Acts 9:23-31: Hunting the Hunter

This week, as I was studying this, and actually, true confessions, you know, last night I just thought, man, I should, I should change the title of this, because I just kept thinking over and over and over again about the hymn Amazing Grace, and we're not even singing it this morning.

What's wrong with me?

Sorry.

But I did look it up online, and I found some amazing facts, amazing and true facts about the song Amazing Grace, which was written 251 and a half years ago, so it seemed very appropriate for me to bring it up this morning.

Don't ask why. It was written in Olney, England. That's where they first sang this song, written, of course, by Jonathan, by Jonathan Newton.

No, by John Newton.

Our very own Jonathan Newton, 251 and a half. It didn't become popular right away. Gradually spread among the churches of denominations in America, and became a revival song on the Western front, the Western frontier, and in African spiritual and black churches, and a standard in 20th century hymn books.

Crossed over into the commercial marketplace. Was actually recorded by Mahalia Jackson in 1947, and Judy Collins in 1970. She's looked at love from both sides now, and now she sings Amazing Grace. Don't ask me why, but.

Now here are some things you don't know about the song. There are more than 3 ,000 recordings of it in the Library of Congress. One of the verses was stolen and used, it was plagiarized, used in another song.

We like to hear it played on bagpipes. You know when that became popular? Way back in 1972. I mean, it seems like an ancient tradition, nope, 1972. How about this? The original title, this is really catchy.

This will grab you. Faiths Review and Expectation, instead of Amazing Grace. Don't ask me how that fits, but that's what it was. Amazing fact number five, we don't know the original tune. In other words, we don't know the music.

It was put on another song. And as I mentioned earlier, Amazing Grace became an African American spiritual, and I thought, well, that's interesting because it was written by a man who was a slave trader.

Image bearers being bought and sold like cattle. And they would sing this song written by a man who used to engage in that and then got saved and repented, was sorrowful for the rest of his days about it.

Interesting how the Lord worked that out. The title itself, Amazing Grace, is a paraphrase drawn from First Chronicles 17, 16, and 17. The final amazing truth is that this song John Newton wrote was a spiritual discipline.

For him.

He had a regular practice of self-examination, and he would pause at key moments in this song to consider his sins and God's mercies in the past, to make his confession, receive forgiveness in the present, and to dedicate himself to God's will for the future.

He wrote in his diary on the 1st of January, 1773, I am now in the 49th year of my age and may expect in the course of a few years, at most, to go to wince. I shall return no more. May thy grace keep me always waiting till my appointed change shall come.

And then he would continue in prayer until his appointed change, meaning death. Keep me until I die. Well, let's go to our text, which is in Acts chapter 9. And by the way, I took that from a website called the gospelcoalition .org.

I just don't want to be, you know, as I'm laying out people who commit plagiarism, I don't want to plagiarize myself. Acts chapter 9, and I'm going to read verses 23 to 31. Acts 29, verses 23 to 31. When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him.

But their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. But his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

So the church throughout all Judea and 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.

A lot to cover.

We're going to go through a lot of the Bible area here. Just by way of review, just talking about the book of Acts written by Luke the physician. Pastor Mike's going through the Gospel of Luke. I'm going through the book of Acts, Acts of the Apostles, Acts of the Holy Spirit.

But it's his second book, and the purpose of this book is to show how the triune God worked through the apostles to build the church of Jesus Christ, to fulfill the command of the Lord himself in Acts chapter 1 verse 8.

This is before his ascension. He told his disciples, you will be my disciples in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Now last week we saw how Jesus completed the transformation of the life of Saul, turning him from the most well-known enemy of the gospel into an evangelist.

He persecuted the church. He put Christians to death. He ravaged the church. But God turned him into an evangelist, which is to say a proclaimer of the truth, a proclaimer of the gospel, a proclaimer of Jesus Christ himself.

Saul once stood holding the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen for blasphemy. And after encountering the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus, Saul would declare, himself declare, Jesus to be the son of God, just like Stephen did.

If you recall back in Acts chapter 7 verses 55 and 56, but he, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand.

Of God.

And he said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand.

Of God.

That was his confession right as he was being put to death. Now, our confession, talking about Jesus in particular, our confession, the London Baptist Confession of Faith, says this, the son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity being very and eternal God, which is so important.

I was even talking to a few Mormons online a week ago, and they want to say that they believe what we believe, but they believe that Jesus had a starting point, that he came into existence as a spirit being.

But our confession in the Bible says that he is eternal God. The brightness of the Father's glory, of one's substance, and listen, and equal with him, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, one person with two natures, the only mediator between God and man.

And if you recall, when I read Acts 9 .22 last week from the New English Translation, I just enjoyed that because the way they translated this. But Saul became more and more capable, that is to say, skilled in presenting the gospel.

He knew the scriptures, he knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards, but he became more capable and was causing consternation among the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.

He's using the Old Testament, proving that Jesus is the Messiah, and he's making them very, very angry. Now, this morning, we will see four stages of the suffering that Jesus said he would go through, four stages of suffering, four Ps, preparation, plot, plot number one, actually, plot number two, and peace.

Everywhere Paul goes or Saul goes, there's a plot to put him to death. I want to talk about suffering. How do we know that anyone gets saved? How do we, you know, somebody makes a profession of faith.

How do you know that person's saved? Pastor Mykoffen says what? Keep believing, but he also says somebody will exhibit their fruit and will know by time and trials. And this morning, we're going to see Paul's faith exhibited through time and trials.

I think if Paul were to write it, he could say that God works all things together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose for good and for the glory of God. Okay, so first, Saul's preparation, the first P, preparation.

Look at verse 23, just the beginning part of it, and it says, when many days had passed. In verse 19, Luke writes some days. Here he writes many days. Can you guess what the difference is between some days and many days?

Doesn't take a mathematician to sort that one out. Some days are fewer than many days. Some days probably isn't very long at all. Could be four or five days, could be a couple weeks, could be a month, but it's not long, a long period of time.

But many days, it's much longer. How do we know that? How do I know how long many days might be? Because Paul writes about it in Galatians chapter 8, by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the 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 away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. So there's a period of time here that Luke leaves out entirely.

Why did Luke leave it out? Because it's not germane to his story, so he just gives us the quick many days had passed. But there's a lot going on in these many days. What can we learn here from Galatians 1?

We know that Paul didn't go to seminary. No master's seminary, no southern seminary, none of that. He didn't get discipled by the apostles. He went to Arabia, that is to say, out in the desert, then back to Damascus.

Why would anybody go to Arabia? Scholar J .V. Fesco writes this, he says,. The scholars have speculated for centuries as to what Paul did in Arabia and Damascus for those three years. Spoiler alert, it's three years, which I'll explain in a minute.

Some think he went away to contemplate the revelation of Christ that he had seen, others that he was personally instructed by Christ in the wilderness. We will never really know what happened, but we should not let our curiosity concerning these three years obscure the point.

Paul is emphatic. His commission was directly from Christ, not in any way from man, not even other apostles. In fact, Luther said, we don't know exactly what he was doing in the desert, but we know one thing he was doing out there, preaching the gospel.

And I go, well, okay, if we don't know what he was doing, how do we know he was doing.

That?

Because that's what he reflexively does. So Saul had spent some days in Damascus and many days in Arabia. He returned to Damascus and continued proclaiming that Jesus was the son of God, the long promised Messiah, proving him to be the son of God from the old Testament.

And really what is that? You know, if somebody is going to prove to you that Jesus is the son of God, what are.

They doing?

They are preaching the gospel to you because the gospel consists of two things. People want to give a lot of commands when they give the gospel. You need to do this. You need to do that. You need to believe this.

You need to, you need to, you need to. Okay. But what's the gospel? The gospel is who Jesus is, which is to say he's the son of God. But there's a lot even implied in that. What do you mean that he's the son of God?

I mean that he's eternally the son of God, that he's eternally begotten of the father. There's never a time that he didn't exist. So if you're giving the gospel to somebody, you have to tell them who Jesus is and then what he did.

What about repentance? What about praying a prayer? What about filling out a card? What about, what about, what about? If somebody believes, you won't have to follow up with anything else. I mean, you, you'll want to engage them in further conversation.

But when somebody believes the gospel, you don't have to focus on these other things. They believe, they want, they want to follow, they want to learn more. Anyway, that's point number one, Saul's preparation or first piece.

Second one, the first plot against Saul or plot against Saul number one, because it sounds kind of, I don't know, like a plot device or something in a movie, right? This is plot against Saul number one.

There's a search for him. Look at verse 23 again. When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. Again, this is in Damascus, but their plot became known to Saul. So he's gone out into the desert.

He's come back to Damascus, continue to preach. They want to put him to death and the plot becomes known to Saul. Now again, if you remember how we're introduced to Saul in Acts chapter eight and Saul approved of his execution, Stephen's execution, and there arose on that day, a great persecution against the church.

The death of Stephen kicks off this massive rage against the church. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles, which later leads to what? Churches in all these different areas around.

Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. Verse three of chapter eight. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

This is Saul, Saul, the ravager, Saul, the persecutor, Saul, the arrestor. He was relentless. He was remorseless. He hated the church. He hated Christ. Saul approved of Stephen's execution by a mob. And now this mob in Damascus wants Saul put to death.

But it's not Saul's time to die. He learns of the plot. We don't know how. And nobody is going to put him to death just yet. The unconverted Jews of Tarsus, those to whom he was preaching and they were rejecting the message, wanted him put to death.

Look again at verse 24, the second half of it. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. We'll keep him inside the town. We won't let him get out. We'll watch the gates day and night, take shifts, take turns watching the gates.

Again, Paul later on gives a slightly different account. This is second Corinthians chapter 11, verse 33. At Damascus, okay, this is the same setting, same city, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me.

So which is correct? Was it the governor? Was it the Jews there in the town? Both. In fact, this really helps us nail a few things down. One is the timeline. Since Aretas dies in 40 AD thereabouts, and we know this has to come before that, we're talking about this probably took place somewhere around 37 AD or something, which is remarkable.

When you think about it, it seems like maybe a long time since the crucifixion. Not that long, you know, somewhere between four and seven years after the crucifixion. So the king, this Aretas, had taken possession of Damascus from the Roman Empire sometime while Saul's out there in the desert.

Whether Saul made some enemies in the desert in the Nabataean kingdom, or whether the Jews convinced the governor of Damascus that Saul was a troublemaker, we don't know. What we do know is that the local government and the Jews that were angry with him were searching for Saul, watching for him, waiting for him to try to get out of the city so they could have him executed.

They're watching, the text would tell us, with great intensity, like kids playing a.

Video game.

Try to interrupt them while they're doing that. These people are focused. They're looking for anything out of the ordinary, day or night. But Saul escapes with a little help from his friends. Look at verse 25.

But his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. I mean, this is the stuff of great nail-biting moving scenes. This is something like a Mission Impossible.

I don't really think Paul probably looked like Tom Cruise, but just imagine for a moment, it's completely dark. There's no electricity. There might be some torches, but nothing to really speak of. It's quiet.

If you can imagine, just picture a world without the internet. I mean, I know it's hard. No streaming video. It would make noise. It would be easily detected and stopped. But Saul has some disciples, which is to say, I mean, this is amazing if we think about it, because he's there for a short period of time in Damascus.

He goes out into the desert. He's there for a good period of time. Then he comes back in for not too long. But he has disciples. That is to say, followers, people who have come to Christ because of his preaching.

And they hatch an escape plan. I mean, certainly we would think that they would probably want to try this out a time.

Or two.

You wouldn't want to just, you know, see if it would work on the fly. A couple of trial runs, maybe, you know, lower a dog, see if they come, you know, chase the basket down. But it goes off without a hitch, and Saul is able to flee Damascus to get out of town ahead of the mob.

So that's Saul's preparation, then the plot against Saul number one, and now the plot against Saul number two. Now if it were me, if I were leaving Damascus when people were trying to kill me there in Damascus, I think I would probably think, okay, where's a safe place to go?

I'd probably go to my hometown, Tarsus, right? He doesn't do that. Instead, he goes to where he's known as the ravager of the church, the persecutor of the.

Church.

He goes to Jerusalem. Look, verse 26, and when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. Maybe Saul thought, hey, they would have forgotten me by now.

Maybe he got a little disguise, a suntan while he was out in the desert or whatever. You know, my brother's here this morning, and he was regaling me with this little story from our teen years when he went to Catalina Island for the summer and came back home, and he'd gotten so much sun that when he knocked on the door to get let in, he was so dark and his hair was so blonde, I slammed the door in his face.

I had no idea who it was. And so then he actually goes, knock it off, let me in. And I'm like, oh, I recognize that voice. The face, I didn't know at all. So maybe, maybe Saul's looking for something like that.

Maybe one of those Mission Impossible masks.

I don't know.

Okay.

Maybe he thought, and this is more reasonable than all that silliness. Maybe he thought that once they heard his testimony, once they heard how the Lord had appeared to him, maybe he could tell them, look, I know I was wrong and I don't expect you guys to trust me, but this is what happened and I'm just here to repent and to have fellowship.

But if that's what he thought, he was wrong again. Again, the text would tell us here in verse 26, that he repeatedly tried to have fellowship with the believers and they all repeatedly rejected him. And the reason's plain.

They were afraid.

He had a reputation, but had the church in Jerusalem not heard about his conversion? Again to Galatians 1, Paul helps us. Verses 22 and 23. This is after his time in Arabia and he writes this, Galatians 1, 22 and 23.

And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said that he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. So the rumors may have reached some, but no one is willing to trust him.

No one is willing to reach out and say, let's give a brother Saul a chance here. Simon Kistemacher wrote this, he says, because Paul spent more time in the Arabian desert than in Damascus itself, the news concerning him has been indefinite, sketchy, and perhaps untrustworthy.

People hear these vague rumors, they're not going for it. Daryl Bach wrote this, he said, if Paul did disappear from Jerusalem site for three years, might not some Christians have been suspicious when he did show up?

I'm your long lost friend, Saul. No, well, no, you're not. So the picture for Saul is this. The church wants nothing to do with him. And in Jerusalem, he was one of the more well known scholars and well known persecutors of the church.

He was a defender of Judaism, zealous for the faith. He wrote about it himself, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was one whom the Sanhedrin, well, he would agree with the Sanhedrin who declared Jesus to be a false Messiah.

But now, now it would be known that he had betrayed the Jewish leadership, even making Christian converts of some Jews in Damascus. And maybe even in the desert of Arabia, even though it's not said there, there may have been some there.

There is biblical evidence that he had connections in Jerusalem. In fact, his sister and nephew probably lived in Jerusalem. We see that in Acts 23, 16. But Saul needed help. He needed fellowship. Kistamarcha writes this, Paul stands alone between two religious bodies, Judaism and Christianity for neither accepts him.

He was essentially a man without a religion. But thankfully, God sent a man to help. That man's name is Barnabas. And everyone needs a friend like Barnabas. Look at verse 27. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he, meaning Saul, had seen the Lord who spoke to him and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

Barnabas, as we know, means son of encouragement. But what moved him to be so bold to stand up for Saul? And the answer is, we don't know. But if we think about this book being the Acts of the Apostles or the Acts of the Holy Spirit, I think it's reasonable to think that the Holy Spirit so worked in Barnabas that his heart softened towards Saul, that he listened to Saul.

I mean, where else would he get this whole story? And he puts his own reputation on the line for this repentant murderer and blasphemer. Luke says, Barnabas described Saul as preaching, that word there, preached boldly can mean that he preached freely or fearlessly.

When you have no regard for your own life because you know where you're going afterward, you can preach fearlessly. Because what's the worst thing that can happen? They put you to death. Luke told Barnabas or told us that Barnabas went to bat before the apostles.

Says that in verse 27, brought him to the apostles. However, Paul, again, apparent contradiction, which we're going to reconcile here in Galatians 1 verses 18 and 19, Paul wrote this, then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him 15 days.

But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. Now immediately you should be thinking to yourself, well, James is or is not an apostle. He's not. So what does this mean? Barnabas took, brought him to the apostles.

Paul says, I only saw Cephas Peter, okay, and James, the Lord's brother. Well, who else is James or what other office does he hold? He's the leader of the church in Jerusalem. So you put together James, the Lord's half-brother, the leader of the church in Jerusalem.

Peter, the one whom Jesus said, designated basically, I'll say, to be the leader of the church universal, leader of the apostles. So what do you get? You have the representatives of the apostles. Let's put it this way.

If somebody goes to Scott Brown, Pradeep Tilak, and convinces them that he or she is a believer, you could say that he or she convinced the elders.

Why?

Because Pastor Mike and I, and whichever one of them didn't hear it, are going to read the testimony of the other elder and we're going to go, we believe that. The elders are fine with that. And it's in that same way that Barnabas takes Saul before the apostles.

Because the apostles, Peter and James, the brother of Jesus, half-brother of Jesus, they hear Saul's testimony and they go, you know what? We believe this guy. And because those two are men of great, let's just say, theological acumen, they listen, they believe, and the other apostles then trust.

Let's talk about this three years for a moment. Three years sounds like a really long time. And it could have been three entire years. But just like with the resurrection, where three days means what?

Jesus is crucified on Friday, not late in the day, but a little bit later in the day, not early morning and not at midnight. He spends all day Saturday in the tomb. But they go, the women, go to the tomb early on Sunday morning and what happens?

Not there. But by Jewish reckoning, that's three days. Part of Friday, all of Saturday, part of Sunday, three days. In the same way, we don't know exactly how long three years is here, but it could be as little as one plus.

It could be like, say, from Thanksgiving to the end of the year on one end, then an entire year, and then maybe a month on the other end. So it could be 14, 15 months, but it would count as three years by Jewish reckoning.

That accounts for the time in Damascus and Arabia. And we're told that he spends 15 days with Cephas, with Peter. So if Barnabas is able, and he does, to convince them, then that would be it. The church, the 12 apostles, would be satisfied that Saul is a believer.

And look at the result. Fellowship, fellowship, and something that always attends fellowship for Saul, preaching. Verse 28, So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.

Again, preaching boldly, preaching freely. What a glorious reversal again. What amazing grace again. Saul has fellowship with those he once persecuted. And he preaches the gospel in the very city where he surely rejoiced when the Lord was crucified.

But it gets even better. Look at verse 29. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. Now, who are the Hellenists? They're the Greek-speaking Jews who live in Jerusalem. What's the significance of that?

Well, these are exactly the same people that Stephen was preaching to when he was martyred. Saul has essentially filled the pulpit that he emptied. He helped put Stephen to death, and now he's preaching essentially in the place of Stephen.

Full circle.

There are no coincidences in God's plan. But this is an amazing providence. Saul has changed, but the Hellenists have not. The second half of 29. But they, the Hellenists, were seeking to kill him. Again, Luke is accurate, but he tends to gloss over some details that don't really help his story.

And you can't really blame him.

If you just think about what writing's like back then, it's not like they had endless sheafs of paper and could just do whatever they wanted. They certainly didn't have the internet, which is a blessing.

But how do we know that the Hellenists wanted to kill Saul? Saul tells us, Paul tells us, in Acts 22. Acts 22, verse 17. When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him, which we'll see in a second is the Lord, saw him saying to me, make haste, excuse me, and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.

He's not talking about the believers again. He's talking about the Hellenists. You want to convert them and I don't blame you. This is a good thing. It's a good motive you have. But they're going to kill you.

And I said, verse 19, and I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another, I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. His defense, what he's trying to say is, Lord, these guys wouldn't put me to death.

After all, they know what I was like. And when the blood of Stephen, your witness, was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.

Look, I'm one of them.

They'll listen to me. Verse 21,. And he, Jesus, said to him, said to me, go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. So now his mission was made plain to him. He was to be the apostle to the Gentiles.

Jesus tells Saul to leave quickly. Then we have Saul, again, escaping with a little help from his friends.

Look at verse 30.

And when the brothers learned this, when his fellow Christians in Jerusalem learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. Well, it wouldn't take much for us to sort out how the brothers found out.

Saul certainly told them. And they help him, the brothers do, evade the Hellenists. And they send him to his birthplace, Tarsus, via Caesarea. In a few weeks, they've gone from fearing Saul to risking their own safety for him.

Saul will remain in the region near Tarsus for many years. Again, when we read Acts, we don't have a really good sense of time. It's only by comparing other things that are happening that we can sort it out.

But he's going to stay in that basic region for many years. In fact, he would later write in Galatians 1, 21,. Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. So it's the area right around Tarsus. And it's safe to presume he was evangelizing during this time, as he and Silas later are sent to strengthen churches there.

So we've seen Saul's preparation. The first plot against Saul. The second plot against Saul. And now peace in verse 31. And this is really a summary statement by Luke. He's letting us know that he's kind of ending this chapter, this saga.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied, it grew. Now, historically speaking, without going into all the details, there were a number of leaders in this region who get replaced.

Governments change, people get removed and sacked and whatnot. And these changes caused the Jews who were bent on persecuting the church to desist. And this provided the churches throughout Israel and Samaria rest from outside forces, rest from persecution.

And the churches grew or multiplied by the ordinary means of grace. Preaching, teaching, the Lord's table, baptism, and evangelism. Again, this is the closing of the conversion of Saul. If we think about it, it started what?