Act 26:14-18
Act 26:14-18
This Blog is the outline of a sermon I preached several months ago. It was a blessing to many, and so I am writing it up as a Blog, hoping it will read as well as it preached.
"And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." Act 26:14-18
This is Paul re-counting to King Agrippa his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road.
One, we see that salvation is a personal encounter with God. God intervenes in our life. Jesus calls him by name "Saul, Saul." As he says in Jhn 10:3-4, he calls us by name.
A biography of C.S. Lewis' wife, Ann Davidson, is entitled "And God Stepped In." That's it, God enters into our life, in a sovereign, God initiated way; it is of him, he does it. Have you had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, a God initiated encounter?
"I am Jesus." Clearly, unambiguously Jesus. I have been trying to get your attention, do "kick against the pricks." Don't resist my efforts to do good to you. How many of us not only resisted, but fought against God. He was working to save us, and we did everything we could to not get saved!
And it is Jesus personal call to you to forsake all for him:
James and John leave their father Zebedee in the boat!
Matthew leaves his tax collecting office!
Peter leaves his fishing business, and later says to Jesus, we have forsaken all for you, and note, Jesus does not respond, no you haven't, because in fact they had! Have you?
Paul is called to leave his reputation as the zealous persecutor of Christians, the young champion of Judaism, and join those whom he has been persecuting. That is not just a lose of reputation, and lose of status, it is to become a traitor! I was once in a Jewish synagogue in the States, in the library, there was an entire wall of the library devoted to books against Paul. I had never thought about it before, but Paul is still a problem to Judaism.
But more, it is the realization that all we previously counted worthwhile, is in fact dung.
"Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ," Php 3:8
Two, salvation comes with a life calling.
"For this purpose" When Jesus calls Paul, he does not call him and save him, so that Paul can pursue whatever Paul wants, Jesus calls Paul to do what he, Jesus wants Paul to do.
Talents are entrusted to us (I have a Blog on this). We are no longer our own, we belong to Jesus Christ who saved us, and he saved us to do his will, not ours. This is so true, that we can say, the eternal purpose of God according to election to save us, also includes the life work which he has planned for each of us:
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Jer 1:5
There is a kingdom work for each of us Christian's to do, to benefit and extend his kingdom, not ours.
Three, we are called to be witnesses. The Greek word is "martus" martyr; it is a call to bear testimony to Christ and Truth and Salvation, if need be, resulting in our death, actual, literal death. We in the western world today, think persecution is being shunned at the coffee machine at work; but some of our brothers and sisters are giving their lives to bear testimony for Christ.
Salvation is life from the dead, life to the dead, we are to bear witness to that: To Life. To Truth. To Light.
"Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:" 1Pe 4:1-4
And as we do, those who know us, seeing the change, will "think it strange that we run not with them to the same excess of riot," doing with them, what we had previously done with them, and so "will speak evil of us."
SO WHAT! Does that really matter? We are called to suffer for Christ, we are called to suffer with Christ, why should we care what the world thinks of us, it matters what Jesus thinks of us.
Four, Paul would have two groups of adversaries: the Jews and the Gentiles.
In the New Testament Era, in the territory of the Roman Empire, it was the Jews and the pagan religions of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc.
The New Testament message to the Jews was that Judaism was over because the fulfillment had come, and to the Greeks that they worshiped gods that were not gods.
The Jews appealed to the written scriptures, the pagans did not. Today we can still divide the entire world into those same two basic religious groups: those who use the bible, and those who do not.
Those who appeal to the bible in some way, shape, or form:
- Judaism
- Islam
- Roman Catholicism
- Mormonism
- Seventh Day Advent ism
- Jehovah's Witness
- Christian Science
Those who do not appeal to the bible:
- Hinduism
- Buddhism
- Greek, Roman, Egyptian religions
- Animistic aboriginal religions like American Indian, Aztec, Mayan, Inca, African
- Asian Chinese, Korean, South-East Asian, like Japanese Shintoism
- Oceania as in Papua New Guinea
- New Age, Crystals, Mother Earth with certain aspects of Environmentalism
Biblical Christianity says Jesus is the True and Only God, the only exclusive way to heaven, and that we must be born-again, by faith in him, to be saved, so the groups who use the bible, are against us, as are those of the groups who do not appeal to the bible.
Five, Paul had to be delivered from the attacks of these his enemies.
Everywhere Paul went, he met with opposition, violent, hostile opposition. He was telling the Jews that the Old Testament system had done its work, and was over, and so they hated him.
And he was bringing the gospel light into the dark stronghold of the devil, and so the devil and his people hated him.
And often, the Jews and Greeks teamed up against their common enemy Paul.
Every city he went to there was conflict: Laiconia, Thessalonica, Athens, Philippi, Ephesus, Corinth.
Six, God prepares us, humanly for the kingdom work he intends for us to do.
Paul was a Roman citizen, raised in pagan Tarsus, whose patron god was Satuta, and was worshiped with all the Roman god cult activity, as was done in any other Roman city, when they worshiped their patron god. Paul obviously did not engage in any of that, but it was all around him, and he knew of it, and understood it, so when he, as the apostle to the gentiles, aimed his arguments to them, he was able to do it as one with knowledge and understanding of their thought and system.
Paul was a native Greek speaker. One set of my Italian immigrant grandparents spoke English like Americans, the other used English words, but with Italian grammar. Paul spoke Greek like a Greek, using Greek grammatical structure. That is why his writings are more convoluted that those of Peter, James, John, and Jude, who were raised in Palestine, and were native Hebrew speakers, and spoke Greek, using Greek words, but Hebrew grammatical structure. Due to the grammatical agreement of nouns with adjectives etc in Greek, Greek allows for a more convoluted sentence structure. We see that in English translations that are more on the literal side. The sentences in Paul's epistles are long, with what we think are dangling phrases, often causing us to ask, to what does this refer? Confusing in English, perfectly clear in Greek. When Peter says Paul's writings are hard to understand (2Pt 3:16), he is not talking about the content or subject matter, he is saying that the way Paul wrote, using good Greek structure, was hard for native Hebrew speakers to understand correctly; they spoke Greek, but with the "straight-line" Hebrew grammar structure, so the convoluted Greek structure was hard for them to follow. On the flip side, it did require Paul to consciously avoid trying to sound like the Rhetorician of the 1st Century, whom he could have sounded like, if he had wanted to, but whom he made sure he did not sound like, but he knew that that type of "fancy, eloquent, high sounding" speach would under-mine the power of the gospel (1Co 2:-5).
God caused Paul to be born in pagan Tarsus, so that he, on a human level would know pagan thought and practice, and so be fully equipped to be the "apostle to the gentiles" (Rom 11:13, 2Ti 1:11).
And as an FYI, Tarsus' claim to fame was that some years before Paul was even born, that is where Anthony and Cleopatra had their famous first meeting; truly no "mean city" (Act 21:39).
Seven, he was sent.
The Greek word "apostle" means a sent one; in English, we use the Latin equivalent "missionary."
An apostle is an envoy, an ambassador. He carries someone else's message. He is not to add to, or subtract from that message, it is not his, he is simply the messenger! Think of a foreign ambassador, they convey the President’s message to the government of the country to which they were sent.
The gospel message is from God, to be carried by us, and spoken into the world.
And as Paul was sent, so too we are sent, with a commission:
"And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." 2Co 5:18-20
Eight, and what was Paul to do?
Paul was to open their eyes, because they are blind and being duped.
Paul was to turn them, because they are being lead down the wrong road, the broad road, which leads to their destruction.
Paul was to deliver them from the power of Satan, because they are under his sway, and in his clutches. He is the god of this present age, in whose lap the entire world/cosmos is reclining (1Jn 5:18). He is leading men to destruction, on the wide road, full of people, who have been blinded by him into thinking there is safety in numbers, the majority must be right. Any who want to hear the gospel, he blinds, so they cannot understand it (2Co 4:4), and those who hear the gospel, but not believing it, he robs it from them, "reaching into their hearts!!" and stealing it (Mat 13:9).
Not just Paul, all we Christians, have been given this work to do; both the word and work of reconciliation have been committed to us, in trust, a trust for which we will have to give an account to him who gave it to us.
Nine, the promised result of his work: so that their sins can be forgiven and they can receive an inheritance together with us in heaven.
Is it better to have gained the whole world, and lose your soul in eternal death, or to gain eternal life, and have lost the whole world? Jesus asked that question (Mat 16:26); you judge.
My parents wanted me to be a doctor, I ended up being a missionary. Over the years, they would tell me, if only I had been a doctor, I would have saved people lives. I told them that doctors only postpone death, that in fact it is actually I who saves lives, for those who have become Christians under my ministry will live forever.
Those to whom Paul was sent received an inheritance with all of God's people. The ex-cannibals among whom we work, will not be second-class saints; there are no second-class citizens in heaven. In fact, some of these people will out shine Christians from the western world, who rested on their lees, and did little for Christ, while these humble, non-names, did what they could (Mrk 14:8), and so therefore they have done much.
Who did better? The man who had 10 talents, and made 10 more, for a 100% profit, or the man who had 1 talent, but made 2 more, for a 200% profit? The 1 talent, ex-cannibals, will shine as the stars of heaven, rejoicing in their inheritance.
May the Lord Jesus help each of us to be faithful with the talents and opportunities he was entrusted to us, so that like Paul, when our end approaches we can say, "I have finished my course."
22 November 2025