Midweek Review #17 (Acts 9:1-31)

Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the

Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Does that mean once Paul stopped disputing, things were peaceful because he wasn't so aggressive, he wasn't stirring up the hornet's nest?

No, actually this refers back to the conversion of Saul. Chapter nine, verse one, you no longer have a man breathing out murderous threats and trying to imprison everybody.

Why? Because the persecutor was converted. And so now there's peace.

Now they can live freely. Now they can preach openly. Paul back to Tarsus, and so the gospel is being multiplied.

My closing thought, have you been converted? Are you like Ferdinand Waldo de

Mera? And you go through the motions and you do the things that Christians do, but you've never been illuminated and you've never repented.

If that's you, cry out in your own heart for mercy. Say, Lord, illuminate my eyes that I can behold the light of the gospel of the glory of God that is in the face of Christ.

Let me see who this Jesus really is. Open my eyes, Lord, I can't see. Because unless you behold his glory, unless you see the son of God, you can never stand before the father.

If you're not sure that you can value him above yourself, if you're not sure that you love him, if your eyes have not been opened, you need to be crying out for mercy, saying,

Lord, open my eyes. If you haven't repented, turn into the light.

You'll find him to be merciful. You'll find him to be forgiving. It also speaks to us that as Christians.