If God Can Save That Guy, He Can Save Anybody

We will look at another famous testimony, the story of the apostle Paul and his conversion. And it's very fitting, even though we've sort of moved past it in our chronology of Acts. We're already—we've dealt with Acts 16 last week. We're gonna do a u-turn and look at Acts chapter nine this morning. Let's turn to that part of the bible, Acts chapter nine, as we read this morning about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus.

Acts chapter nine, verse one. 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 shone 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 the voice 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 travelling 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 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 have come 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 baptised, and taking food, he was strengthened. So far, our reading. This is the word of God. Saul grew up in a place called Tarsus. It was a city of Asia Minor right on the Syrian border. Today, you would find that border between Syria and modern day Turkey.

In those days, Tarsus was a distinguished city. It was distinguished for one big reason, and that was its university. Tarsus was a place of education. This university was regarded as one of the three great universities of the ancient world. The other great universities of Athens and Alexandria in Egypt were among them.

You could say that the University of Tarsus ranked alongside these other great universities like you would rank Harvard, Yale, and Princeton next to each other. In other words, Saul grew up in a college town, in the shadow of a great university. Tarsus prided itself on education. Meanwhile, we know also from scripture that Saul's father was a Roman citizen, and he was a Jew as well. As a Roman Jew, he passed on two priceless assets of Judaism and Roman citizenship to his son, Saul.

It's likely scholars say that his father was a Pharisee. That's why Saul eventually would enter into the Pharisaic tradition himself. That's why Saul was raised so strictly to adhere to the Mosaic law, the law of Moses. As he says in Philippians three, I was circumcised on the eighth day. He boasts of this in a mocking way.

I was circumcised on the eighth day as all good Jews are. I came from the nation of Israel, from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, he says. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to the righteousness that comes from the law, blameless.

In other words, this Saul who we meet in Acts chapter nine was the perfect Jew. Saul ranked head and shoulders above his peers as his generation's next greatest Jewish leader as well. From Tarsus, the city of the great university, trained in the strict discipline of the Pharisaic tradition by his father, and at the age, probably of thirteen, sent to Jerusalem. Why? Because all gifted Jewish boys at thirteen started the process of studying the Torah, studying the law of Moses.

Seemingly, his family wanted him to study Judaism at the highest level, at the most prestigious place to study, and that was the city of Jerusalem, where at that time, the greatest teacher of the day was a Pharisee by the name of Gamaliel. We heard about him a few weeks ago in Acts chapter five. Under this man, Gamaliel, the greatest Pharisee of his day, the greatest mind perhaps of his day, Saul was instructed. It's hard to underestimate what a significant personality this Gamaliel was.

He was so elevated and so revered in his day that he himself was called the beauty of the law. Meaning, the law was never more beautiful than when it was explained by him. And so sitting under the teaching of this man, Gamaliel, Saul would spend the better part of a decade memorising the Old Testament, training for years in how to debate and discuss scripture, learning to build arguments and to explain the truth of the bible. By the end of his training, Saul had become an expert in Judaism. He had become an expert in the Old Testament law.

It's interesting, however, that during Jesus' three year ministry in Galilee and then later in Jerusalem, it doesn't seem that Paul was in Jerusalem anymore. And by this stage, he was probably a young man, and it's sort of assumed that he had moved back home to Tarsus in this time. He'd probably taken up teaching in a synagogue or, you know, overseeing some sort of ministry within the Pharisaic tradition there. However, when we get to the book of Acts, this is a number of years after Jesus, or let's say, a number of a year or so. By the time we get to Stephen's trial in Acts chapter seven, we find Paul back in Jerusalem.

We don't know what has brought him back, but he is a very motivated, ambitious man. When he comes to Stephen, he is very agitated as well. He is angry. And the question is, why is Paul or Saul so angry? Some speculate, and I tend to agree, that Stephen was a Greek speaking Jew, what is called a Hellenistic Jew.

He's a Jew, in other words, from outside of Israel. Saul, likewise, grew up in Tarsus, in Turkey, outside of Israel. He was also a Greek speaking Jew. But Stephen wasn't an educated Pharisee like Saul. Stephen wasn't from a noble line like him.

And yet, Stephen, in Acts chapter seven, had the audacity to teach and interpret scripture. And then furthermore, to use that scripture against him. Stephen was incredibly popular. We see this idea that he was filled with wisdom, Luke says. Filled with the Holy Spirit and crowds would come and listen to him speak.

And so you can imagine that these people who were starting to call Jesus the Messiah, this Jesus of Nazareth, there were lots of converts of them. There were lots of them. And so this law that Saul had been trying to keep perfectly all his life, Stephen was saying in Acts chapter seven, he couldn't keep. And no one like Saul could keep it perfectly. That instead of being taught how to try harder, like the Pharisees were doing, how to keep the law better, the message actually was, Jesus has kept the law perfectly on your behalf.

And he has died for the fact that you have failed to keep it. Stephen says that this Jesus was put to death according to God's perfect plan, but that this happened at the hands of the Pharisees and people like Saul, but that God had vindicated this Jesus by raising Him from the dead three days later. You can understand that all of these sort of arguments and statements would have caused someone like Saul to burn with anger. Preacher and author, Sinclair Ferguson, makes a compelling case that Saul's deepest sin as he understood it, even as he tried to be the most perfect adherent, the perfect keeper of God's law, was the sin of coveting, the tenth commandment. Saul was a deeply jealous man.

And the jealousy stemmed from his ambition that had caused him to come and study in Jerusalem. Saul lusted for status, for power, for influence. And perhaps that is why he decided to so ferociously lead this persecution of a relatively small, helpless minority of Jewish blasphemers called Christians. Saul said, I'll take this job, and I'll show you how well I can get rid of this mess. Ferguson makes this point that there's this deep reason that here in Acts chapter seven, Saul hears Stephen's speech before he is martyred.

And Saul saw this uneducated, non-Pharisee speaking with wisdom, as Luke has put it, and he out-debates all of them. And because Stephen is filled with the Holy Spirit, he speaks with an authority that they cannot match. And in that moment, Saul is both intimidated and wildly jealous. Hundreds and thousands were being converted at this teaching of this uneducated and unworthy person, like Stephen, like Peter, like Philip. And it drives Saul crazy.

If you read the other testimonies by Paul, given later in the book of Acts, and there are two other accounts where he talks about his conversion story in the book of Acts. And when you read his letters as well later in the New Testament, I think you can make a case that the number one sin that most grieved Paul's heart as a Christian later on was his jealousy, was his coveting. He writes in Romans 7:7, What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means, he says.

Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said to me, You shall not covet. But sin, seizing an opportunity through that commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. That's the one sin that Paul uses as an example. We read it in Colossians three this morning as well.

Very interestingly, Paul says, Avoid sexual immorality, avoid slander, all these things. And then he talks about coveting, and he says, it is idolatry. The heart of our rebellion, idolatry is tied up with coveting. This is Saul of Tarsus. Sin gripped Saul that day when watching Stephen.

And alongside the other Pharisees and the Jewish leaders, he stood by and condemned Stephen and encouraged his execution. Luke says that after that moment, after Stephen is martyred, we dealt with that a few weeks ago, they broke out a persecution of Christians in Jerusalem. There was a systematic pursuing of Christians. But we see Paul's absolute hatred and his ambition against these Christians that even after successfully scattering these Christians from Jerusalem, it's not enough. He has to go to the other cities to stamp out this movement.

And so he asked for letters of authority from the chief priest in Jerusalem to go towards Damascus, a sort of a big city centre after Jerusalem, and to go and hunt down the Christians that he had heard had fled there. And that is where we begin our passage this morning in chapter nine. Now the story really does speak for itself. It's an incredible story. And so what I want to do this morning is just reflect on three points of Saul's experience that day, because it will be relevant for us.

In many ways, Saul's experience is unique to him only. We're not gonna experience anything probably remotely similar to that. But there are some really important truths that we must hear this morning. Overall, the story of Paul's conversion tells its own story. Saul experienced a life-shattering moment when he saw the resurrected Christ.

I can't think of a more powerful example of the power of the gospel to turn a life around. That's Acts chapter nine. The persecutor of the church, who turns into the greatest missionary the church has ever known. The man who once ferociously determined to cause the suffering of the church would later embrace humbly all sorts of suffering for that very same church. Jesus said to Ananias, He will know how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

So there is no question as we read Acts chapter nine, the power of the gospel to change lives. In many ways, Paul's calling is profoundly unique, but in other ways, there are the same basic truths which apply to every person when they become a Christian. And Paul's story is powerful because it causes us to think to ourselves, If God can save that guy, He can save anyone. And so the first truth this morning that I want to share is that salvation does not depend on my desire to be saved, but rather on the supreme will of God. Everything about Paul's, Saul's conversion came from God.

Saul was not searching for a new life on his road to Damascus. He wasn't a soldier in a foxhole fearing imminent death and crying out to God as bombs fell around him. He wasn't a prisoner on death row facing execution. He wasn't lying on his deathbed. Saul was not searching for a new life, or searching a way to improve his current one.

He would have told you that he was doing just fine. Thank you very much. Circumcised on the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law a perfect Pharisee. Saul wasn't searching out for God. Similarly, neither did the Lord appear to him the way many preachers today try to represent Him coming to non-believers, to non-Christians.

Jesus doesn't come to Saul and plead with him. Oh Saul, won't you please trust in me to be your saviour? I've done everything that I can to make it possible for you. I've made it so easy for you to sign up. Just sign on the dotted line.

I've made it possible and now the rest is up to you. It is your decision, but I won't force it. Instead, the Lord pushes this man's face into the dirt literally, completely overpowers him, strikes him blind, and then gives him orders of what to do next. There is no pleading. There is no sympathy.

There is no apology. So how much choice does Saul really have? Saul's marching orders are given. You will bear my name before the Gentiles, and the kings, and the children of Israel. Verse 16, I want to show you how much you must suffer for my name.

None of this is dependent on whether Saul had a choice in the matter. God had it all planned from start to finish. All of that was happening now was a formality, was a courtesy telling Saul how it would be. As Paul would later write about God's electing sovereign grace in Romans 9:16, Paul writes, So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. If you are a Christian today, you've not chosen Christ.

He has chosen you. You've never desired to be saved. In fact, you are running in the opposite direction. But because of the supreme will of God, you have this incredible hope that He has chosen you, that He has set His heart upon you. And because of His will, and because that will is so powerful to accomplish what it has set out to do, friend, you are so free.

And so I want to say, if you are here this morning and you don't see yourself as a Christian, even this reality should give you some sense of hope. Because you aren't here today by accident. God moves heaven and earth, important and unimportant events, big and minuscule, to bring people to Himself. And today might just be that day. So please think about it.

Salvation does not depend on my desire to be saved. It is on the supreme will, the supreme will of God. Secondly, salvation does not depend on my goodness, but rather on God's free grace. God did not choose Saul because He saw something of value in his nature. Despite Saul and others saying that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, in God's perfect sight, Saul had not done anything to make him worthy of God's grace.

In fact, when we come to Acts nine, he is doing the direct opposite of pleasing God. He is persecuting the precious, beloved people of God. There is nothing in what Paul had done that warranted Christ coming to him that day. Nothing that warranted Paul's heart to be gripped by a saving knowledge of God. The bible is clear that if salvation depends on anything in us, then none of us would be saved because no one seeks for God.

Romans 8:8, Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. It's not will not. Those in the flesh will not. Those in the flesh cannot please God. Since faith and repentance are pleasing to God, the natural man, the man just in our normal natures, cannot believe in Christ or turn from their sin unless they've been granted the ability to do so.

Ephesians 2:8 and 9 tells us. But this is the great news this morning. Because it means that God can take a man breathing out murderous threats against the church like Saul, a man committed to be an enemy of Christianity like the Taliban, and God can change their hearts from an intense hatred to, do you believe this, submission to His supreme authority. That change of heart can take place in an instant, which it did for Saul. God is able to convert the most unlikely of people.

This is true for you and I. Wherever our walk with the Lord has gone, a famous hymn says, Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. It is only by God's sheer goodness, His incredible mercy, His amazing grace that He has chosen me despite all that I have done to receive the gift of eternal life. This understanding gives us courage to this morning pray for the hearts of the Taliban leaders. Saul was a terrorist.

He terrorised the church. Do we believe that God can do this in Afghanistan? We need to plead with God to have mercy. Because if salvation doesn't depend on my goodness, then it's not out of reach in my wickedness either. My salvation rests in God's goodness alone.

And then, third and finally, salvation is marked by a conviction of sin and a genuine repentance. Someone once said that before a man becomes a saint, he must first see himself as a sinner. The Lord asked Saul on that road to Damascus, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? The repetition of his name shows a surprising tenderness and familiarity with him. Doesn't it?

Just like we find when Jesus was ministering on earth and He said to Martha, Martha, Martha, why are you so stressed? Why are you so worried? Jesus says to Peter, Simon, Simon, as Peter wrestles with this idea that Jesus would go to the cross. Or as Jesus heads into Jerusalem for the last time and He says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And that is not a question to gain information. That's not a question because Jesus doesn't know. That's a question so that Paul, Saul can answer it. With every Christian he harms, Saul was plunging the sword again and again into the wound of Jesus, into His side that had been pierced by a spear. And the most powerful thing about that question is, Saul is persecuting the church.

And Jesus asked him, Why are you persecuting me? A side note, how do you view the church? What is the church? It is the body of Christ. What is done in Afghanistan to brothers and sisters over there is done to us.

What is done to them is done to Jesus Christ. And what we do to this church is done to Jesus. End of side note. This question, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me, stayed with Paul his entire life.

And the reason it did so is because in that moment, he realises the enormity of the transgression that he has made against a holy God. That day, Saul received salvation because he finally became aware that he needed saving. This was the difference maker. Saul finally realised that he needed saving. In other words, he became convicted of sin.

And he knew that he had to change, which is called repentance. How do I know this? Because we see in that response to this great revelation, Saul doesn't eat for three days. He doesn't drink for three days. Like a person mourning the death of a loved one having died tragically, Saul can't bring himself to eat.

He is that distraught. Over what? His sin. Well, some of us who have grown up in Christian homes gradually become aware of our understanding of forgiveness, our need of it. Especially for those who haven't had particularly messy family lives or childhoods.

There are others of us who have been moved to be deeply convicted of our sin at the time of our conversion. But in either case, there's no such thing as a truly born again person who doesn't have a growing sense of their need for God's forgiveness because of this thing that they all have, we all own, which is our sin. The closer we walk in the light of Christ's holiness, a light that Saul seemingly experienced on that day, the more that light reveals the grime of our own hearts. And in that moment, that is what caused Saul to be so moved. Spurgeon, once lamenting the shallowness of the conversions that he was seeing in his own day, once said, Today we have so many who are built up, who were never initially pulled down.

So many have been filled, who were never emptied. So many exalted, who were never humbled. And that is why I more earnestly want to remind you that the Holy Spirit must convince of sin or we cannot be saved. So if you feel yourself unworthy of being a Christian today, that's a good place. If you think you have loved Him or others too little, if you think you have sinned too much, I have good news for you.

That realisation is the beginning of salvation. Genuine salvation is marked by conviction of sin and a desire to change, which is called repentance. And so in closing, whether you are a Christian this morning or whether you're not sure, the conversion of Saul gives you hope and proof that God can save anyone. This salvation is needed because of this thing in us called sin, an active rebellion in us that drives us to hate and disobey God and His will. This power was conquered in the ministry of Jesus Christ on the cross when He died on our behalf, taking the punishment that we deserve on Him.

And for all those who will receive Him now as Lord and Saviour, He offers eternal restitution, eternal reconciliation with God. And so friend, there is hope for every one of us who believes and trusts in Jesus today. So I appeal to all of you, trust in Jesus. Put your hope in Him. Reject your sin.

Don't trust in yourself any longer because you're not that clever and you're not that good. Place your life. Place your soul in His hands today. And so let the words of Paul speak to you, words that he wrote at the end of his life in his last letter. Paul would write in 1 Timothy 1.

For this reason, I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His immense patience as an example for those who believe in Him, and they will receive eternal life. Paul's conversion, he says, is an example to us. That the worst of God's enemies has been brought into His family. And Paul says, If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. If God saves that guy, He can save anybody.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we have heard really weighty things this morning. We have heard of people experiencing unthinkable, unimaginable oppression. How can people hate each other so much as to take the life by beheading someone? And yet, Lord, this is not a pointless thing.

This is not a tragedy that will be swallowed up in the nothingness of this existence. Just another bad luck example in the pointlessness of this life. There is a reason. There is this intense hatred. There is a reason that this man, Saul, persecuted your church.

And that is because this message in the bible, the things that Christians hold onto and hold out, is so dangerous because it disrupts us. It causes our worlds to be turned upside down. And yet, in this disrupting power, there is eternal freedom. Our God, help us who don't yet believe this, have never yet fully embraced this to believe it today. Move in us to have a desire to know more if we don't know enough.

And if we know enough, God, move us to repent, to turn aside from, and to cling to the Lord Jesus as both my Saviour and my King. Lord, we again pray for those who are not just ambivalent and nonplussed about the gospel like so many in Australia. We pray for countries where this message is actively resisted with violence, with persecution. And we pray, Lord, that their hearts may be changed. You have done it so many times before.

Oh, God, grant our brothers and sisters in those places the peace and the joy of seeing you do an incredible work. We pray for Afghanistan. We pray for the salvation of many thousands of people there. Lord, if you could save your servant Paul, you can save them. In Jesus' name, amen.