Conversion to Jesus Christ (7)

Paul’s Three Accounts of Conversion in Acts

Let's turn in our Bibles again to Acts 26 that we just read. In our study of true and false conversion to Jesus Christ I want us to consider this account of personal conversion recorded of the Apostle Paul in the Word of God.

Here in Acts 26 we have actually the third account of Paul's conversion. Luke the writer of the book of Acts first narrated Saul's conversion in Acts chapter 9 verses 1 and following, rather a lengthy description.

And then just a few chapters before this in Acts 22 we have a second recounting of Paul's conversion when Paul recited his conversion experience before a murderous mob in Jerusalem. They did not receive his testimony.

And then in the passage before us here in Acts 26 that we read, Paul was standing before the Jewish King Agrippa giving a defense of himself and the gospel. Of course the Apostle Paul is one of the most remarkable persons depicted in the biblical record.

He was a man who was the foremost enemy of the gospel, who lived to extinguish the faith in people of Jesus. But in just a matter of a couple days, a few days, Paul became one of the chief promoters and proclaimers of Jesus as the promised Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Amazing turnaround. For God had performed a great work of grace in bringing Paul to salvation. Paul had become born again, of course, regenerated. God had caused new life to spring up where there had been spiritual deadness, although Paul had been a very religious, a very devout man.

Paul became one who loved Jesus Christ and loved the people of Jesus Christ, who had formerly hated Jesus Christ and the people of Jesus Christ. He was transformed in just a matter of a couple days. He became a promoter of the gospel that he was attempting to extinguish.

Regeneration and Saving Faith in Paul’s Conversion

Now as we consider Paul's conversion experience recounted in these three passages, it's really not easy to detect the ordo salutis, the order of salvation that we described, I think it was last Lord's Day.

Every person who comes to salvation experiences this order of salvation, but it is difficult many times to be able to assign or identify each particular step in that order of salvation in people's lives, and it's difficult in the case of Saul's conversion to Christ.

Perhaps Paul was regenerated, that is, born again when he initially saw Jesus glorified, when, you know, Jesus shone to him brighter than the sun. Maybe Paul was regenerated at that moment. We cannot know for certain.

We cannot always know the moment of the new birth. Now its effects will always be seen, but we don't necessarily know at what point that occurs. We know the new birth has occurred by the new life that the new birth results in, not because we know the moment necessarily when God causes us to be born again.

The effects will always be seen sooner or later, but probably sooner than later. As our Lord taught, the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes, so as everyone who is born of the Spirit.

So we don't know when Paul was regenerated, born again. We know that Paul had been born again for his conversion to Jesus Christ as a result of a manifestation of regeneration, the new birth by the Holy Spirit.

But when it happened precisely cannot be determined by us. It had to have taken place during the time that Paul, or from the time that Paul initially saw the glorified Lord Jesus, until several days later when Paul was baptized, confessing openly his faith in Jesus Christ.

He was born again by the Holy Spirit at some point during those few days. It's also difficult to identify precisely when Paul exercised saving faith, justifying faith, when he fully trusted Jesus as his Savior from sin.

Perhaps it was upon his initial seeing the Lord Jesus, but perhaps it was afterwards when Paul had reflected upon the event, even when he was temporarily blind, when he heard the explanation of the gospel more clearly and fully through Ananias whom the Lord Jesus sent to him.

It was several days later that Ananias told Paul, arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. This of course should not be understood as the water of baptism actually washing sins from a sinner, rather Ananias was calling upon Paul to repent of his sins and show forth the cleansing from sin by undergoing baptism.

Arise, Paul confessed, repent, be baptized, baptism being an emblem of his cleansing. So it would seem that the entire experience of Paul over the course of several days could be described as an account of Paul coming to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

The entire event was a saving event in which Paul came to Christ. He was a different man, different loves, different motivations, different goals. He was an entirely new man as a result of this encounter with the Lord Jesus and the few days after and the work of Christ working in his soul.

And so yes it took a couple days but it was remarkable in its suddenness. Here he was, one who punished Christians often in all the synagogues and had tried to make them blaspheme. Can you imagine? Even as he was raging fury against them and Paul had persecuted Christians even to foreign cities.

But soon, very soon he was proclaiming the gospel to the Gentiles. For Jesus Christ had sent him to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God and that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

God’s Preparation Before Conversion

You never know who's going to come to Christ, do you? Sometimes the most least likely person to become a Christian becomes a Christian and the one who seems most likely to be a Christian become a Christian never does.

It's all due to the grace of God. But had everything begun with Paul on that occasion when he saw the glorified Jesus on the Damascus road? It would seem so at a casual reading and yes certainly if we want to say that event initiated his actual conversion to Christ, that's when he began to change obviously.

But no, actually not everything had begun at that point when he saw the risen Christ. For the Lord was at work in Paul's life before that day preparing Paul for his conversion. And we spoke last week about this work of preparation that God works on behalf of preparing the sinner for the grace of God.

And God had been at work, the Lord Jesus had been at work in Paul's life bringing him to the place that he would be born again, converted. There was a preparation that God had exercised in this man's life.

And by the way I might comment this, it's a common teaching and assumption by many Christians that Saul was the name of Paul before being converted and he changed his name to Paul upon being converted.

And that's so commonly spread nobody even seems to to doubt it. I happen to know that many African Christians changed their name to Christian names upon their conversion and they see this as an example.

But actually Paul did not change his name from Saul to Paul but rather Saul was his Hebrew name, he was probably known by Saul among all the Jewish people before and after his conversion. And Paul was his Roman name, his Greek name by which he would be known among the Gentiles.

The fact that he was going to be a minister to the Gentiles, it was fitting that he would use the name Paul rather than Saul. But clearly he had been transformed utterly. The manner in which God normally brings salvation to sinners involves God at work in the soul of the unconverted bringing him or her to the place and time that God imparts new life in that work of regeneration, the new birth.

So it's important again to understand that the soul's preparation in no way is meritorious nor does the soul's preparation qualify one for coming to Christ but the preparation of God is necessary or a man or woman won't come to Christ.

Sometimes the preparation is over a prolonged period of time, sometimes it can be through the course of a single sermon or reading a gospel tract. But there is a work of preparation that God does in the soul.

The Lord must prepare the soul otherwise the hating rebellious sinner would not hear and respond to the grace of God in the gospel. And so God inclines the ear to hear and inclines the will, the mind and will of a person prior to the day the truth of the gospel floods his understanding and at which time he bows his will to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we would argue that the passage before us here in Acts chapter 26 records how Paul had been an object of God's preparation for grace. Paul had heard a voice to him in the Hebrew language interestingly, Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?

It is hard for you to kick against the goats. Interestingly that expression by our Lord Jesus, that statement it is hard for you to kick against the goats, is not found in the other two recordings of Paul's conversion, Acts chapter 9 and Acts chapter 22.

Except in the King James Version and the New King James Version you have that statement it is hard for you to kick against the goats found back in the Acts chapter 9 account of Paul's conversion. And yet that was probably applied or inserted by a well-meaning copyist.

Some centuries after the first century there was a tendency of some scribes and copyists to want to harmonize accounts and so he probably took the expression from Acts 26 and inserted it back in Acts chapter 9 and so in the newer translations you won't find that expression back there.

It is here however legitimately in Acts chapter 26, Jesus said to Saul on the road to Damascus it is hard for you to kick against the goats. As a stock animal resists being prodded to do something against his will, he doesn't want to and so he's prodded, forced to do so.

So Paul had been kicking against the Lord prodding him. Clearly this indicates that the Lord had been doing a work of preparation in Saul's life, is that not right? Obviously. God had been prodding Saul, goading Saul, preparing him for the day when he would experience conversion and this is the normal way in which God brings people to salvation.

And again sometimes this is over a short period of time, sometimes a prolonged period of time. The Lord is sovereign in this and so here we have in Acts 26 further evidence of what we've addressed toward the end of our last study.

Yes the Bible teaches God's salvation of sinners is due to his sovereign grace alone. Fallen man cannot and will not come to Jesus Christ for salvation and so in order for the sinner to believe the gospel in order to be saved, God must impart a new heart to him to enable him to believe and without this new heart a sinful man never could never would believe the gospel.

And so although the new birth is the first act of God by which he begins to do a work of grace in the center, Paul didn't change until this event in his life. Nevertheless God was at work bringing Paul to this place.

Prior to the new birth, prior to regeneration, God prepares the sinner to encounter salvation. God prepares people by his grace for his grace of regeneration. And so God had been at work, the Lord Jesus had been at work in Saul's life even before his Damascus road journey, even while he had been breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord.

There was a work of grace taken place. God was dealing with Paul. Now we might ask the question or attempt to answer the question, in what way or ways did the Lord prod Paul in preparation of his conversion?

The Lord said it's hard for you to kick against the goads, isn't it Paul? What was it that was goading Paul? And again the whole point of our study of this is that if we understand better the way God normally brings people to salvation, then we who profess to know Christ can assess ourselves whether we've experienced this work of saving grace in our lives.

Do we know anything about the kinds of experiences that these people in the Bible encountered in their salvation when Christ brought them savingly to himself? And so in what ways was the Lord prodding Paul?

And I want to propose several. First, God had prodded Paul to see in a measure his errant thinking regarding himself and of the nature and ways of God, thereby stripping Paul of self-confidence and assurance that he had formally understood things rightly and had behaved righteously.

The Law of God Exposes Sin and Pride

I think Paul was not as confident before meeting the Lord Jesus on this road to Damascus than he had been at an earlier stage in his life. There had been things at work in Paul's life that I think were causing Paul probably to have question within himself even as he was still filled with hatred and anger toward Christ and to the people of Christ.

But the fact is there are some characteristics that are common to unconverted people that must be recognized, must be acknowledged and changed when they're converted to God through Jesus Christ. And one of these characteristics of an unconverted man is ignorance of his sinful pride.

That's got to go. You cannot be a Christian and be filled with this sinful pride that we're going to describe a little bit in the minutes. God's got to change that. Proverbs 14 16 reads, a wise man fears and departs from evil but a fool rages and is self-confident.

And if there was one thing that had characterized Paul, he had been self-confident that he was doing what was right in persecuting Christians and trying to extinguish the gospel. The sinner assumes he knows best how to govern his life even while presuming that God is pleased with the course that he's chosen for himself.

This is how people think. They think they're wise to know how to order their life. They presume that God must be in favor of it. After all, it's the best course. I see it clearly. And they are blind to their pride, their sinful pride.

For fallen man is a God unto himself. Though he does not think so or realize so, he'd probably deny it. But God must bring him down to the dust before he will look to Jesus Christ alone. And so one of the works of preparation that God does in the sinner to bring him to the place of conversion is he humbles man.

He takes away his props, his supports, things that he formerly assumed to be true, that he never questioned. God brings him to the place where he begins to question himself, how he's believed and how he's acted.

This is how the people of Judah were brought, were before God before his judgment came upon them. When God sent his armies, the armies of Babylon upon them, they were full of pride, self-confident, assured, presuming upon the fact that or the thought that they were in favor with God.

And so we read of this in Jeremiah 17, five and following. Thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in man. And those words in parentheses are from me, who trusts in man or trusts in himself. And makes his flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.

For he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness in a salt land which is not inhabited. Not much life there. In contrast, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord.

For he should be like a tree planted by the waters which spread out its roots by the river and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

Very similar to Psalm 1 isn't it? And then we have this well-known, frequently quoted verse from Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart.

I test the mind even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. These people were under the wrath of God, but they thought that they were people blessed of God. They had ordered their thinking and their lives according to their own opinions and values, but they were in error regarding their own thinking.

They were ignorant of God's ways. They presumed that their ways of thinking were in accordance with what God would have them think. Their fallen hearts had deceived them. The heart is deceitful above all things, and the idea of the heart being deceitful here is that the heart, fallen heart, causes you to think I'm okay.

I'm thinking rightly. I'm reasoning rightly. I'm making the right kind of decisions for my life, and God's going to be pleased with this. After all, he wants my happiness, and that's the way fallen man commonly thinks until God reveals otherwise to him.

Their fallen hearts had deceived them. God had said to them, obey my voice, but then God said, yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone, here it is, followed the dictates of his evil heart, and therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant.

And so in the preparation of God bringing a soul to salvation through Jesus Christ, to submit wholly unto Christ in all matters of faith and practice, God must show the sinner the error and folly of his own way of thinking.

He's got to unsettle him and reveal just how faulty that independent spirit is that has disregarded the Word of God. And so it's important in the preparation of grace for salvation, God brings a sinner to realize the folly of his own thinking.

He sees his own ignorance, and he says I must be guided by something outside of myself. Even the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God, this is what God does in preparation of bringing a person to salvation.

If you're going through life presuming that you can get along quite fine without the Scriptures instructing you and guiding you, you're fooling yourself. In fact, you are setting yourself up as the foolish man as depicted in many places in Scripture.

Because even as Christians, of course, we know that sin can deceive us, our own hearts can deceive us so easily. Sin has the ability to deceive us greater than our mind has the ability to guide us and correct us, and therefore we need something outside of ourselves.

We need the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures to guide us and instruct us and bring us back to the place where we should be. You neglect the Word of God, you're in trouble because your heart is deceitful above all things.

You're not going to know the right way to go. In fact, we can guarantee it, you're going to go the wrong way unless the Lord in his grace arrests you and sets you back on a right course. Remember the account of Pilgrim's Progress, how Christian early on in his pilgrimage to the Celestial City got deceived by Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and so he left the narrow path and he went off to, what was it, the Village of Civility or something like that, and went by this mountain and then there was thundering and voices and lightning and the mountain was about to fall upon him.

And basically this Mr. Worldly Wiseman was telling Christian that you can have peace through keeping the law, through legalism, and he about perished. If it weren't for evangelists coming to him once again and setting him back on the right course.

And that's what happens when we get away from the Word of God. Our hearts are deceitful above everything, and even the Christian is going to be deceived unless the Word of God is continually instructing us and guiding us.

If you are not in the Word of God seeking wisdom and grace, you're already in trouble. You just don't know it, but trouble's coming because it's the Word of God that is a lamp unto our feet that guides us in the right course we should go.

And in preparation to salvation, the Lord taught us that. Where we cease to trust in ourselves and rely on ourselves, but we looked outside of ourselves for the truth that is in the Word of God. The fact is, discovery of one's sinful condition is not an easy matter.

People are ignorant of their sinful condition and they're ignorant of God's true assessment of them. David Brainerd, the well-known young missionary to the Indians, who stopped by one day and stayed with Jonathan Edwards family for a prolonged period of time.

He had tuberculosis, I believe, and he died a diary published it, Journal of David Brainerd. And David Brainerd is buried in a cemetery right out here just east of Northampton, the downtown city there.

And David Brainerd had such a heart for bringing the gospel to Indians in Pennsylvania and also in New York area, I believe. But he wrote this about his effort and difficulty that he put forth in order to inform and humble people with respect to their sin.

Especially, I discoursed repeatedly on the nature and necessity of that humiliation, self-emptiness, or full conviction of a person's being utterly undone in himself, which is necessary in order to a saving faith.

In other words, he was preaching a lot in preparation, wasn't he? And the extreme difficulty of being brought to this and the great danger there is of persons taking up with some self-righteous appearances of it.

The danger of this I especially dwelt upon, being persuaded that multitudes perish in this hidden way. And because so little is said from most pulpits to discover any danger here, so that persons being never effectually brought to die in themselves are never truly united to Christ and so perish.

So the Apostle Paul himself described this work of God's grace in his soul, he quoted Isaiah 29 14, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom, this is God speaking, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

This is how he brings salvation to people. We can trust in our intelligence, our education, our experience, all of that is folly. And in order for Christ to save somebody, they've got to be emptied of all that.

And God says, I destroy the wisdom of the wise and I bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. And so if you're wise in your own eyes, beware. If you believe that you're capable of governing your own life by your own intelligence, experience, or reason, you're playing the fool.

And it'll show up one day, hopefully not too late. And so God needs to undeceive you, this is what he does. God will have to humble you before you will begin to look to him and his word alone to guide you in the manner in which you think and in the way you should go.

This is what God does, preparing people for salvation. And so it's of critical importance that people be humbled before God in order for people to come into a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

God declared this through his prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 57 15, look what it says closely, for thus says the high and lofty one, this is God speaking, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place.

And then he adds this, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Note here, God identifies himself as transcendent, infinite, and holy.

He dwells in heaven, a high and holy place. He's high and removed from the inhabitants of the earth. But notice he not only dwells in heaven, he says he dwells somewhere else also. He also dwells with the one who has a contrite and humble spirit.

And here when we see the word dwell, that verb dwell in heaven, speaks of God not only abiding in heaven, but the fact that he owns heaven and that he rules in heaven. And so the idea that he also dwells with the one or in the one with a contrite and humble spirit speaks of God both owning and ruling in and over the one who is a humble and submitted heart before him.

And so in order for the sinner to be made fit, one with whom God can dwell, God must humble him and move him to submit to his rule over him. And this is what God does in preparation for a person coming to salvation through Jesus Christ.

As Thomas Hooker wrote, there must be contrition and humiliation before the Lord comes to take possession. The house must be aired and fitted before it comes to be inhabited, swept by brokenness and emptiness of spirit before the Lord will come and set up his abode in it.

So it shall be spiritually the valley of consternation, perplexity of spirit, and brokenness of heart is the very gale and entrance of any sound hope and assured expectation of good. And if a person claims to be a but knows nothing of this brokenness and you know that in this just destruction of self-confidence, be warned and be on your guard.

Ask yourself whether a true work of grace has been done in your soul. And so in order for God to humble the sinner, preparing him as a dwelling place for himself, God must give a sinner a clear sight of his sin.

Before there will be humility in the sinner, there must be apprehension of the sin of the sin to the sinner. God the Holy Spirit must do this work and the primary means the Holy Spirit uses to give sinners a clear sight of their sin is God's holy law, always has been.

This has been God's primary instrument in revealing people their sin. I am not a dispensationalist, probably most of you know, and because I make that known because there's a lot of problems with the system.

And one of the problems of the system is that the law no longer has any use or validity in the world because that was back during the age of the law that ended with the cross of Jesus. And so there are many people that try and present a Christianity and a gospel to the world without even bringing up the law of God.

This is the very means God uses to reveal sin to people. Now there's the law and the gospel. The law reveals sin and God's condemnation of sin and the gospel reveals how to receive forgiveness of sins and new life in Jesus Christ.

The law and the gospel. The law is essential, it must be proclaimed and if it's not proclaimed you're going to have a tendency to see people not aware of their sin and sinfulness because this is a common way that God brings people to salvation.

The Apostle Paul described the role of the law of God in convincing him of his sin. Here's the proud Pharisee, he described, Paul described the ability of the law of God to condemn sinners resulting in their death.

We read in Romans 7 5, for when we were in the flesh the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. So the law of God was at work stirring up sin in Paul.

He was ignorant of sin but the law of God made him aware of it and speaking of God's laws having condemned people by causing them to bring forth fruit unto death and the law having prevented people from joining the cell to Jesus Christ and one might draw the wrong conclusion that there was something inherently defective even sinful about the law itself and Paul would not allow that of course to be considered or thought and so Paul next demonstrated that this would be a wrong conclusion for God had a use for his law and bringing people to faith in Christ and so we read in Romans 7 verses 7 through 12 what then shall we say that the law is sin?

Obviously not, by no means, yet if it had not been for the law I would not have known sin. So you cannot know sin unless you understand God's law that says thou shalt not. Paul says I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet but sin sees in an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness for apart from the law sin lies dead.

That is it's not apparent it's not recognized and it flourishes when the law comes forth because then you realize hey I've got lots of problems here I'm not dealing with can't deal with and so I was once alive apart from the law but when the commandment came that is came in its truth and realization sin came alive and I died that is he came to see that he was dead in sin and he needed salvation.

The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. Keep the law of God and you'll live. The scriptures say probably nobody keeps the law of God we're sinners and therefore that thing that promised life actually resulted in bringing death for sin.

Seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me and so the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. The law of God is a reflection of his holy character.

Do not think ill of the law of God think ill of the sinner that the law of God confronts and condemns. So Paul not only saw the law to be blameless to the charge but he stated that the law had served an indispensable role in revealing to Paul his sinfulness and his need of salvation and so Paul stated specifically that apart from the law he would not have known sin.

Now one of the effects of sin and sin by definition of course is any failure any transgression of God's law that by definition is sin but one of the effects of sin is that it renders a person unable to detect and identify the presence of sin that is in him.

Sin has a deadening effect or influence just like alcohol they say one of the first effects of alcohol is the person under the effects of alcohol doesn't think he's under the effects of alcohol that's what sin does.

Sin renders a sinner unable to see the gravity of the sin before God. When we sin we tend to minimize its evil and perhaps even deny its presence and so God has to teach us what it is we have done. He then needs to just about drag a confession from us for we will avoid facing the fact the fact of it or the guilt of it but God's law reveals to us that sin is sin and it also reveals to us the gravity the seriousness of the sin and so God's law teaches us what sin deserves before God, God who gave the law.

Paul had declared this earlier in the epistle for by works of the law no human being will be justified in a sight since through the law comes the knowledge of sin and so there's a necessity to preach and teach the law of God in evangelism.

People aren't going to know they're sinners unless the law of God is proclaimed clearly truthfully and fully and few people are proclaiming the law of God. This is essential however again Paul said it was through the knowledge comes or through the law knowledge of sin comes.

Paul himself would not have known his sinfulness had it not been for the law of God and so God had given his law so that we might know our own sinfulness in shortcomings and so the law is the chief means that God prepares people for the gospel.

The law can't transform anybody it only condemns people but it does reveal to people they need transformed. It does reveal to people they cannot transform themselves. It does bring the person if they follow the law of God rightly it'll bring them to the foot of the cross won't it?

For the outcome of the law the end of the law is Christ for righteousness for everyone who believes is what Paul wrote. Not end of the law that the law no longer is abiding or authoritative but the end or the destiny of the law follow the law and it'll bring you to Jesus Christ is what Paul declared.

The law is an essential matter in the proclamation of the Word of God and yet one of the effects is we don't see the wickedness of sin or the gravity of sin oh we can see it in others you know we can see we can see the splinter in another person's eye we're good at that aren't we?

We don't see the beam in our own eye do we? We tend not to anyway and so God has given his law for sinners to see their sin but not just to see their sin but again to see sin exceedingly sinful. We finish reading through Romans 7 12 but verse 13 reads this way, as then what is good become death to me that is the law certainly not but sin that it might appear sin was produced death and made through what is good the good being the law so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

People will not understand the exceeding sinfulness of their sin apart from the Holy Spirit using the law of God to teach them to instruct them and to reveal it to them. John Calvin said this, the import of the whole is that it was necessary for the atrocity of sin to be discovered by the law for except sin had burst forth into outrageous or as they say into enormous excess it would not have been acknowledged as sin and the more outrageous does its enormity appear when it converts life unto death and thus every excuse is taken away from it.

If you woke up tomorrow morning and you had boils breaking out all over your body and you know you'd be running to a doctor quickly wouldn't you. And when you know the law causes sin to break out we begin to see its enormity and its defiling nature.

You know you're not going to you're not going to flee to the pastor. You know he's not going to help. You know the Pope's not going to help you. Mary's not going to help you. You need Jesus Christ. He is the only one that can deal with this sin problem.

And the law directs people to Jesus Christ. Matthew Henry wrote of Romans 7 13 there's nothing about which the natural man is more blind than about original corruption concerning which the understanding is altogether in the dark till until the spirit by the law reveal it and make it known.

Thus the law is a schoolmaster quoting Paul in Galatians to bring us to Christ opens and searches the wound and so prepares it for healing. And thus sin by the commandment does appear sin it appears in its own colors appears to be what it is and you cannot call it by a worse name than its own.