WWUTT 1063 Saul of Tarsus Becomes a Christian?

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You know, our conversion stories are a lot like the Apostle Paul's. Now sure, we didn't see a bright light and hear a voice from heaven, but like Saul, we were once blind and now we see, when we understand the text.

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You're listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.

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Find videos and more at our website, www .utt .com. Now here's our host,

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. Sorry about being a little bit late with the lesson today.

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We're going to come back to Acts chapter 9, and as with yesterday, I'll read the story of Saul's conversion, verses 1 through 19.

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But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

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Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him,

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Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who are you,

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Lord? And the Lord replied, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what to do.

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The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one.

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Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.

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And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now there was a disciple at Damascus named

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Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, and he said,

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Here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, Rise and go to the street called

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Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying.

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And he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.

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But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem.

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And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.

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But the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine, to carry the name before the

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Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

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So Ananias departed and entered the house, and laying his hands on him he said,

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Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the

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Holy Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight.

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Then he rose and was baptized, and taking food he was strengthened. Picking up where we left off yesterday, that would put us at verse 7, so this is right after Jesus has told

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Saul to go into the city, and he would receive further instructions. Verse 7 says, The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, having heard the voice, but they saw no one.

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So the vision that Saul saw, that bright light that was shining in his eyes, that was meant specifically for him.

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It wasn't a light shining from heaven, but it was shining in his eyes. There's a reason for this, and we'll talk about that here in a moment.

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The voice, however, was the voice from heaven, and the other men who were with Saul, they heard that.

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They did not see the light, they did not see the presence of anyone, but they certainly heard this voice.

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Oftentimes there are a lot of those popular Bible stories will picture a certain way, and we probably picture fewer witnesses than there actually were.

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Do you know what I mean? So like back in Acts chapter 2, when we read about Pentecost, the

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Holy Spirit coming upon the apostles like a mighty rushing wind, and there were tongues of fire that settled upon each one of them.

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Often we picture that as being just those 12 apostles. Maybe Mary is there as well.

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I've seen some paintings that put Mary there also, but there were about 120 people in the upper room when this event had taken place, so it was witnessed by more than just 12 guys.

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The same with Jesus ascending into heaven. We talked about that as well when we were in Acts chapter 1.

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There was a multitude of people on that hillside when Jesus ascended back to the right hand of the

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Father. It wasn't just those 11, the 12th apostle had not yet been appointed. It wasn't just those 11 guys who were standing there that were watching this site.

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There were over 100 people even on that hillside, probably the same 120 people that were in the upper room at the time of Pentecost.

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Here at Saul's conversion, this is not just some subjective voice he heard or some light that he saw, but it was witnessed by others who were there.

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It wasn't that they saw the light, but they certainly heard the voice. There were others who were able to testify to this fact.

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There was a voice that was heard from heaven that said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, and then

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Saul was stricken blind after the voice spoke to him. We didn't see a light or anything else, but we certainly saw the voice.

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This is an event that has been testified to by others. It says, they heard the voice but saw no one.

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Verse 8, Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing.

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They led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus, and for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank.

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Here's the significance of this. The fact that it says in verse 8, his eyes were opened, but he saw nothing.

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What this is demonstrating is it's showing Saul's condition before the

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Lord appeared to him and spoke to him. His eyes were opened, but he couldn't see anything.

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He was blind. Saul was a brilliant man. He was a very educated man.

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I believe it was Jonathan Edwards that said that the Apostle Paul may have been one of the smartest men to ever walk the planet other than Jesus Christ himself,

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God incarnate. Saul had an incredible educational background. He was well -versed in the law.

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There's a possibility he pretty much well had the whole thing memorized. Jewish boys up to the age of 13 had the

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Pentateuch memorized, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Can you imagine that? Do you have even one book of the

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Bible memorized? And yet Jewish boys up to age 13 had the law memorized, the first five books of the

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Bible. Saul might have had all of it memorized, but he didn't get it. His eyes were opened.

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He had the law of God. He was among the Jewish people who Paul refers to in Romans 9 as being the first to receive the oracles of God.

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No, I'm sorry. That's Romans 3. But they have advantage in every way, being the first to receive the oracles of God.

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And Saul was certainly that way. He knew the law of God. He was among the people of God who had received the word of God.

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He knew it very, very well, probably better than anyone else in Israel at that time.

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And yet he was still blind. He did not know Jesus Christ, the son of God.

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He did not know that all the law and the prophets were pointing to Christ. And so what he was doing was persecuting people who were following the fulfillment of the law and the prophets that Saul himself did not recognize.

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His eyes were opened, but he was blind. And it says, they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

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And for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank. This is common to see that that three -day number appear in both the

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Old Testament and the New Testament. The likelihood here, though, is that Paul is being shown that he's dead in his sins and his transgressions.

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And so just as Christ was dead in a tomb for three days, so Paul was without sight.

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And he fasted and was without food or drink even for those three days.

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So that he might come to an understanding of Jesus Christ. He is becoming aware of his sin in the midst of this time and is mourning over the fact that he has been persecuting the

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Lord whom he thought he was defending. He had so much zeal for God's word that he was going to put to death anybody who was violating it, or at least he thought they were violating it, worshiping

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Christ rather than following the law, not recognizing that Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the law.

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And so he's kind of having a crisis here. Everything that he has believed and he has done and how zealously he has acted for the word of God has all of this been in vain.

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He was not actually serving God. He was against God. He was an enemy of God. But still with such reverence for the word of the

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Lord, Saul is examining that in his own self here for these three days, probably thinking on everything that he has learned and taught and in light of the things that he has done.

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And now the Lord has appeared to him and it is indeed Jesus Christ. Jesus is God. And so this is what he's mourning over for these three days.

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He's mourning over his sin. He is in a grave just as Christ was, but in a spiritual grave of sorts, desiring now at this point to be buried with Christ in his sins and transgressions and raised to new life.

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And this is what God is going to send Ananias to him for. Ananias is going to raise him up from his spiritual death.

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And of course, we know that it's the Holy Spirit that does that work. But the Lord works through people to accomplish his will to carry the gospel of Christ to those who have not heard.

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And that's what Ananias is going to come to Saul, bringing him the gospel.

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He is going to give him healing. He is going to restore his sight. He is going to give him eyes to see that previously could not see.

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So verse 10, now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. Of course, this is not the same

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Ananias as the story of Ananias and Sapphira. That guy is dead. Very common name here.

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So Ananias is the disciple that the Lord appears to and says in a vision,

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Ananias. And he said, here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called

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Straight. And at the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named

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Saul. For behold, he is praying and he has seen in a vision a man named

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Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.

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But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem.

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And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.

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Now it's of course, Ananias is not telling God something that God didn't already know.

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And surely Ananias has to know that. So it's not like he's arguing with God in the sense that it's like he's going,

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God, do you not know this guy? Are you sending me to go and witness to this guy, stand in front of this guy who's probably going to arrest me and take me back to Jerusalem?

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That's not what Ananias is conveying to the Lord here. He's not trying to educate

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God on something, but rather Ananias is more or less saying this to God because he's asking him a question.

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He's saying, am I going to be arrested here? Is that what's about to happen? And is that what you're asking your servant to go do?

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I really think that that's more behind what it is that Ananias is saying here rather than trying to tell God, hey,

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I'm not going to go lay my hands on this guy. Do you not know him? Have you not heard of this man?

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Do you not even know why he's here that he's going to be arresting Christians? That wasn't Ananias' response.

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But again, he says, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.

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And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.

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So Ananias is basically putting it before God as though to ask him, is this what you want your servant to do?

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Do you want me to go and be arrested for the sake of the gospel? And the Lord said to him, go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the

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Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

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Now this is the Lord telling Ananias not only what his intention is with Saul, which was very gracious of the

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Lord to say so to Ananias, but also to tell him not to fear. You have nothing to fear of this situation.

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I am in control. And then says to him, here is exactly what is going to happen. Saul is going to be the one to suffer.

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He is going to be the one that is going to suffer greatly for my name and not suffering as punishment.

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It's not, hey, because you've persecuted the church of Christ, I am therefore going to make you suffer by becoming an ambassador for the church of Christ.

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That wasn't the reason why the Lord did this. This was for Saul's sanctification, that Saul would even go through a time in his life where he's persecuting the church of God.

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And he is the only apostle to have done so, so that he might be sanctified and understand more so than anybody else that I am the chiefest of sinners.

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Christ came to save sinners of whom I am the foremost, as he wrote to Timothy. So all of this was for Saul's sanctification and also for the benefit of the church.

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For as the apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, I'm going to read all of this in second Corinthians one, starting in verse three, blessed be the

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God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

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For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too.

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If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

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Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

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So Saul's persecution, the persecution that he suffered, not the persecution that he inflicted, but in Saul's persecution, he became a comfort to the church.

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We are comforted by the words that the Lord had given to this man because we know what he endured and yet spoke words of comfort according to the gospel of Christ.

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So when we open up the pages of the New Testament, half of which was written by the apostle Paul, then we can be comforted by these words from a man who suffered so much for the sake of the gospel.

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You and I will likely not suffer as Paul did. We will certainly not go through some of the things that he did in the sense that he also even kind of died and went and saw heaven and then came back again to speak of it, but not speak of it.

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We read about that in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, a man who was nearly stoned to death, who was given the lashes, who was in several shipwrecks, was bitten by a poisonous snake and yet shook the snake off into the fire and survived without anything.

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All this stuff we won't have to go through. Saul went through that. The apostle Paul went through that.

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The Lord put him through that. He is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the

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Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

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And the Lord saying he is a chosen instrument of mine. The apostle Paul wrote to the

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Galatians in Galatians 1 15 when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the

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Gentiles. I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

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We'll talk about that second part of that passage a little bit later on as we go through the story of the apostle

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Paul here. But note that he said to the Galatians in Galatians 1 15 God set me apart before I was born and called me by his grace.

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The Lord had appointed Paul to this task from the foundation of the world.

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It wasn't a momentary idea that God had. Hey, this guy who's been persecuting the church,

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I'm going to appear to him and see what's going to happen. We'll see if I can't change his mind here a little bit.

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Why would the Lord just do that with Paul? Why not do that with everybody else if that was the Lord's intention?

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But God had chosen Paul before time began to be a persecutor of the church and then be an apostle to the church and this for the sake of his glorious grace.

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He called me by his grace and was pleased to reveal his son to me.

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The Lord pleased himself to reveal the son of God to Paul and pleased

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Paul to see it as well for it was his salvation. So again coming to verse 15,

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I'll read this again and then go on Acts 9 15. But the Lord said to him go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the

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Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

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So Ananias departed and entered the house and laying his hands on him he said brother

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Saul here Ananias is already calling him brother because the Lord has said to him he is my instrument and Ananias with faith in the words of God obeyed the

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Lord and called Saul a brother and said the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the

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Holy Spirit Saul has been mourning over his sin the Holy Spirit is not yet come upon him until this moment and immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight then he rose and was baptized and taking food he was strengthened the food that he took of course was physical food because he had been fasting for three days but at the same time he's also receiving the food of the

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Word of God in a new way in light of the revelation of Jesus Christ whom he did not previously know when he had studied the

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Word of God so now the Word of God was much more food to him having been written upon his heart before it was just something external it was something outside but now the words of God have been written on his heart and my brothers and sisters in the

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Lord when you and I come to Christ we come to know him in this same way that Saul came to know

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Jesus we were once blind and now we see we were once weak and nothing and now we are strengthened and fed by the

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Word of God which has been written on our hearts we had scales on our eyes our hearts were hardened against God but now we have seen a great light our

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Lord Jesus Christ the scales have been lifted and we see him according to who he says he is by the

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Word of God what we read about in the scriptures and in the Bible we have come to this salvation the same way all of this being the gracious work of God it was it pleased him to reveal his son to us by his grace and he chose us before the foundation of the world

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Romans 5 8 God demonstrated his love for us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and 1st

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John 4 10 in this is love not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins let us pray

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Heavenly Father we thank you for this day and we thank you for another day that we rejoice in our salvation in the

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Lord Jesus Christ thank you for choosing us for in our sin and in our wickedness we we had no ability to choose

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God for our heart was hardened against God it is you by your grace who softened our hearts and drew us to you the

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Apostle Paul knew the entire Old Testament practically had it memorized Saul did before he became an apostle and even he with this knowledge did not come to a saving faith in Christ until you appeared to him and showed yourself to him and so Lord we we thank you for revealing yourself to us according to your word it could not have been by our ability that we attain salvation but by the work of God alone so grow us in this in our knowledge and understanding of this day by day and give us a boldness to share it with others may we not be intimidated even though there are people who are going to hate us for this but but give us strength and courage to be servants of Christ in this day and age so that others may come to the knowledge of your son and live we pray all of these things in Jesus name

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Amen you can find a complete list of videos books devotionals and other resources online at www .t