.
Yet indeed I also count all things for loss, for the
excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I
suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish.
My old life, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not
having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that
which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which
is from God. By faith that I may know Him,
the power of His resurrection. I've seen Him, the fellowship of
His sufferings being conformed to His death.
You know, I've been in ICU rooms and everyone in every major
hospital, the waiting rooms, and I've been to every major
Hospice, you know, in each of those rooms, you know what
people do, they think back. They're on the road to Damascus.
They're in those three days. They think back and they go, I
want to warn you, don't live a life where it's got to take you
to be in ICU for you to be in the last hours of your life to
look back and go what a waste, how I've ruined my life, how I
live for myself, how I selfish. I just drove my own gains and
everything else and Christ saved me and I've nothing.
I achieved nothing to you this morning who still have yet to
surrender to Christ. Know this, there is no more
persistent person than God when he decides to save someone.
Saul did not notice this. He didn't say I'm going to
become a Christian. It was the last.
He was nowhere near him. Jesus Christ apprehended him,
and you know he's done the same to you.
Saul didn't decide for Christ. He was instead persecuting
Christ. It was Christ who decided for
him. Christ intervened in Saul's life
to bring him salvation. If you're a believer here today,
let me tell you this. It wasn't your doing.
God save you. And why has He saved you?
Not so you can sit here and go, well, I'm going to heaven when I
die. He save you.
What? To serve Him you have a
ministry. Some of you haven't even opened
the envelope, you haven't pulled open the drawer, you haven't
walked into the room with all that he has before you in
Galatians chapter one verse 15. But when it please God, Saul
refers back to this time who separated me from my father on
my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his
son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles.
You see, See the connection, the 2GO hand in hand to reveal his
son in me. Why?
That I might preach him among the Gentiles.
Christ is at work and therefore we are to never write someone
off as beyond the reach of God. Don't do that.
Jesus Christ died on the cross at a location called Calvary.
But three days later, he rose from the dead.
He was seen for 40 days before he ascended into heaven.
That's fact. Then at the right hand of the
Father, he sat. But there, right now, where he
is, he intercedes, He works. He puts his plan into action to
bring lost souls into his Kingdom.
You're part of that, that same Jesus who spoke to Saul on the
road to Damascus. He speaks to you this morning
and asked the same question. Why do you persecute him?
Why do you continue to kick against the proddings, His
goods, the things that God has been urging you and speaking to
you, turning you, reminding you, telling you, over and over and
over, and you keep pushing them aside?
If Christ has spoken to your heart today, will you surrender?
Finally, it pleases God to call you to come to Him.
He, He, His desire is for you to reveal His Son, Jesus Christ to
your life and change you forever.
Why? Because He has a task for you, a
mission. Today, give your life to Him.
Begin to live the life God created for you.
Change from Saul to Paul. Saul, well, the world would say,
graduate of the University of Tarsus, The world would say he
was a student at the school of Galileo, one of the greatest
rabbi teachers ever. Oh man, this guy is gifted so
well, man, he's trained in the details of the Jewish religion
like nobody else. Man, he can quote, knows the
Bible, but he did not know the Lord Jesus Christ today.
This morning is the Damascus Road.
For some of you, today is salvation day.
Let's pray. If God has spoken to your heart
today, you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.
No, I'm looking around, eyes closed.
If God has spoken to you today, not for my knowing or knowledge,
but for acknowledgement to God, If God has spoken to your heart
today and I won't even look up myself, raise your hand, lift it
up in the air and just say, Lord, I hear you, Lord, I hear
you. Just raise that hand and drop it
down and the next thing now as the as we close the services
this respond to your acknowledgement.
Lord, what would you have me to do?
If you don't know Christ, then you're dead in your religion.
Judgement of God sits upon you today.
You can have the same faith and freedom salvation that Saul
received on the road to Damascus by praying this prayer right
where you are now. Repeat these words after me.
Heavenly Father, I know I'm a Sinner.
Forgive me of myself, Righteousness, my sins, please
forgive me. I by faith now ask you to be my
Lord and Saviour. Save me today Lord Heavenly
Father changed my life. Today I pray this in Jesus name
and I believe it with all my heart.
Amen and Amen.