God Saves a Terrorist

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 9.
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Acts chapter 9, and hold your place there at verse 1.
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There are very few subjects which have gripped our world's attention and increased anxieties over the past two decades than the subject of terrorism.
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All of us have lived with the threat of terrorism, knowing after 9-11 that the threat became more visible, became increasingly severe, the dangers of course rose.
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Most of us remember that day very well who were alive to see it.
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And in the past few years we have recognized that specifically religious terrorism has been on the rise, it seems, with attention being given to those who would seek to try to destroy the church.
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Predominantly Muslim lands, being a Christian can be a threat to safety, it can be a threat to one's security, to livelihood, and even to one's own life.
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And it's easy for us to get caught up in the idea that this is a relatively new thing, it's something, we tend to become very myopic, especially historically, Americans are very bad at understanding history, our nation is only 200 years old, you go over to Europe there's houses that are older than our whole country, you know, so we have a very myopic view of history, a very myopic view of the way things work, and we see terrorism, we see these guys that are killing Christians, and we tend to start thinking, well that's just now happening.
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And we forget that the church has dealt with terrorism on one level or another throughout its history, from the very inception, from the very moment that the apostles began to preach the risen Jesus Christ, they were under sanction from the Sanhedrin, that was the leadership of the Jews, they were under sanction, you can talk, don't preach in this name, don't preach about Jesus, sort of like the modern person who says you can pray, just don't pray in Jesus' name, that was sort of the, they were saying, just don't talk about Him.
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And after they didn't obey the sanctions, next came the persecution, and of course the first persecution was very heavy, it was the killing of Stephen, that was the first severe persecution which was brought down in the church, and we see the death of Stephen, and what did it say happened when Stephen was being stoned? It said those who were stoning him removed their outer garment, and they laid them down at the feet of a young man named Saul.
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You see Saul, from that moment in church history, is identified as a ringleader among those who would be considered, in our day we would consider religious terrorists, what is a religious terrorist? A person who believes that they're doing God's work by killing, imprisoning, or sanctioning others on behalf of their God, that's how we would define a religious terrorist in our day, and that's what these people were doing, they were terrorizing the early church under the leadership of Saul of Tarsus.
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Now we know, we look back, and it's easy for us to look back with an anachronistic view, we look back and we know Paul's going to become a great missionary, in fact Paul's going to become one who would be considered to be one of the greatest Christians in the history of the church, and yet, we must never forget that he started, his story in scripture starts, not as a saint, but in every way, as one that we would identify as a terrorist, and while you might think I'm being a little over-reaching in my language, I don't think I am, and we'll read the text and we'll learn together.
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So let's stand, Acts chapter 9, we stand to give honor to God's word, we're going to read verses 1-19, the whole story of Saul's conversion.
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Now you'll, one thing I will do is I will jump back from saying Saul to Paul, I apologize now, because he's been the apostle Paul for so many years it's hard to do the back and forth, and we'll talk about why that is in a minute.
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But Saul, verse 1, 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 flashed around him, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, but rise and enter the city and you will be told what you are 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.
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So they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus, and for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
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Verse 10, Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, and he said, Here I am, Lord.
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And the Lord said to him, Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas, look for a man named, or a man of Tarsus named Saul.
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For behold, he is praying, and he has seen a vision.
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In a vision, a man named Ananias come to him and lay 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 all 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 my name before the 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 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 Holy Spirit.
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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.
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Father God, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth of the word.
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I thank you for the conversion of Paul, which is to us a beautiful picture of sovereign grace.
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I pray that you would, Lord, keep me from error as I seek to preach your word and open the hearts of your people to the truth.
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And Lord God, use this time to convict us all to draw closer to you through your son, Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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Amen.
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I think it's pretty safe to say that outside of Jesus Christ, there is really not a more important person in the New Testament than the Apostle Paul.
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That might be kind of some might argue and say, well, what about the other apostles? What about Peter? But if you think about the ministry of the Apostle Paul and the expanse of the ministry of the Apostle Paul, it's really hard.
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You can't over exaggerate the importance that this man had.
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He was used of God to take the gospel first to the Jews and then out to the Gentiles.
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He would become known as the apostle to the Gentiles.
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He's responsible for writing the majority of the books in the New Testament.
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So we know that he had a very important place in the New Testament church.
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And this is even more interesting when we begin to study his history, recognizing from whence he came.
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Some have wondered, and we mentioned this earlier, why at times he's called Saul and at other times he's called Paul and understanding his history somewhat under it helps us kind of understand why this is.
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Saul is his Hebrew name, likely named after King Saul, the great king in Hebrew history, even though we would say maybe not so great a king because he did have some problems, but yet was known as Israel's first king.
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So Saul likely bore his namesake.
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And then Paul was his Roman name.
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Remember, he was also a Roman citizen.
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So he had this surname, this additional name, Paul, which incidentally, Paulos means short.
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So it could have been that it was a nickname of sorts.
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Maybe he was a man of small stature and this was his nickname.
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But either way, this was the reason for this name.
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And Alexander McLaren, in his exposition of Acts, gives us three reasons why Paul and Saul, the names are interchangeable.
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And he says why we we first hear about Saul and later it's more Paul.
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He said this is probably the reasons why.
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He says, one, in taking a new nature, Saul likely took a new name.
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You know, when he became a Christian, he left his roots as a Jew and absorbed and became a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ.
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You might say, well, he was still a Jew.
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Yes, he was still a Jew.
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But you'll see later in Acts and in other parts of the New Testament where the apostle Paul makes it clear that he is saved not because he's a Jew.
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He's saved not because he's circumcised.
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In fact, he's saved in spite of all that.
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He's saved through Jesus Christ.
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And so in this new name, there's the distinction of the new nature, McLaren points out.
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Also, we see that Saul's new name marks his new mission because Saul would be known as what? The apostle to the Gentiles.
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And so his Roman name more fit his calling that God had given to him, that he's going to go out from the Jews and into the Gentile world.
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And he takes then his Gentile name to be the reason or the calling, the moniker by which he would go.
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And finally, this was an interesting thought that McLaren brought out.
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And I thought I'd mentioned it to you, that his name memorializes the victory of the gospel because his first convert in Acts 13, Sergius Paulus named Paul.
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So could it be that he wanted to hold that title of the first man that we see? We don't know that it was his first convert, but at least the first man that we see, the apostle Paul bringing to faith.
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So as I said earlier, I'm going to call him Saul at times, I'm going to call him Paul at times, but know that both names represent the same individual.
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But in Scripture, Saul is more specific to his pre converted condition and Paul to his converted condition.
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Saul's life leading up to his conversion should be understood.
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We need to know at least a little bit about him to understand the history of the text that we're that we're studying.
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He was born in Tarsus of Sicilia.
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He was born to Jewish parents.
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His father was a Pharisee, a Roman citizen, and he himself was a Roman citizen by birth.
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He'll use that later to get himself out of some trouble with the Romans.
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He'll use his his birthright to get himself out of a beating and out of imprisonment.
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He learned the trade of tent making.
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He was brought to Jerusalem as a young man.
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He was thoroughly indoctrinated in Jewish theology, and he sat at the feet of the professor Gamaliel, who was the great leader and teacher in the Sanhedrin.
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Saul was zealous for his faith, and this faith did not allow for compromise.
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He was not only a Pharisee, but he called him so.
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He was a Pharisee of Pharisees.
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He was a Hebrew of Hebrews.
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He believed what he was doing and he believed in what he was doing.
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He was committed to it.
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And it was this zeal that led him down the path of religious extremism.
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Because that's what he became, he became an extremist, a terrorist, one who not only was satisfied in what he believed, but was unsatisfied that anyone would believe anything different, so much to the point that he was willing to imprison and even preside over the deaths of those who were willing to reject what he believed.
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And that's what brings us to chapter nine.
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It says in verse one, and we're just going to read the text and they give now an exposition of the text.
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It says in verse one, it says, But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest.
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Now, it's an interesting Greek construction here, because in most of our translations, it says he was breathing out threats, breathing out threats of murder.
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The actual Greek underlying here, it actually expresses a breathing in of something.
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This is kind of an interesting construction because most of our English translations say breathing out.
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And the idea for most of us is that that was his attitude, was that he was always just that that was what he was talking about.
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He was talking about murdering.
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He was talking about threatening them.
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If you don't convert from Christ, if you don't leave this foolish cult, which is what they treated Christianity like, it was like it was a new cult.
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It was a Jewish cult.
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If you don't leave this cult, we're going to kill you.
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If you don't leave this cult, we're going to imprison you.
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But the idea of breathing in, I think, I think that Brian Borden made a good point.
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He said it was also the idea of bringing in, breathing in threats, the idea that this was what he lived off of.
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This was his very the very air he breathed was that the murderous rage that he was in.
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This was what sustained him.
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It was what it was what got him up in the morning and what kept him going all day was his hatred of the church, his hatred of this new cult, which had sprung up among his Jewish brethren.
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And he hated it so much that it rose him from the day it sustained him through the day.
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And that's how he lived was in this murderous rage.
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So it goes on to say in verse one that he was breathing out these threats, he was living on these threats and he was he was breathing out these murderous threats and he went to the high priest in verse two said and asked him for letters to the synagogue at Damascus so that if he found anyone belonging to the way men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
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Now, again, just sort of making quick comments on this.
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He's going to ask for permission so that he can extradite people back to Jerusalem and have them imprisoned.
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Now, why Damascus? Well, history tells us that there was a Christian growth that was happening in Damascus.
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There was there was a revival of sorts.
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There was a there was Jewish people were converting to Christianity.
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In fact, one historical source says the scene community.
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And if you don't know who the scenes are, if you've ever done any study of the of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Dead Sea Scrolls were pinned most likely by the scenes.
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The scenes were like Pharisees on steroids.
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They were they were very, very pure community.
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They they believe very much in the law of God and they believed in the coming of the Messiah.
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And many of them converted to Christ when Christ came.
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And the idea is that likely in Damascus, there was a there was a conversion of many of these scenes and they had moved in and sort of taken over this place.
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And so Paul here is wanting to Saul is wanting to go and bring judgment and bring imprisonment.
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And the thing about this verse that breaks my heart, he wanted to imprison men and women.
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It shows the heart.
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How calloused it was towards Christ.
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The custom was to imprison men.
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Not women.
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To imprison a woman meant to essentially essentially orphan a child.
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So for these types of crime, the man would be taken, would be imprisoned, and they would use the wife and the child as a way.
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If you would just convert, we'll give you back and your wife won't be hungry, your children won't be.
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No, he was going after them all, leave the children orphaned or or send them to have to be raised by some other Jewish families who would raise them.
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Right.
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He had a hatred for the church, a hatred for Christ.
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And it was seen in this situation.
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He's wanting to go to Damascus to find anyone belonging to you'll notice it's called the way, the way here.
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That phrase the way is the early expression of what the church was called, it's called the way.
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It kind of if you think about what Jesus called himself.
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I am the way, I am the door, I am, you know, I am the branch, I am all these things, I am the way.
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And so the early church was called the way and that the word there in Greek simple, it just means the road or the path, the way.
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And so this name kind of became that's what they called themselves.
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They're not called Christians until later.
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It was at Antioch that they were first called Christians.
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But here they're simply called followers of the way.
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Paul wants to address these.
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Because he felt they were wayward.
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That the true way for him was Judaism, the true way for him was to follow the commandments, the true way for him was to follow the prophets who he did not believe testified to Christ.
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So he had a different way.
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So he went to attack them and bring them bound to Jerusalem.
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Verse three, it says now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
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Now in later, he tells a story multiple times in Acts.
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He tells it again in 22, tells it again in 26.
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So we get a couple of versions of this story.
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One of the things that we learn is this was in midday.
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Now, midday in the Middle East is a very bright time.
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They don't have swamps and stuff like, you know, like we have here with shade trees that you get underneath bright day, midday.
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On this journey of six days, actually, it's a six day journey from Jerusalem to Damascus, so he's in the middle of the day, he's walking, he's headed towards Damascus and a light that is bright enough.
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To out bright the sun, to outshine the sun on midday in the Middle East shines around him to the point that he fell to the ground, verse four, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice.
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Now, first of all, I just want to mention in almost every time I've heard somebody tell this story, they say it was knocked off of a horse.
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The text never says he was knocked off of a horse, but it seems like we always have that in every movie that's ever been made and every story.
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It's all it doesn't say it was not it's not to the ground.
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If you want to believe he was on a horse, that's OK.
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It doesn't say he was not down.
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And he heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, remember the double vocative there in the in the in the Hebrew language to say a name twice was to identify what? It was to identify the fact of extra importance, it was to identify something is is very important when something is done in a double vocative.
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It's it's it's it's it's it's it's increasing in English.
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You know, we put an exclamation point behind something in Hebrew.
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They said it twice to make it the emphatic and the super emphatic was three times.
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That's why God's called holy, holy, holy.
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The three times that's that's to super emphasize something.
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So the emphatic Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? By the way, verse four should be a beautiful truth that we all understand.
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When someone is persecuting the church, they are persecuting Christ himself.
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He says, why? He didn't say, why are you persecuting my followers? He doesn't say, why are you persecuting my believers? He says, why are you persecuting me? Because by persecuting the church, Paul was persecuting Christ's body.
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And Paul, Saul, in his ignorance.
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Or if you might, you might could say in verse five, there was shame.
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He says, who are you, Lord? Who are you? Jesus hadn't identified himself yet.
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He simply said, why are you persecuting me? And Saul says, who are you, Lord? It's interesting that he says, Lord, some translations say, sir, I don't think that's correct.
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Because even though kodeos can be a general title of sir, like we might say to someone, sir, or in Old English might be Lord, like Lord of the manor, Lord of the home, Lord of the castle.
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It is a general term of a person.
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Kodeos also was the Greek word that was used for Yahweh God.
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And he's saying, who are you, Lord? Identifying that he knew that whoever this was that was speaking was the Lord, but identifying that he himself, though he thought he knew him, though he thought he was doing his will, though he thought he was following his way, now realizes he don't know him.
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Who are you, Lord? And it goes on.
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He said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
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Can you imagine that moment? I've thought about it all week.
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You know, I've been reading the text and thinking about what I was going to preach.
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And I've known this was coming.
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I think about this moment in Saul's life because you got to think.
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And again, I want to harken back real quick to the idea of the terrorist.
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Nobody does these acts without believing that what they're doing, at least they think they're right.
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Nobody flies a plane into a building unless they think there's something on the other side.
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Nobody goes out and commits murderous acts unless they think that somehow they're doing what is appropriate in the eyes of whatever deity they have.
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Paul, Saul, at this moment, thinks he's doing the will of God by imprisoning these people.
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He thinks he's doing the will of God by imprisoning these Christians.
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And now a bright light has shone, so much brighter than the sun, it's knocked him down.
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He's prostrate and he hears the term, you're persecuting me.
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Who are you? I'm Jesus.
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Oh, no, the very one that I didn't want to hear from is the one who now addresses me.
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The very one that I hated is now the one I've got to face.
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You're supposed to be dead, but you're not.
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Now, if you have a King James Bible, there's an additional line in here, which is not found in the earliest manuscripts about kicking against the pricks or kicking against the goads.
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I'll just simply reference the fact that this particular line in the text addresses the fact that it points to the fact that there could have been a time in the life of the Apostle Paul where God had been drawing him in, had been working on his heart, and Paul was constantly pushing back, and God just finally, boom, now you got it.
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You've been kicking against the pricks, you've been, and by the way, the goads, if you don't know what a goad is, the ox who would move the cart, they'd have a stick with a nail on the end, and they would poke it, and the ox would say, well, I gotta go, you know, I don't like that, so I need to go forward.
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But the stubborn ox would kick it.
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And so the farmer would poke, and the stubborn ox would kick.
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And that's what basically Jesus, in that text, if it is true to the original, which I don't think it is, but if it were to be true to the original, what it would be saying is Jesus says, you're a stubborn ox, you're a stubborn animal, but now I've got you.
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You're face down, and you know who I am.
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So it goes on, he says, but rising into the city, you'll 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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I don't want to spend a lot of time on this.
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There's a huge debate among atheists about this text, because later it says they didn't hear anything.
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Here it says they heard something, and there's a conversation about what it means.
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And this is one of the places where the King James has an issue, another place, because the King James says they heard it, and another place it says they didn't hear it.
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And so that's a contradiction, either they did or they didn't.
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But when you look into the Greek, there's not a contradiction, because in one place it says they heard it, and the next place it says they heard it without understanding it.
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It's almost the same as in John, where it says that some people, when they heard the voice of God, heard what He said, and others heard just what they thought was thunder, or a sound from heaven.
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They didn't understand it, and that's the answer to it.
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It's not a contradiction.
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What Paul is saying here, they heard something, but they didn't hear what he heard.
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They heard something, but they didn't hear the expression of the truth.
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In fact, we don't...
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I've tried to find it, and if you know what...
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I don't know what happens to these guys.
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Paul's coming with an entourage.
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He's coming with a prison group that's going to take these people back and put them in prison.
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I'm sure that these are some pretty heavy-duty Jewish guys.
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We don't hear about them.
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We don't know if they're converted or not, possibly.
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Like I said, I've looked, I've tried to find, haven't seen anything.
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If you know more than I do, I'm always willing to learn, love to find out what happens to these guys.
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But we know this, Paul is who Jesus is focused on here.
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He blinds him, and this is what the text goes on to say.
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It says, Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing.
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So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus, and for three days he was without sight, neither ate nor drank.
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So, this is an interesting one comment I read this week.
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It said, you know, most people think about blindness as being darkness.
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Right? That's what blindness is.
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It's your eyes are closed, you can't see anything.
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But there's also another kind of blindness.
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Stare at the sun.
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No, don't, don't do that.
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If you stare at the sun, what happens? It's all bright.
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It's not dark.
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It's all white.
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It's all bright.
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You can't see anything.
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Saul isn't blinded by darkness, he's blinded by light.
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He sees the risen Christ, and this brightness blinds him for three days.
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As if he had stared intently into the sun, but he did.
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He stared intently at the S-O-N sun.
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Verse 10-19 tells us what happens when he gets to Damascus, a man named Ananias.
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And this is not the guy who extorted money.
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This is not the ones from chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira.
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Totally different Ananias, obviously a common enough name to where at least two people are called by it in scripture.
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It says Ananias was a disciple of Damascus.
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The Lord said to him, Ananias, he said, Here I am, Lord, that's an interesting response because that's a similar response to Isaiah in Isaiah 6 when God said, Who shall I send? And Isaiah said, Here I am, Lord, send me.
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It's very similar, and the construction here is very similar.
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It's an interesting response to God.
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You know, Paul's response to God was, Oh no, it's you.
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Ananias' response is, Here I am.
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But Ananias doesn't just do, he does have a question because it goes on to say, Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul.
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For behold, he is praying, and he has seen a vision of a man named Ananias.
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Come in and lay hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.
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Now we're not told when that vision happened, if that happened at the same time as Jesus saw him, or if that vision came later.
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We know this is a three-day event going on here, but it does say he had a vision of Ananias coming in.
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We know that that did occur, verse 13.
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But Ananias answered, Lord, I've heard from many about this man.
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How much evil has he done to your saints at Jerusalem? So Ananias, you know, I don't think he's questioning God here as much as he's just wanting to make sure he heard right.
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You know, I don't think Ananias is being rebellious.
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He's already said, Lord, here I am.
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Send me.
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Do what you have.
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Do what you will.
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But if, you know, if God told you, hey, go over and talk to that terrorist who's been killing people, you might say, God, did you get that just right? Did I get everything that you just said? Because I don't want to be presumptuous.
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You know who this guy is, right? You know he's putting people in prison.
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I mean, of course you know.
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You're God.
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You know everything.
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But just, you know, right? Verse 13, but Ananias, or I'm sorry, verse 14.
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And here he has the authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on his name.
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But the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.
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For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.
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And Paul did suffer.
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Paul suffered to death for Christ.
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So Ananias departed and entered the house.
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And laying his hands on him, he said, Brother Saul, That's a beautiful passage right there.
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And I don't want you to miss this.
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Ananias calls him brother.
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Come on, tell me that doesn't get you right here.
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He was a terrorist.
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He hated the church.
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He came there for the very reason of imprisonment.
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Ananias is said, Go preach the gospel to this man.
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Go see this man.
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Go and minister to this man.
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And he said, But that man is a terrorist.
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That man is putting people in prison.
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And God says, Go.
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So he goes.
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And what happens? He walks in the door.
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And he doesn't go in and say, You evil, wretched, terrible man.
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I wouldn't have come unless God told me to.
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And even then I didn't want to come.
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And he goes in.
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And he says, Brother Saul, How many of you, I'll put myself in the midst.
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How many of us, If God commanded us To go face an enemy.
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One who not only had hurt us, But one who was breathing out threats of murder against us.
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How many of us would go in, In the first words we said, Would be brother.
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It's a beautiful moment In the life of Saul.
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Because here we know The conversion Has already taken place.
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You see this is a big debate.
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Especially people who believe in baptismal regeneration.
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If you don't know what that is, I'll give you the quick rundown.
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There are people who believe That unless you are baptized That you cannot be in Christ.
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Because baptism is what puts you into Christ.
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And they believe That unless you are baptized You cannot and will not be forgiven of your sins Because in baptism Is where your sins are washed away.
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So you cannot be Considered a brother.
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You cannot be considered A Christian.
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You cannot go to heaven.
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You cannot praise God And be in among his people Unless you have been immersed.
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Because it's not just baptism For them.
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It's immersion.
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It becomes an issue of mode As well as what happens.
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By the way We're not going to get to the note portion today.
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We'll do that next week.
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So don't worry about it.
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Just keep it.
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Because this is important.
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Beloved When this man comes in He addresses Saul as brother.
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And I've had a lot of experience With those who would argue that baptism is required For salvation And this wasn't the intent of this message But I want to address this very briefly Because I do want to say this Baptism is important.
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And we do believe that baptism should be by Immersion.
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That's the model of the early church And we carry that model to today.
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And we do believe that baptism is A very early Demonstration of our faith In Christ.
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When a person comes to me and receives Christ And says that they believe that they're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ They've repented of their sins They want to follow after him as his disciple I say well the first step of discipleship The first step of following after him in obedience Is being baptized.
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So we do baptize.
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And we baptize right in this little room in here.
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There's a little baptistry in there.
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We baptize people under the water.
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But one of the things we have to remember And this is hugely important Is baptism by itself Can never And will never be The instrument By which God saves a soul.
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Can't.
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And here's my And I'll admit I got this from Chris Arnzen I thought it was brilliant Chris and I were talking about this Because I have a lot of history In the restoration movement Restoration movement teaches baptismal Remission or baptismal salvation And this is what Chris said To me.