Paul’s Parenthesis

Paul's Parenthesis

(No. 3084)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1908.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
26, 1874.

"By the Grace of God I am what I am." 1 Corinthians 15:10.

[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on the same passage is #2833, Volume
49–LESSONS ON DIVINE GRACE]

IF you will read the context of this passage, you will find that these
words occur in one of Paul's digressions, or parenthesis. He was a
writer who very frequently went off at a tangent–he often left the
subject on which he was writing, turned his thoughts in quite another
direction–and then came back and went on with the subject which he had
left for a while. In this respect, I have often, in my own mind,
likened the Apostle Paul to Samson. When he was on the road to Timnah
with his father and mother, he turned aside to slay the lion and
afterwards to find the honey in the carcass. And each time he came back
to his parents, just as if nothing had happened. So the Apostle Paul
often turns aside from some grand argument upon which he is engaged and
says something very valuable and important upon quite another
topic–and then comes back again and calmly and deliberately goes on
with his argument!

There are some kinds of parenthesis which we can always excuse and,
indeed, commend. For instance, the parenthesis of prayer. When we are
engaged in any duty, it will not delay us–really we shall make all the
better speed–if we pause for a while to pray. I like to think of the
Apostle Paul, while he was writing that grand Epistle to the Ephesians,
turning aside from his main argument to offer that great prayer, "For
this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is named, that He would grant
you, according to the riches of His Glory, to be strengthened with
might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be
able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and
depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passes
knowledge, that you might be filled with all the

fullness of God." [See Sermon #707, Volume 12–HEAVENLY GEOMETRY] His

argument would not suffer in the least–indeed it would be all the
stronger for that little interval of prayer! At another time, it is
very sweet to see how he pauses, after recording the Lord's abundant
mercy to him, to write that notable doxology, "Now unto the King
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and Glory
forever and ever. Amen." Such parenthesis of prayer and praise must be
acceptable to the Most High.

Our text, then, is found in a digression of an exceedingly blessed
kind. It would be well if preachers would digress thus nowadays, if by
digressing they preached more of Free Grace and more about the Lord
Jesus Christ! I have heard of a preacher who, on one occasion, when he
entered his pulpit, found himself suddenly stricken with blindness. I
think it was old Dr. Gouge, the great Puritan. Being unable to read the
discourse which he had taken up with him, and being a man of unusual
calmness of spirit, instead of making any outcry, or telling the people
that he had lost the use of his eyes, he preached extemporaneously. And
when he came down from the pulpit, a woman thanked him for the sermon.
"Alas," said the good man, "a great calamity has happened to me. I have
lost my sight." "Blessed be God for that," said the woman, "if it makes
you give up reading your sermons and enables you to preach as you have
just done." It is a good thing when a preacher loses the thread of his
discourse if his discourse is made of thread, and he goes straight away
to the Cross, and begins talking about Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.
Or if he has been wandering in the mazes of modern thought, it is well
when he gets back into the old paths and preaches about the Grace of
God. That is, if he can declare, as Paul does here, "By the Grace of
God I am what I am." God grant that they who preach Free Grace
Doctrines may never

get out of the habit of doing so! And may those who have almost
forgotten the sound of the word, Grace–and those who never knew the
music of it–be made to lose their way until they ramble into the
blessed neighborhood of the Sovereign Grace of God, for I am sure that
nothing but the Gospel of the Grace of God will ever drive Popery out
of this country! The only antagonist that can ever overcome the
self-righteousness and priestcraft of Romanism and Ritualism is a
clear, bald, outspoken declaration of the great Truth of God that by
the Grace of God the saints of God are what they are!

I. Coming to the text and speaking simply and plainly, and praying that
God may speak to your hearts through my words, I want to prove to you,
first, that THE TEXT CONTAINS A DOCTRINAL STATEMENT. "By the Grace of
God I am what I am."

And that statement may be read, first, as meaning this–that Paul
ascribed his own salvation to the free favor of God. He believed
himself to be a regenerate man, a forgiven man, a saved man–and he
believed that condition of his was the result of the unmerited favor of
God. He did not imagine that he was saved because he deservedsalvation,
or that he had been forgiven because his repentance had made an
atonement for his sin! He did not reckon that his prayers had merited
salvation, or that his abundant labors and many sufferings had earned
that gift for him at God's hands. No, he does not for a moment speak of
merit–it is a word which Paul's mouth could not pronounce in such a
connection as that. His declaration is, "It is by God's free favor that
I, Saul of Tarsus, have been converted, and made into Paul the Apostle,
the servant of Jesus Christ. I attribute this great change entirely to
the goodwill, the Sovereign benignity, the undeserved favor of the
ever-blessed God."

Now, my dear Hearers, let me put this Truth very plainly, so that you
may not mistake it. If you are saved, you do not owe your salvation to
anything that you have done. Nor, if you ever are to besaved, will it
be the result of any goodness of your own. You may spin, but if you are
ever saved, the first thing God will do will be to unravel that which
you have spun. You may clothe yourself in the gaudy garments of a
self-made righteousness, but God's first act of Grace will be to strip
you of them and to make you feel that all such garments are nothing but
filthy rags, fit only for the fire. You must deny your own merits, or
you cannot have the merits of Christ! Your Church attendance, your
Chapel attendance, your Baptism, your so-called sacraments, your
confirmation, your private prayers, your family prayers, your Bible
readings, your good thoughts, your alms deeds–all these put together
have no merit in them that could help you to go an inch towards
salvation! Salvation is not of works, but of Grace alone! And they who
do not obtain salvation in this way will as surely perish as the
blasphemer and the drunk! There is but one way of salvation–the way of
free favor. That was the way in which Paul went and that is the way in
which we must go if we would enter into eternal life!

The word, Grace, in Scripture, also means something else besides free
favor–it very often means operative power. When the Spirit of God
works savingly upon the heart, the influence which He exerts is called
His Grace. So the Apostle means here, "By the Grace of God I am what I
am" that is, "Whatever I am that is right, God made me that. If I am
regenerate, I must have been born-again from above by the power of God.
If I have repented, my repentance was the gift of God. If I have
believed, my faith was the work of God. If I have perseverance in
faith, that perseverance has been the effect of the work of God in my
soul. If I have ever prayed an acceptable prayer, it was God's Grace
that enabled me to do it. If I have ever sung God's praise so as to
please Him, that praise was first written in my heart by the Holy
Spirit."

"What have you which you have not received?" is a question to which the
answer from every true heart is, "I have nothing which I have not
received, except my sin. But all I have that is good must have come
from God." If any of you are to be saved, God must save you. Sinner,
you are lost, and lost beyond recovery by any hand but that which is
Divine and Omnipotent! "It is not of him that wills, nor of him that
runs, but of God that shows mercy." Let that text roll like thunder
over the heads of those who think that they can save themselves. The
Lord must do it from first to last! His is the first act of Grace when
He quickens the spiritually dead–and His must be the last act of Grace
when we lay down our vile bodies and our spirit enters into the joy of
our Lord!

Now, these two things being true, and being surely believed among us,
that salvation is by the free favor of God and that it is by the power
of Divine Grace, I think I may say that if Paul had been here, he would
have pushed this matter a little further. There are some of our dear
Brothers and Sisters, and true Brothers and Sisters, too, who do not
see the Doctrines of Grace quite clearly. They see men as trees
walking, for they seem to attribute the fact of their salvation in part
to themselves. I do not say as to merit, for I believe they abhor that
idea. And I do not say as to power, for I believe

they hold as earnestly as we do that the sinner is dead in sin and that
the power to act comes from the Holy Spirit. But, somehow or other,
they make a great deal more of man's will than I think they should,
just as, on the other hand, some speak too little of the will of man
and treat men as if they had not any wills, but were so many logs of
wood! There is Truth of God on both sides of the question and, as some
of my Brothers preach the other view of the Truth, I will preach that
view of it which my text gives me.

If I am a saved man, how came I to be saved? Somebody asks, "But why
are you saved, and not other men?" My dear Friend, there are two
questions there, so I must take them one at a time. Will you kindly let
me take the first one, only altering it thus–Why are you saved? If you
are saved, there is a great difference between you and others who are
not saved. You were once a lover of pleasure and of the world, but you
are now a lover of God. Now, somebody made that difference, and whoever
did it did a good job, so let his head be crowned! Here is the crown.
Now, Sirs, upon whose head shall I put it? Have you made yourself to
differfrom what you used to be, and from what others still are? Are you
prepared to wear the crown? You bow your head and say, "Oh, no! Let the
Lord have the Glory of it." Well, then, it is quite evident that God
has made a difference between you and others and that it was a
commendable thing for Him to do so. And as it was commendable for God
to do it, it must have been so for God to purpose to do it. And if it
was commendable for Him to purpose to do it the day He did it, it was
commendable for Him to purpose to do it from all eternity! And thus we
get back to the old and glorious decrees and Covenant of Divine Grace
of which some are so afraid, though, as surely as this Book is written
of God, it stands there that He has, "from the beginning," chosen His
people unto salvation. "By the Grace of God I am what I am."

If there is an Antinomian here, he will very boldly declare the meaning
of this passage. But I will speak as boldly as he does and dare to do
it with the Truth of God on my side! I am sure that this is pure
unadulterated Truth of God, that Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace saves the
soul from beginning to end. But if you ask me, "Why is a man lost?"
then the Antinomian and I will differ altogether. I say if he is lost,
it is his own fault–it is his sin and his willful rejection of Christ
that cause him to be lost. And if there is any Arminian here who will
lay the guilt of sin on the sinner's conscience, I can do that as much
as he can, and I believe I shall have Scripture with me in so doing!
Damnation is all of man from first to last–and salvation is all of
Grace from first to last! Someone asks, "How do these two things
agree?" No, Brother, how do these two things disagree? If you will tell
me when they quarrel, I will try to reconcile them. They stand in this
Book side by side as two grand Inspired Truths of God and they should
be preached side by side! They never did fall out and they never will.
If you love self-righteousness, they will quarrel with you–but they
will never quarrel with each other.

II. Now, secondly, I shall briefly treat our text, AS A GRATEFUL
ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Here is a child of God who stood very high among his
fellow Believers, one who had many gifts, much Grace, great success,
and high honor in the Church–yet he says, "By the Grace of God I am
what I am." It would be right for any of us who are nobodies, and who
never did anything, to talk thus. But this is Paul who is speaking, the
one who could truthfully say, "I was not a whit behind the very chief
Apostles." Yet he says, "By the Grace of God I am what I am."

Paul's grateful acknowledgment means, first, that he forbade himself
ever to boast. Why should he boast? Whatever he had that was good had
been given to him by the great Benefactor, so he might well have said,
"What have I in which I can glory? I am nothing and I have done nothing
except what God has made me, and what His Grace has worked in me and by
me." Beloved Friends, it is an astonishing thing that we should be the
subjects of pride! Yet, considering what poor creatures we are, it is
not astonishing that we are proud, or that we are anything that is bad.
But if we are proud, what fools we are! Proud?–just a heap of dust and
ashes that the wind would blow away if it were not for a daily
miracles–just a mass of corruption that would be putrefying in a few
hours if the life were gone out of it! Yet we sell out and think
ourselves some great ones–and, oh, what big somebodies we are until
the Grace of God brings us down to our proper level! The heavens
themselves are scarcely high enough for our tall heads, we think
ourselves so great! But it is a deathblow to boasting when anyone can
say, "By the Grace of God I am what I am."

And, dear Friends, this grateful acknowledgment incites us to holy
service. If everything that we have already received has come from God,
let us surrender ourselves and all we have to God! As He has made us,
let us live for our Creator! As He has worked all our works in us, let
us give up to Him our spirit, soul, and body as our reasonable service.

Debtors to Free Grace as we are, if others talk about good works, let
us go and do them! While the idle dream of self-righteousness leads
some men to make sacrifices, let gratitude for Free Grace compel us to
make still greater sacrifices.

Moreover, our text, I think, as a grateful acknowledgment, leads us to
further confidence in God. If by the Grace of God I am what I am, then
by the Grace of God I shall be, by-and-by, something better. He who has
brought us to repent and to believe will bring us to greater faith, to
fuller assurance and to completer conformity to Christ. And He will
preserve us unto the end. When any tell us that God will leave us to
perish at the last, I never care to answer them, for it always seem to
me that those who talk so of my Master do not know Him. What? Leave His
beloved, leave His spouse, leave the members of His own body to perish?
It is useless to tell us that! He loves His own with too mighty a love
to ever cast them away. Let others say what they will, I join with Paul
in saying, "By the Grace of God I am what I am" and I am persuaded
that, by that same Grace, I shall one day be with Christ and be like
He. You who are not the subjects of Divine Grace may well fear that you
will perish! But you who have received God's Grace may rest assured
that since Grace was the motive which began the good work in you, the
same motive will continue even to the end! If God had begun saving us
because we were good, He would, of course, leave off saving us when we
were not good! If he had begun to save us because we were pure in heart
and gracious in life, He would leave off when we ceased to be so. But
as He began to save us from no motive but His own Sovereign
determination to save us, how can that be affected by anything that may
happen to us? So let us fall back upon this comforting assurance–by
the Grace of God we are what we are, and by the Grace of God we shall
one day share Christ's Glory!

III. I will not say more upon that part of the subject, though it is
one upon which I might profitably talk for an hour. But, in the third
place, I want you to regard the text as A SWEET ENCOURAGEMENT.

A sweet encouragement to whom? Why, first, to the minister Beloved
Friends, he who is now speaking to you feels himself to be a marvel of
the Grace of God and he can say to you honestly and without any mock
humility, that since God saved him, he has never doubted the
possibility of the salvation of anyone else of the whole human race!
Preserved from outward sin of the grosser kind, I nevertheless had for
some years such a full sense of my own depravity and such a horror of
darkness on account of the evil that I saw within myself, that I can
have sympathy with the most despairing soul that is here. If you are
sitting at Hell's dark door, I can tell you that I sat there month
after month! And if you are tempted even to destroy yourself, I can
assure you that I have known the misery that Job felt when he said, "My
soul chooses strangling and death rather than my life." Yet I am saved
by the Sovereign Grace of God, Glory be to His holy name! If the Lord
sent me to preach the Gospel to the devil, himself, I would believe
that God was able to convert even him! I know that He never will, but
if there is any man who is as bad as the devil, and the Gospel is sent
to him, I shall never despair of the possibility of that man being
reclaimed and made to stand among the redeemed at the last!

I know that there are many here who were drunks, swearers and worse
than that–but they have obtained mercy, they have been washed in the
precious blood of Jesus–and tonight they are rejoicing that their many
sins have been forgiven them for Christ's sake! Those who have been in
such a plight as that do not despair of the salvation of the greatest
sinners here. You have gone far into sin, but you have seen another
saved who was once just what you now are, so why should you not be
saved? There have been murderers saved, then why not you if your hands
are red with the blood of others? There was a thief who was saved at
the last hour, then why not you if you are a thief? There have been
many Magdalens saved, then why not you if you belong to that sad
sisterhood? O you who lie despairing at the gates of Hell, the silver
trumpet of the Gospel is sounded in your ears by one who has enjoyed
the music of it in his own soul! What an encouragement it is to the
preacher when he can stay, "By the Grace of God I am what I am!"

And what an encouragement it should be to the hearer when he is told
that salvation is all of Grace! If Christ came to you and said, "You
cannot be saved unless you perform so many good works," there would be
no hope for the most of you, though I fear that there are some who
think that such a message would just suit them, for they fancy that
they have done a great many good works. In cherishing that delusion,
they are like a Hindu of whom I once heard. He believed that he must
not eat any animal substance, or that if he did, he would perish. A
missionary said to him, "That idea is ridiculous. Why, you cannot drink
a glass of water without swallowing thousands of living creatures." He
did not believe it, so the missionary took a drop of water and put it
under a microscope. When the man saw the innumerable living creatures
in the drop of water, what did he do? Why, he broke the microscope!
That was his way of settling the question. So, when we meet with
persons who say, "Our works are pure, clean and excellent," we bring
the great

microscope of the Law of the Lord, and we bid them look through that.
And when they dolook through it and discover that even one sinful
thoughtdestroys their hope of salvation by self-righteousness–and when
they see a whole host of sins in their prayers, or acts, or
thoughts–then they are angry with the preacher and they try to break
the microscope! But, for all that, the Truth of God remains, "By the
deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by
the Law is the knowledge of sin."

But salvation comes by Grace. Catch at that, Sinner, for if it is by
Grace that sinners are saved, why should not you be saved? If a thing
is given away, nobody can be too poor to have it. If it is the gift of
charity, poverty is a recommendation rather than a hindrance. My Lord
and Master does not tell me to come and say to you that salvation is by
your own feelings. It would be as impossible for you to feelright as to
doright–but salvation is entirely by God's Grace! "But," says someone,
"my heart is hard." Then come to God to have it softened! "But I have
no good thing to bring Him." Then come to Him for every good thing!
"But I cannot even bring a sense of need." Then come without a sense of
need–for the man who feels that he has not a sense of need is often
the one who has the best sense of need! He who says, "I have at last a
sense of need," shows that he has not yet got to the bottom, for if he
were brought to the bottom, he would feel that he had not any
feeling–he would groan that he could not groan and grieve that he
could not grieve! Dear Friends, you have to do nothing, and to be
nothing, and to feel nothing by way of fitness for salvation–but just
come and accept, free, gratis, for nothing–the abundant mercy of God
in Christ Jesus! He is the empty sinner's fullness, the dead sinner's
life, the perishing sinner's salvation! I do not know any Truth of God
that can encourage poor sinful souls to pray, to repent and to believe
in Jesus except the Truth that salvation is all of Grace from first to
last! As the Apostle was saved by Grace, so must it be with all the
rest of us–and so may it be with you!

IV. Now, to close, I think our text gives us A SUGGESTION FOR
SELF-EXAMINATION.

"By the Grace of God I am what I am," says Paul. And I want each one of
you to ask yourself, "What am I?"My eyes cannot reach you all, but I
want you to feel that God's eyes are looking at you and that He puts
this question to you, "What are you?" Paul tells us what he is, but
what are you? An unregenerate sinner? An unpardoned sinner? An
impenitent sinner? An unbelieving sinner? Will you put on the right
label and wear it? I almost wish I had some labels to put on you, but
let your own consciences do it–and when you get home, will you take
your pen and write down what you really are? You are either condemned
or uncondemned! Write down whichever you are and look the truth in the
face. No man is usually so near bankruptcy as the one who dares not
look into his books–and that man must be bad who dares not search his
own heart. What are you, then, dear Friend? Let that question begin
your self-examination.

Here is another question, How much do you know about the Grace of God?
Paul says, "By the Grace of God I am what I am." You see that the mark
of a child of God is that by the Grace of God he is what he is–what do
you know about the Grace of God? "Well, I attend my place of worship
regularly." But what do you know about the Grace of God? "I have always
been an upright, honest, truthful, respectable man." I am glad to hear
it. But what do you know about the Grace of God? You think you do not
need it, though you are not a saved soul–yet none are so certainly
lost as those who think they do not need the Grace of God. Has that
Grace ever changed you?' 'Well, I was born-again in baptism." Yes, I
have seen a great many of those who were said to have been born-again
in baptism, but I have not seen any difference between them and those
who were not born-again in baptism! And nor can anybody else. "You must
be born-again," even you baptized heathens who know no more about the
Grace of God than if you had never lived in a land where the Gospel is
preached!

I will put to you another straight question, Is Christ Jesus your only
hope?Were you ever made to feel that there was no merit in anything
that you ever did? Were you ever thrown flat on your face on the Grace
and mercy of God, and made to pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, "God
be merciful to me a sinner"? If not, what is your hope? If there is, in
the matter of your supposed salvation, anything that is not of the
Grace of God, do with it what the man did with the forged bill–bury it
in the earth and run away from it–and be afraid that anybody should
think it was yours. Your own righteousness is such an abominable thing
that it will as surely damn you as the greatest profanity! The best
thing for you to do with it is to bury it and run away from it.

If you cannot say that you are what you want to be. If you cannot say
that you know anything experimentally about the Grace of God, the last
question I will put to you is this, What must that principle be which
does rule you? The Grace of God made Paul what he was–what has made
you what you are? "Well, Sir, I think I am as good as my neighbors, and
rather better than most of them." Who made you so? I suppose you are a
self-made man and it is a matter of fact that everybody worships his
creator, so that if you believe that you made yourself, I am not
surprised that you worship yourself. But I do wonder where you expect
to go when you die, you who have never done any wrong, and have been so
good that you do not need a Savior. Do you expect to go to Heaven?
Well, if you could go there, what would you do? I read of the multitude
that no man could number, "These are they which came out of great
tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the Throne of God, and
serve Him day and night in His temple." But if you could get there
because your garments never needed any washing, surely you would throw
up your cap and say, "Well done myself!" And what a discord that would
cause in the music of Heaven! What a stranger you would feel among
those multitudes who would all praise the blessed God! But you will
never go there until you fling that righteousness of yours back to the
pit from whence it came, for there is nothing in it that God can look
upon with pleasure. It is a vile compound of pride and ignorance. May
the light of the Holy Spirit shine upon it and make you loathe it, hate
it and flee from it! And may He teach you that there is life in Jesus,
there is pardon in Jesus, there is salvation in Jesus for every soul
that comes to Him! If you say, "By my own merits and abilities I am
what I am," may God save you from that dreadful delusion and bring you
humbly to trust in the merits and Sacrifice of His dear Son! So you
shall find salvation and He shall have the Glory, world without end.
Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ACTS9:1-31.

Verse 1. And Saul, yet breathing out threats and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest Notice that little
word, "yet." "Saul yet breathing out threats and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord." But there was to be a point beyond which he
could not go. I pray God that there may be such a "yet" as that put
into the histories of any here who are opposing God and His Christ.
"Saul, yet breathing out threats and slaughter"–as if they were his
very breath, as if he only lived to blaspheme the name of Christ and to
persecute His followers–"went unto the high priest."

2. And desired of him letters to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he
found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring
them bound unto Jerusalem. He wanted his hunting ground enlarged! He
had not enough to gratify his malice among the thousands of Believers
in Jerusalem, so he must go to Damascus to hunt out the Christians
there. Paul was always very thorough in all that he did. So, when he
was a persecutor, he was a very bitter one. It mattered not to him
whether the saints were men or women. In ordinary warfare it is the
custom to spare the women. A brave man is satisfied to fight with men
like himself–but a bigot's zeal knows no bounds–and so Saul asked for
letters so that, "if he found any of this way, whether they were men or
women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem."

3. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus.The lion is about to leap
upon his prey! The sheepfold lies in the valley and the wolf surveys it
from the hillside. "Alas for the Church of God at Damascus!" you and I
would have said if we had been there.

3. And suddenly there shined round about him a light from Heaven.A
supernatural blaze, as though Heaven's gate had been thrown open and
the Glory had come streaming down upon this rebellious man.

4. And he fell to the earth, and heard a Voice saying unto him, Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute Me?Most people are converted in a somewhat
similar fashion to this. There is "a light from Heaven" shining through
the Gospel upon them. They fall to the ground in penitent
self-abasement and then they hear the Voice of the Son of God speaking
to their hearts. I do not mean that the external phenomena are the same
as in the case of Saul of Tarsus, but the work is the same in its
effects and in some of its processes. Saul "heard a Voice saying unto
him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" It was a Divine
Voice–majestic, piercing, affectionate, convincing. Saul's mind was of
a deeply-logical kind, so Christ's question was an appeal to his
reasoning faculties–"Give the reason for your present action. 'Why do
you persecute

Me?'"

5. And he said Who are You Lord? And the lord said, I am Jesus whom you
persecute: it is hard for you to kick against the pricks.I do not doubt
that he had been already pricked in his conscience and he had kicked
out as an ox kicks against the ox-goad when he is pricked by it to make
him go forward. Saul was a man of strong will and determined

purpose. He had already felt in his own heart some of the sorrows that
follow from a wrong course of life, yet he resolved to persevere in it,
so the Lord said to him, "It is hard for you to kick against the
pricks." And if any of you resist the thrusts of conscience and the
strivings of God's Spirit, you will be like a man with naked feet
kicking against iron spikes, and hurting himself, but not injuring that
against which he kicks.

6. And he, trembling and astonished, said Lord, what will You have me
to do?This was a very natural question from one who had always tried to
live by doing. He had been a work-monger up to that very moment, so he
naturally cried, "Lord, what will You have me to do?"

6. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it
shall be told you what you must do. "You must become a disciple and sit
at the feet of another man, of a humbler sort, and you must learn from
him." Christ will never teach us by visions what we can learn by the
ordinary means of instruction, nor will he work miracles where common
methods may suffice.

7. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless. They were
struck with astonishment–

7. Hearing a Voice, but seeing no man. A loud Voice stunned their ears,
but they could not understand its message.

8, 9. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he
saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into
Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor
drink. What a whirl of anguish must his mind have been in all that
time! The panorama of Stephen's martyrdom and of the holy men and women
against whom he had breathed out threats and slaughter would pass
before his inward eyes, even though his outward eyes were closed.

10, 11. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias;
and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I
am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the
street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for
one called Saul, of Tarsus: for behold, he prays. God knows where every
sinner is– the street he lives in, the number of the house, and the
name of the owner of the house, so that he can find him when He
pleases, or send one of His servants to him. You remember what John
Bunyan said to the Quaker who came to see him in prison? The Quaker
said to him, "Friend John, I am glad I have found you at last, for the
Lord sent me to you, and I have been through half the prisons in
England trying to find you." "No, no," said Bunyan, "do not tell me
that. The Lord did not send you to me, for He knows I have been here
all these years. If He had sent you, you would have come straight to
the prison door." When the Lord calls a man to go on an errand for Him,
He puts His finger on the right spot and says,

"Go there."

12. Andhas seen in a vision, a man named Ananias coming in, andputting
his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.You see how true
Revelations fit into each other? Something is revealed to Ananias, and
it is also revealed to Saul and, therefore, it is proved to be true.
Some years ago, a brother told me that he had had it revealed to him
that I was to let him preach for me in the Tabernacle. I said that of
course I would agree to that when it was revealed to me that I was to
let him, but I did not believe in lopsided Revelations. You will find a
great many of those crazy revelations about and you may generally judge
them in some such common-sense way as that.

13-16. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of 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 that call on Your name.
But the Lord said unto him, Go your way: for he is a chosen vessel unto
Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of
Israel: for I will show him how great things he must suffer for My
name's sake. He had made God's people suffer because of their loyalty
to Christ–so it seemed only right that he, himself, should suffer for
the same reason.

17, 18. And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house;
andputting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus,
that appeared to you in the way as you came, has sent me, that you
might receive your sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And
immediately there feel from his eyes, as it had been, scales: and he
received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.As he believed in
Jesus, it was right that he should confess his faith in the way that
Christ appointed.

19. And when he had received meat, he was strengthened.Do admire the
tenderness of the Holy Spirit in recording that Saul received meat and
was strengthened. He had been without food or drink for three days and
nights, so that it was as right for him to partake of food as to
confess his faith by being baptized!

19. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at
Damascus. Thus did the lion lie down with the lamb and the wolf with
the kid!

20. And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is
the Son of God. How he must have startled his Jewish Brothers and
Sisters that day! They knew why he had come to Damascus, but, behold,
he was preaching the very faith that he had gone there to destroy!

21-25. But all that heard him were amazed, and said: is not this he
that destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem, and came
here for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief
priests? But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the
Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.
And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill
him: but their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the
gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night,
and let him down by the wall in a basket. I never heard of a more
precious basketful of material than that! Sometimes the greatest of men
may owe their safety to the very poorest of instruments and I think it
is the duty of a Christian to avoid trouble if he can, just as our Lord
bade His disciples, when they were persecuted in one city, to flee to
another. Paul was carrying out that command of his Master. It was not
cowardice–it was the very soul of courage–that he might go elsewhere
to proclaim the Gospel that he had received in Damascus.

26. And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to
the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that
he was a disciple. They did not admit anybody and everybody into the
Church. They guarded it as Christ's Church should be guarded, that
unworthy people might not enter it. If any of you should be kept back a
little while, you can say to yourself, "Well, they kept back Paul." We
are poor fallible creatures, but we try to judge rightly concerning
those who wish to unite with us.

27-31. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the Apostles, and
declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that He had
spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name
of Jesus. And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem,
And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against
the Grecians: but they went about to slay him. Which when the brethren
knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.
Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and
Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in
the comfort of the Holy Spirit, were multiplied. Blessed be God for
such a conversion as that of Saul of Tarsus!