Acts 9:3-19 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:… We have heard opinions about what we term sudden conversions. Some persons do not believe in them. But here is the first word that is objected to! It is an Old Testament word. Suddenness was approved by the Lord of the Jewish Church. "The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple." Mark the harmony of that particular feature of the incident with the Divine purpose. A slow, deliberate, intellectual transformation would have been a moral violence under circumstances so peculiar. What could be more harmonious in all its particulars and relations than the conversion of the eunuch? A man quietly reading in his chariot and filled with wonder as to the meaning of the mysterious Word, what more seemly than that a teacher should sit beside him and show the meaning of the sacred mysteries? But here is a man "yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter" with such a man you cannot reason; God therefore suddenly strikes him to the ground. Let us admire this providence of arrangement and this inspiration of incident, as well as the stupendous conversion itself. Do not reprove the suddenness until you understand all the circumstances. The very suddenness may itself be part of the occasion. Now, look at the incident as showing — I. SAUL'S RELATION TO JUDAISM — i.e., to his past life. Does Jesus Christ condemn Judaism? No. He Himself was a Jew. There is not a word of chiding in all the speech. The only thing that was being done was that Saul was hurting himself. "Why kick against the pricks?" The persecutor only hurts himself. The bad man digs a hell for himself. Christ did not condemn the personal attitude of Saul. Saul was a man of the Old Testament, which says "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The heretic and blasphemer must be stoned. Saul was therefore keeping strictly within historic lines and constitutional proprieties when he said, in effect, "This novel heresy must be stamped out with force." Christianity does not condemn Judaism; it supersedes it. Christianity takes it up, realises all its types, and symbols, and ceremonies. Judaism is the dawn, Christianity is the full noontide. Christianity brings to maturity and sweetness all the roots and fruits of the Judaism. The Jew is simply a man who has not come on to the next point in history. But for Judaism, there could have been no Christianity. We are debtors to the Jew. The Gentiles never converted themselves. The Jew was sent to the Gentile. The most stubborn prejudices were turned into the most anxious sympathies, and this is the crowning miracle of the grace of Christ. II. HIS CONVERSION AS THE GREATEST TRIUMPH WHICH CHRISTIANITY HAS ACCOMPLISHED. This was the master miracle. Who is this man? A Jew, of an ancient and honourable pedigree; a student, a scholar, a man of high and influential station. There lay within him capacity to do anything that mortals ever did. His hand once upon the prey, the prey was dead, unless the fingers be unloosed by Almightiness. Jesus Christ Himself directly undertakes his conversion, and works thus His supreme spiritual miracle. When Saul was converted, there was more than one man changed. There is a conversion of quality, as well as a conversion of quantity. Statistics cannot help you in this matter. Let a Saul of Tarsus be converted, and you convert an army. He will not let the world allow him to travel through incog. We can go through the house, the market, and the exchange, without anybody identifying us! Saul of Tarsus will never pass without recognition, and no town will he be in without setting up his holy testimony. Conclusion: 1. The Lord uses a remarkable expression in ver. 11. "Behold, he prayeth." Had he not been praying all his lifetime? In a certain sense, yes; but whilst saying prayers, punctilious in ritual, exemplary in all the outward observances of his Church, Saul had yet, in a Christian sense, never prayed. Prayer is a battering ram which only a Christian arm can work. 2. Another remarkable expression we find in ver. 16. "I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake." Mark the harmony of this arrangement. God knows what we are doing, and He pays to the uttermost. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked," etc. Adonibezek said, "As I have done, so God hath requited me." Samuel said to Agag, "As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women." Saul was in this succession, a student in that school of compensation. Saul was now made to feel how exactly true these terms were (cf. Acts 8:3 with Acts 14:9; Acts 9:1 with chap. Acts 23; Acts 26:10 with Acts 16:26). Do not suppose you can escape 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: |
    |