Acts 9:1-31, What’s the Way?

Acts 9 and the Question of the Way

Acts chapter 9, beginning from verses 1 to 31, hear the word of the Lord. 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.

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

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. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now, there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him, in a vision, Ananias. And he said, here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight. And at the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying.

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

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

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. For some days, he was with the disciples at Damascus.

And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue, saying, he is the son of God. And all who heard him were amazed and said, is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name?

And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

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 and 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. I mean, the Lord had his blessings in the reading of his holy word.

Human Ways Versus the Way to God

Well, if you want to get somewhere, you need to know the way, right? It's kind of common sense. I wonder if GPS, you know, most of us now have, at least on our phones, if not one of these little GPS things, has made us forget about that.

We used to have maps, remember maps? Anybody here remember maps? Often these cumbersome foldable things that are hard to fold right. You usually keep them in the glove compartment. I mean, more often glove compartments held maps and more often than gloves, it should have been called map compartments.

But you'd look up where you wanted to go on the map and then trace the best roads to get there. You're trying to find the way. You need to know the way to other destinations too that you want to get to.

If you want to get a good job, maybe a particular job, you need to know what is required. What do you need to get that job? What's the skills you have to acquire? How do you get those skills? Do you need to go to vocational school?

Maybe learn plumbing or electrical work. Maybe you need to go to university, to a graduate school, do other things. That depends on where you're going, your intended destination. What's the best way to physical fitness?

It's probably not through Dairy Queen and long hours on the couch. Probably not. What's the way to prosperity? You have acquired a comfortable living with a nice house and a nice car and everything you need for your family and old age and the ability to be generous to others.

It's probably not through partying all the time, whatever that means. I don't really know what it even means. It's not through majoring in gender studies or something else that there are no jobs for, unless it's to teach gender studies in universities.

Racking up huge student loan debt and then realizing you're no more employable after college than you were before, it's through providing a service or a product that people want, like Chinese food or nursing or mail delivery.

People want that and they'll pay for that. And you usually have to work long hours to do it, save money, and you usually have to do it.

For many years.

Of course, some people don't know where they're going. They just wake up every day asking how they can have fun today. That's the way to poverty. Maybe some hard knocks have taught them that they need to at least work five days a week so they can pay their bills and have a decent place to stay and a vehicle to go out and then have fun on the weekends.

That's the way to mediocrity at best. Everybody is on the way to somewhere, even if some people don't know where.

The False Ways of Religion and the Absolute Claim of Christ

Well, what's the way to God?

That's the question all the religions try to answer, some say, well, keep these laws, whatever they are. Islam says you make the right confession. You keep what they call the five pillars of Islam and you might make it to paradise.

There's no guarantees. Buddhism teaches there is an eightfold path. There's right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right concentration, right mindfulness, a lot of right stuff.

So if you get everything right, there's no way I would do all that. And you follow that path. You may end up in enlightenment. Chinese traditional religion says,.

Well, you'd be filial.

That is you focus on your family. They're the original people focus on the family. And you help your family members, particularly your deceased family members, wherever they are, by sending them gifts, right?

You're a good family person. You send, you give gifts to your family. So you send your deceased family members gifts, like food by offering it or like hell money, which is money they print just for people in hell.

So you transfer it to them by burning it, right? So they can, and that goes to them. And so they can pay off the demons in hell and they can, they have money in hell. So they can spend it or go wherever they want to.

And, or maybe you can even send them houses and cars. Then so you make paper houses, paper cars, even paper or cell phones, and you burn it and it transfers to them. Even though they never seem to call back on the paper cell phones you transfer to them.

I don't understand why not. The way then is for your families. The way is for your family members to send you your way for yourself is you hope your children, grandchildren, so forth, your descendants will send you what you need when you're in the afterlife.

And so you kind of got to pay it forward. So you, what you need to do now is you need to send your deceased family members what they need now. The Baha 'i religion, which is a modern religion. So it kind of captures the modern idea founded only in 1863, takes kind of an all of the above approach, right?

Yo, you like a little Islam? You like a little Buddhism?

You like a little Christianity?

Throw it all in there. All roads lead to heaven, they say. All religions are different revelations from God, which is of course impossible since they contradict. I mean, either Mohammed is God's prophet and Jesus never died for our sins, which Islam says, or Jesus is the Lord and he died for our sins, which Christianity says.

It can't both be true. But anyway, Baha 'i somehow says it's all true. And you know, you just have it your way, basically. It's the Burger King motto for religion.

You have it your way.

You have your way, you have the Chinese way, you have the American way, you have whatever you want to take is fine. Just be nice as you're on the way and be sincere about it. That's why it's kind of been a popular religion.

Been growing.

Of course it's nonsense, but that's beside the point. What is the way? Of course, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. Very absolute statement, isn't it?

To some, that claim is infuriating. I mean, it means that I'm wrong, if I believe in any other way. My law keeping, my five pillars or eightfold path or filial piety is just garbage. That's why Paul called it, right?

I counted it all as garbage, refuse. It's good for nothing. So when you tell people that, you're saying, they're thinking anyway, I sacrificed eating pork. I couldn't have those baby back ribs to keep a law.

Or I gave up eating steak because those cows are reincarnated. You know, it's my reincarnated grandmother to follow the eightfold path. Or I kept Ramadan. I didn't eat during daylight hours for a whole month.

I spent good money to buy hell money. And you're telling me it's just burned up and it's worthless. That's offensive. That's even maddening to some people. Or to the modern person, they'll say, well, you know, you're telling me I have to believe in one person.

I have to follow him. I have to surrender to him that I cannot go my own way. I can't go how I think best according to my culture, according to my taste. That makes you an oppressive bigot. You have to believe what I say to not be a narrow-minded.

You get the contradiction there. If you disagree with me, you're narrow-minded. Wait, wait, that's the modern way. But Saul thought he knew the way until the way got in his way. And we see that here in four parts, the revelation, the vocation, the persecution, and finally, the inclusion.

Revelation on the Road to Damascus

First, there's revelation. Paul's conversion depends on revelation, doesn't it? Paul, let me call him that already, if you don't mind. I know he's called Saul at this point. This is first name, but let's call him Paul already.

He wasn't being softened gradually by having heard the gospel. It wasn't like when some of these people, kind of C .S. Lewis is kind of like that, kind of gradually changes his mind. And then suddenly, not suddenly, just wakes up one morning and realizes, hey, I'm a Christian now.

But it wasn't like that for him. He wasn't softened gradually by having heard the gospel or he is seeing the life of the church, that they're living together, they're dedicated to the apostles' teaching, they're breaking the bread, they're sharing their life together, they're sharing their things, they're praying together.

Later, when retelling this testimony, he'll tell it two other times in the book of Acts, he'll add to the account here that the Lord Jesus also said, it's hard for you to kick against the goads. Now, goads are these like just basically sharp sticks, pointed sticks that they poke animals with like cows or donkeys and make them move along.

They stop somewhere, you know, come on, donkey, move. Of course, some stubborn animals, instead of moving along, might get violent and kick back, right? Kick against the goads and then they get stuck by it and then they learn their lesson.

Some people have thought that Paul was being gradually prepared for conversion, but there's no indication of that here. And indeed, this chapter seems to show the opposite. The goads that God was using in his life, they should have moved him to repent and to believe in Jesus.

The testimonies about Jesus that he had heard, after all, he had probably heard Stephen preach. That's a pretty good testimony, but that didn't soften him up. That didn't make him a Christian. That didn't convert him.

Rather than softening him up, they provoke him to violence. In verse one, he's breathing out threats and murder. Like with every breath, kill them.

They're blasphemers. They're, you know, they're sacrilegious. They're abominations.

And he's just got to kill them. He's got to do what he has to do to wipe them out. He wanted to find them. And if they wouldn't deny Jesus, torture them. If they still wouldn't deny Jesus after some torture,.

Well, you got to do what you got to do, right? You got to kill them.

This hatred was so deep in him, it just came out with his breath.

Got to get them.

So he heard that there were Christians in Damascus. Why he has to go to Damascus? You know, later from Paul, like if there's someplace, if some people are doing it here, why do I need to do it? I'll go do somewhere someone's not doing it.

Seems like he took that same, he had that same mentality already. There's probably people, he's probably thinking, there's plenty of people here in Jerusalem persecuting the church. I'm going to go somewhere else where there's no one else yet persecuting.

I'm going to be a pioneer of persecution. And so, you know, that's his mentality. So he wanted to go there. There's some in Damascus, he's heard. Go there and wipe them out. He was going to stop this supposed way to God from spreading.

And he was willing to make the long trip by foot, about 150 miles, which none of us have ever walked 150 miles. I ran it. He was willing to do that. You think that's probably about a week's work just to get there, just to capture some believers in Jesus and haul them back to Jerusalem where he could torture.

And, you know, if they still didn't, we can't kill them. He asked for official letters from the high priest. That way, when he shows up, the official Jewish officials in Damascus.

Would help him out.

They could help him find, in verse two, anyone, it says, belonging to the way. That was what Christianity was called before it was called Christianity. It was called the way.

The way.

I believe it would be the Tao in Chinese. Jesus is the way, and they belong to him. So they are the people of the way. They belong to the way. But for Paul, of course, he thought it was the way to blasphemy, saying that the law was fulfilled by Christ, that Jesus is the way to God, not by our law keeping.

So if he found them in Damascus, he would haul them back to Jerusalem for special treatment, whatever you called it. So he set off for Damascus with his letters in his hand. He had no idea of what he was really on the way to.

He was almost at his destination, approaching Damascus. It says, when suddenly, no warning, in verse three, a light, like a spotlight, flashed on. So brilliant, he fell to the ground. Let's say whether he's on a horse or a donkey, he could just been walking, probably closing and shielding his eyes.

And he heard a voice call out to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Persecute?

Who am I persecuting? I'm defending the glory of God. I'm upholding the law. I'm being righteous, he thought. So he asked, who are you?

Lord?

Probably meaning like, sir, a term of respect. Maybe this is an angel or maybe it's just a coincidence that some man happens to start speaking to him as the shun glare in his eyes. He must be, Paul must be puzzled that whoever is talking to him knows his name, but he doesn't know who he was talking.

And he can't see for the beam of light shining on him. And the voice answers in verse five, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Seven brief words in English and Greek is actually only six. And his life is totally revolutionized.

You know, before this, he was thinking Jesus was a charlatan that our leaders rightly got Pontius Pilate to crucify. And these believers of his, they're their heretics. They continue to believe that he's the son of God even after he was killed.

Now, what crazy people are these? Oh, they said he was raised, but I've never seen him. Who believes in that? That's what he thought. Now, Jesus is speaking to him. Jesus is saying to Paul, it was persecuting me.

Now, Jesus doesn't say, why are you persecuting my people, my lambs, my loved ones? He said, you're persecuting me. Paul thought he was just putting down believers in him. But Jesus says, Jesus sees his people as himself, as his own body.

What you do to his body, you do to him. There's no separation between Jesus and the church. As though you can claim to love Jesus like a lot of people do today. And particularly in this culture, it's just not his church you care much for.

I do without the church. Jesus, I love his church, no thanks. Oh, sure, sometimes I get it that sometimes what calls itself the church can confuse that as it doesn't do what the body of Christ is supposed to do.

And probably many of the people in some places that call themselves churches aren't really believers. I don't know who they are, but some are that way. And maybe they're just traditional, just religious people who only wanna be told how righteous they are.

But Paul will later in his letters talk about false brothers. That is, they look like brothers, they confess to be brothers, but they're not really. And now what you do to them is not what you do to Jesus.

But if it's the true church, the body of Christ made up of genuine believers, if you're faithful to them, you're faithful to Jesus. If you give to them your time, your gifts, your attention, your care, your money, your songs, you are giving to Jesus.

If you betray them or you use them for whatever selfish end you want, or you bomb them, like in Sri Lanka last week, you're betraying, you're using, you're bombing Jesus. You are persecuting me, Jesus says.

The Lord Jesus tells him,.

Rise and enter the city.

And you will be told what you are to do.

Kind of interesting.

Why didn't he tell them what to do right there at that point? We'll see. Notice there's no choice about it though. It doesn't say, will you accept my invitation, Paul? It's like, you're drafted, you're in.

There's no argument.

There's no, let me give you the seven reasons why you should believe I'm the way. I'll give you the evidence why I'm resurrected. Well, of course, there's me talking to you right now. That's number one.

It doesn't go like that.

Now, will you accept just, you know, really just like Jesus did with the other apostles. Remember that? You know, he comes by and he says, like to Matthew or Peter, come follow me. He does the same thing with Paul here.

That is after he was, you know, died and rose. It doesn't really make any difference to him. It's sovereign grace, right? Jesus chooses his sheep. And I think that's true, not just for apostles, true for all his sheep.

He's the shepherd and he gathers them. He knows those who are his and he gathers them. And here he's gathering Paul. Now some will protest, but surely Paul could have said, no, he wasn't compelled against his will.

Yeah, you know what? I don't really, I'm not gonna want to debate that. Whatever, I suppose. You want to, I can see that maybe, I don't know. But now seeing what he sees, why would he say no? I mean, how could there be any choice about it?

Why would Paul want to say no at this point? Why would anyone say no to Jesus once the Lord has revealed himself to them?

You know why?

I think once you've seen him, then you just, it would never occur to you to say no. It's like if one day you were at your house and someone knocks on the door, there's Bill Gates there with a certified check for $1 billion he's gonna give to you.

You're not gonna say no. You can see it. I'll take it, sure. Right? And that's what happens when the Lord appears and he shows you who he is. You just don't say no. It just doesn't. That's why our prayer for people to be saved is usually Lord reveal yourself to them.

Once he does that, once Jesus reveals himself,.

He gives with that revelation.

Comes this transforming vision. He transforms you by the vision of himself. Once he gives that to someone, they see that he is the way. He is the truth and the life. And obviously then they follow. Of course.

Who else has the words of life? You know, where else can I go? This is the way. There's no other way. That's why people, they can be shown the arguments. You can debate them and you can maybe convince them.

I don't see that happening very much. You can show them facts. You can show them all the proofs that God exists, that Jesus is who he says he is. You can prove that he is the way that he was raised from the dead, the proofs of the resurrection and all that.

You could show them that the Bible is reliable. The people that criticize it shows, well, there's contradictions here and they're not really true. That it is true. And yet they still sometimes won't believe if it hasn't been revealed to them.

They haven't been made to see. Paul didn't need an argument, did he? I mean, he probably heard from Stephen already. He needed a revelation. That's why we pray for people today. Lord, reveal yourself to so-and-so.

Let's give them understanding. Just let them hear a good argument. They need a revelation. God may use arguments. Now he may use books and lessons and maybe sermons and whatever to give the revelation,.

But it's the revelation that is key.

It's the revelation that changes everything, that transforms from persecuting the church to joining it. So he obeys the revelation. He goes to Damascus, blinded, and prays and fasts for three days. It's sovereign grace.

Sovereign in that means royal, that God is the king and only God is in charge of it, like a king and no one else to appeal to. We can pray for him to use us in our sharing to bring that revelation, but we can't make it happen.

We can't gin it up by setting the mood right. You get an altar call as the organ softly plays, the right music, play on the emotions. You know, the old way was the invitation. You know, every head bowed, everyone bowed their head.

Now raise your hands if you believe. Ever been through one of those things? Raise your hand if you believe. Now, maybe next step, stand. And if you stand, will you come forward? And as verse after verse of just as I am is playing, maybe they have counselors placed in the audience and they come forward to kind of prime the pump.

You know, because maybe they're coming forward too. I can do it too. And to create the momentum.

That's the old way.

The new way, maybe have a fog machine. The band plays oceans or whatever. And a guy in a turtleneck sweater with a cup of coffee sitting on a stool, back lit just right. You know, gotta have a good lighting.

That's key.

Talking you into doing something. Come, you know, sign the whatever or whatever. But it's really the same thing. So far, all this talk about the new style of churches, seeker sensitive, it's really not, it's maybe new style, but it's the same philosophy.

You're trying to manage the saving power of God as though with the right technique, we can turn it on and get people saved.

We can't.

It's sovereign grace. If he doesn't do it, if he doesn't appear to Paul on the road to Damascus, all our techniques and arguments won't accomplish anything.

We need revelation.

The Church, Ananias, and the Vocation to Suffer

Well, next comes vocation, the calling. Paul is called to be a follower of Jesus. Yeah, interesting, isn't it? That Jesus didn't call Paul directly.

Do you notice that?

When he stopped Paul on the road, you know, Jesus just said, why are you persecuting me? And you go into the city and I'll relay to you.

What you're to do next.

Now think about that. What it says about how Jesus works through his church. Again, Jesus could have told Paul directly. You know, why didn't he think about it on the road? He could have told Paul directly what he has Ananias tell him.

What versus Ananias, sir? Why not just cut out the middleman? And Jesus tell Paul directly, hey, Paul, you're a chosen instrument of mine.

I'm gonna, you know,.

I'm showing you how much you must suffer for my name. You wanna do it directly. Why use Ananias? Because coming to Jesus means coming to his body, the church. We don't see that. If the view of the church, our view of the church is like that of a gas station is just these places we pull into to get our spiritual fuel we need.

And then we drive off. They can help us on our way to serving Jesus, but that's really about it. They know they are Jesus to you. It's through the church that Jesus tells Paul that he's called. He only stopped him on the road to stop him from persecuting the church, to get him to listen to the church.

So Jesus speaks to Ananias described as a disciple. All true Christians are disciples. Disciple is not a higher class of believer. You know, you can kind of opt into if you're really tough and you wanna go for that.

Kind of like if you're in the military, you can, you can, maybe you can try to go into the special forces and you're a Christian. Maybe I'll go for the disciple. Maybe not. No, no, you either are a disciple or you are not a Christian.

Well, the Lord says to him, Ananias, calling him by name, just like he called Saul by name earlier. And he responds, here I am, Lord. Kind of like Isaiah. Remember, he hears the angels saying, holy, holy, holy.

And someone asked, who will go for us? And Isaiah says, here I am. Here is Ananias being called. And he says, here I am, I'll go. Well, you haven't heard what he was just said on yet. He has second thoughts once he's told.

What he's supposed to do.

He tells Ananias where to go. Go to Straight Street. Supposedly that street still exists, by the way, in Damascus, still there. Go to Judas's house. There's another Judas, there's a lot of Judas's because Judas was a popular name before Jesus as Judas betrayed him.

There at Judas's house, ask for Saul of Tarsus. Imagine, go to Judas's house. You must know, it must be a prominent person who knows where he is. Saul here, he's praying. The Lord has already given Saul a vision during his three days of prayer and fasting.

That a man named Ananias will come to him. Jesus said that in Damascus, remember, you will be told what you were to do in Damascus. So go there and wait for instructions. Now in a vision, he's shown Paul that it's Ananias who will tell him what the Lord says to do.

Again, it's through Ananias, through the church. The Lord tells Ananias to lay hands on him and pray for his healing from blindness. But Ananias has heard of Paul. Well, you know, he's thinking, wait, Lord, you must be mistaken.

You haven't heard about Paul, Lord. I know about Paul.

You apparently don't.

His reputation, Paul's reputation has gone ahead of him. It's kind of funny that Ananias thinks he needs to inform the Lord about what Paul is really like. That's kind of the way we are, right? We think God must be, he must be ignorant of some things that we know about.

He, we know how tough this is gonna be. Lord, don't you know? But he tries to straighten the Lord out. And in verse 13, Ananias answers, Lord, I have heard from many. You catch that? Many, and many knew about him.

Paul had a great reputation, great meaning, prominent about this man. How much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.

The news about him has gone ahead. Ananias knew all about Paul and wanted nothing to do with him. He and the rest of the Christians in Damascus, they've been on the lookout for Paul. They knew he's coming.

They're gonna try to steer as clear of him as they possibly could. He's someone they wanted nothing to do with. And now the Lord tells Ananias to go directly to this vicious Christian hunter. Now you're not, you go right to him.

It's like being in Sri Lanka and being told to go right to the head of the Islamic terrorist cell. There's bombing churches there. Imagine that. And so he thinks he needs to inform the Lord about Paul.

Wait, Lord, you must've missed the news. But the Lord says in verse 15, go anyway. Go, Jesus says, for he is a chosen instrument of mine, a vessel, like Pharaoh was a vessel to show God's glory in Romans nine.

Like a potter makes different kinds of vessels. Some nice ornamental vessels you put at the center of your dining room table to show off and to put flowers in them. Or maybe some useful for pouring drinks or eating off of.

Now some in their day, like before indoor plumbing, you have chamber pots. They were vessels for necessary, but disgusting use. So the Lord is making Paul a vessel. He's gonna be a chosen one for a special, important use.

The Lord is the potter and he is making Paul an instrument, a vessel to carry his name, the name of Jesus. That Jesus is the only name given among people to be saved. The only one to call on, he is the way.

Paul will carry that name. Jesus is telling Ananias to tell Paul. Paul will carry that name to the Gentiles. That is the ends of the earth. Remember the acts he's gonna get to. And he says to Kings, like Herod, that he'll preach to before acts is over.

And the children of Israel, as he'll go from synagogue to synagogue and town after town, ending in Rome. That's about everybody right there, isn't it? Go, Ananias, even though you think he's a vessel of persecution.

Instead, Jesus says, I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. Well, that's his calling. That's his vocation, to suffer. Would you like that to be your job description.

On a business card?

Paul, apostle, sufferer. It's quite an invitation, isn't it? He's been dishing out suffering to those who call on the name of Jesus. Now he's gonna have to receive suffering because he's calling on that name.

That's his vocation. That's his calling. He's to carry the name and suffer for it. Corporately, we, together as the church, have the same calling. That's why we have our ministries, to bear witness. So we're not just, it's important that we do this.

We're preaching the word, encouraging each other and worshiping, singing. But it's not just for us, it's to bear witness to the world around us. And sometimes we've had to suffer. Sometimes it's the suffering of putting up with disrespectful, ungrateful kids.

And Wayne nods. Sometimes the suffering of perseverance, through abandonment and little apparent reward. And if we think ministries will all be success, reward, hundreds of converts responding to every message, we'll be discouraged because of the suffering and maybe feel like giving up.

But if we understand that part of the vocation, the calling, is the call to suffer. Yeah, we're not taken off guard by it. We can keep going. So Ananias went, as he was told, he greets the man he thought was a vicious persecutor.

As brother.

Notice how Ananias greets him. He changed his mind about Paul based on, well, maybe Jesus knows what he's talking about after all. In verse 17, he calls Paul brother. He announces 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.

So he prays for Paul. Something like scales, like a film fell off from his eyes representing the spiritual blindness has now been healed. He could see again, filled with the Holy Spirit. And then he rose, he was baptized.