Acts 9:3-19 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:… I. AS ILLUSTRATING MORAL CONTRASTS. Saul, who went out to persecute, remained to pray (vers. 1, 11). 1. He breathed hotly. How changed in a little time! for his face is turned upward to heaven, and its very look is a pleading supplication. What has occurred? These effects must be accounted for. Have they any counterpart in our own experience? Have any of us passed from fierceness to gentleness, from drunkenness to sobriety, from darkness to light, from blasphemy to worship? Then we understand what is meant by this most startling contrast. This is precisely the work which Christianity undertakes to do. It undertakes to cool your breath, to take the fire out of your blood, to subdue your rancour and your malignity, and to clasp your hands in childlike plea and prayer at your Father's feet. Such is the continual miracle of Christianity. Jesus makes the lion lie down with the lamb, and He causes the child to hold the fierce beast, and to put its hand with impunity on the cockatrice den. Other miracles He has ceased to perform, but this continual and infinite surprise is the standing testimony of Christ. 2. When Saul was a Pharisee he persecuted; when Saul became a Christian (ver. 22) he "proved." As a Pharisee, he said, "Destroy Christianity by destroying Christians." Having seen Jesus, and entered into His Spirit, does he now say, "The persecution must be turned in the other direction; I have been persecuting the wrong parties"? No! Standing with the scrolls open before him, he reasons, proving that this is the Christ. When he was not a converted man, he never thought of "proving" anything. Now he stands up with an argument as his only weapon; persuasion as his only iron; entreaty and supplication as the only chains with which he would bind his opponents. What has happened? Is there not a counterpart of all this in our own experience, and in civilised history? Do not men always begin vulgarly, and end with refinement? Is not the first rough argument a thrust with cold iron, or a blow with clenched fist? Does not history teach us that such methods are utterly unavailing in the extinction or the final arrest of erroneous teaching? Christianity is a moral plea. Wherein professing Christians have resorted to the block and the stake, they have proved disloyal to their Master, and they have forgotten the spirit of His Cross. You cannot make men pray by force of arms. You cannot drive your children to church, except in the narrowest and shallowest sense of the term. You may convince men of their error, and lead men to the sanctuary, and, through the confidence of their reason and the higher sentiments, you may conduct them to your own noblest conclusions. How far is it from persecuting to praying? From threatening and slaughter to proving? That distance Christ took Saul, who only meant to go from Jerusalem to Damascus, some hundred and thirty-six miles. Christ took him a longer journey; He swept him round the whole circle of possibility. It is thus that Jesus Christ makes us do more than we intended to do. He meets us on the way of our own choice, and graciously takes us on a way of His own. 3. In the opening of the narrative, Saul was a strong man, the chief, without whose presence the band would dissolve. And in this same narrative we read of the great persecutor that "they led him by the hand." What has happened? We thought he would have gone into the city like a storm; and he went in like a blind beggar! We thought he would have been met at the city gate as the great destroyer of heresy; and he was led by the hand like a helpless cripple! Woe unto the strength that is not heaven-born! When we are weak, then are we strong. You are mightier when you pray than when you persecute. You are stronger men when you prove your argument than when you seek to smite your opponent. Saul led by the hand; then why need we be ashamed of the same process? Who will despise the day of small things? Presently he will increase in the right strength; not the power of transient fury, but the solid and tranquil strength of complete repose. II. AS GIVING US GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. He is — 1. Watchful. "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age." He left, yet did not leave. He is invisible, yet watchful; looking upon Saul every day, and looking at the same time upon His redeemed Church night and day. Events are not happening without His knowledge. He knows all your antagonistic plans. As for you Christians, He knows your sufferings, and oppositions, and through how much tribulation you are moving onward to the kingdom. 2. Compassionate. "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." He pitied the poor ox that struck its limbs against the sharp and piercing goads. This expostulation repeats the prayer of his dying breath. He does not bind Saul with his own chain; He throws upon him the happy spell of victorious love. 3. Consistent. "I will show him what great things he must suffer for My name's sake." When Jesus ordained the disciples to go out into the world, He laid before them a black picture, and told them that they would be persecuted; and now, when He comes to add another to the number, He repeats the ordination charge which He addressed to the first band. III. AS SHOWING THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF SPIRITUAL VISION. All these things were seen in a vision. Say some of you, "We have no visions now." How can we have? We may eat and drink all visions away. The glutton and the drunkard can have nothing but nightmare. A materialistic age can only have a materialistic religion. We may grieve the Spirit, quench the Spirit; we may so eat and drink and live as to divest the mind of its wings. It may be true that the vision has ceased within a narrow sense, but not in its true spiritual intent. Even now we speak about strong impressions, unaccountable impulses, uncontrollable desires, unexpected combinations of events. What if the religious mind should see in such realities the continued Presence and Vision which gladdened the early Church? IV. AS DEMONSTRATING THAT CHRISTIANITY DOES NOT MERELY ALTER A MAN'S INTELLECTUAL VIEWS OR MODIFY A MAN'S MORAL PREJUDICES. Christianity never makes a little alteration in a man's thinking and action. Christianity makes new hearts, new creatures. Other reformers may change a habit now and again, may modify a prejudice, a temper, a purpose with some benign and gracious intent; but this Redeemer wants us to be born again. "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; old things have passed away, and all things have become new." There drop from his eyes "as it were scales," and, with a pure heart, he sees a pure God. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: |
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