Bible Study: July 14, 2021

Last week we did the review on Acts 1-8. If anyone has any questions on that or anything we need to discuss, feel free to bring that up anytime. It can be another time if you want, if there's something that you want to refresh a conversation on or anything like that. Tonight we're going to move into chapter 9. Through the first eight chapters, we learned a lot about the church, the way God worked with the church, the way He oversaw the church, and began it. There's a lot we learned about us, what we, as His body, we saw the things that pleased Him very much in that church and how He blessed them with so many blessings, the miracles that He allowed them to perform that had the effect of healing people, but also of opening up the opportunities to preach the gospel to the world in the way that He wanted it preached.

As we move into chapter 9, we're going to move more into the Gentile world. The last couple of chapters, we talked about Stephen, and we saw how God used him to preach a powerful message to the Jewish leaders. It cost him his life, and he was willing to give up his life for what God had asked him to do. We also saw Philip, and how when persecution came to the church, he moved on to Samaria, and there he preached the gospel. We see how God worked with him there. We learned about what to do when persecution hits our church. We learned about Satan's tactics and how he attacks the church as well. As we move into chapter 9, we're going to be talking tonight about Saul, who became Paul. God worked with Paul as well, and we can learn a lot about his calling, a lot about what he was going to do, and there's an awful lot packed into chapter 9. We'll talk about Paul tonight and pick it up from where we've left off. Here in chapter 9, if that's where you're at, verse 1 tells us that Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest. You'll remember that back in chapter 7, when Stephen was being stoned, you'll remember that the false witnesses laid their garments to the feet of Saul. There it said that Saul was consenting to Stephen's death. He was an enemy of the church. He was an enemy of those who claimed that Jesus Christ was a Messiah or believed that. It became his mission to become a hunter of Christians, if you will. He was willing to go wherever he needed to go, just to find those who would believe in Jesus Christ and bring them back to Jerusalem so they could be punished, persecuted, whatever needed to happen with him. That became his mission in life. And we see that here as we begin chapter 9. Here's this young man, Saul, still breathing threats and murder. Now, again, you know, there's the proof of Jesus Christ. Stephen was very clear in his proof, you remember, of Jesus Christ that he was the Messiah. No one could refute what Stephen proved from the Bible. Philip the same way as he preached Jesus Christ, he proved it from the Bible. And where he was in Samaria, many people were baptized. But those who didn't want to believe, they never offered any proof. They never had any argument back against, well, Jesus Christ is not the Messiah because all they could do was threaten, murder, and try to shut people up just simply by those physical things. And as we go through this and as we go through the book of Acts, remember that. One of Satan's tactics and one of the ways of the world is if they can't disprove what is being said, they simply threaten and they simply try to shut down the conversation. Now, we're beginning to see that a little bit in the world we live in today. We'll be seeing it more and more, and certainly by the time the end, time comes around. That's what the beast's power does. They just simply will say what you will believe, whatever we want you to believe. And if you don't, we'll kill you, we'll make your life miserable, we'll do whatever we need. And that's what Saul is about here. So he can't disprove that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, so he threatens and he threatens murder. Breathing threats, breathing murder against the disciples of the Lord, he goes to the high priest in verse 1.

And in verse 2, verse 2 tells us quite a bit, he says, And he asked letters from the high priest to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if any were found, if he found any who were of the way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. So we know that Damascus wasn't part of Judea. Damascus is part of Syria.

And you know that Jews were spread throughout the regions there around Jerusalem. We read back in Acts 2 that Jews came from every nation around Jerusalem to observe the Day of Pentecost. So we have Jews in very many places. Apparently there were a number of them in Damascus. You know, Josephus even mentions about slaughters of Jews in Damascus. So we know that there was a community of Jews out there in Damascus, and apparently some of them were beginning to believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.

So even though it's in a different country, religions have a way of, you know, that they have jurisdiction over their people, whether they live in Judea or whether they live in Samaria or whether they live in Syria or Arabia or whatever. So Paul wants to go out and he wants to find the people who are believing in Jesus Christ.

So he goes to the High Priest and he asks for letters. I want your authority to go out, hunt down these people who claim that Jesus Christ is a Messiah, and I want to bring them back to you so that they can be punished, tried, whatever they were going to do with them when they brought him back to Jerusalem. So he goes there, and that's kind of the way it is.

He's got the authority then, because the High Priest, we find out, does give him those letters, does give him the authority so he can carry them to Damascus, he can go into the synagogues, he can do whatever he wants to do because he's on a hunt, he's on a mission. Find Christians. Notice here that it says, if he found any who are of the way. And that's the first time in the Bible that we hear, you know, we see the phrase, the way.

And it's interesting that that's the way the way was presented, because, you know, the way of life we live is a way of life. It's not just an accumulation of knowledge. It's not just, you know, we do these physical things, we're here on this day, and we're here on that day, and the rest of our lives, we do whatever we want. It is a way of life. And the Jews, you know, might say they had a way of life, but when Jesus Christ came, he preached and he demonstrated and his disciples showed there's a way of life that was different than what the Jews were living.

And so it's notable that it's called the way, because we are called to a way of life, not just a set of beliefs and not just a we can recite this and recite that, but it's the way we live, the way of Jesus Christ, the way of the kingdom of God, the way things will be. You know, when Jesus Christ, probably one of the reasons they came up with that title for that is, is when Jesus Christ said, I am, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. And so, you know, he's going out to search people of the way because they live differently and it was in contrast to the Jews, very many similarities, very many similarities, but a different way of life.

And we get in verse two, a little bit of what Saul's attitude is there. And what he, as he goes out that he's just determined to find anyone, you know, it says whether men or women, tell us something about him. You know, many times in ancient times you would see wars and even today, you know, when things go on, you have skirmishes among nations of the world. It's like, well, don't, don't, you know, we don't want any civilian lives taken. You know, don't, don't harm the women, don't harm the children, don't harm those who aren't directly involved in the battle.

But here is Paul or Saul, and he's saying whether they are men or women. He didn't care, you know, if they were believing in Jesus Christ, that they needed to suffer, they needed to suffer the punishment. In a way, when I read was whether men or women, it was, it's, it's a no mercy type of thing that that's all had.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, you are fair game. If you are Jesus Christ, you deserve to be brought back in change, as we'll see, to Jerusalem and tried there. Kind of reminds me, and maybe we pause here, go back to Daniel 11 for a second. It reminds me of the end time. When it talks about a man who will be, oh, in control of the world or in the King of the North, if you will. And there's something similar said about him.

He's very much into himself and he very much is whatever I say, whatever I believe is what you're going to believe and if you don't, I'm going to make your life miserable. So in Daniel 11, we pick it up in verse 36. It's clear this is speaking of the end time. For those of you who, you know, don't remember or don't know, Daniel 11. Daniel 11 is a very detailed prophecy.

As you go through the history books, you see in very, very, very clear detail what has happened. And you know, if you haven't read recently the Middle East and prophecy book, it will detail for you how this is a prophecy of what's going on from that time of Daniel until the time that we are in now. Let's pick it up in verse 36. This is the end time. It says, Notice this in verse 37. Now, some people will look at that, that he won't regard the desire of women and have another interpretation of what that can be.

But I read that and it means he doesn't have any mercy for anyone. There is no soft place in his heart for women, for children. It's going to be the way he is. He's very autocratic. It's going to be right down the line. That's kind of what is picturing of Saul here, too. Whether you're a man or a woman, whether you're a man or a woman, you are going to, you know, if you're believing that Jesus Christ is a Messiah, you are in his sights and he is there to find you.

So let's go back. Let's go back to Acts 9. Acts 9. And there in the last part of verse 2, it says, you know, that's what he's going to go seek these people out, that he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Well, he's on his way to Damascus. The chief priest, you know, the high priest gives him the letters that he's looking for, gives him the authority to go out and find these Christians or people of the way. And as he's coming near to Damascus, something that, you know, he doesn't expect happens.

He says in verse 3, as he came, as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Now you can kind of picture this in your mind. You know, we're going to see in a minute, it was around noontime that Paul said that this happened. We'll see, look at one of his accounts of where he's repeating what happened to him again. It was around noontime.

So it wasn't the dark of night. And all of a sudden, as he's journeyed to Damascus, there's this bright light that appears to him. Now we, you know, we might, we might look at bright lights and they'll startle us if we happen to be walking in the dark and walk into even our yard or our neighbors past the neighbor's house and all of a sudden the motion detector light comes on us and it kind of startles us for a moment.

But here's Paul, or Saul, and he's walking along. And this is a very bright light. You know, we think of bright light. We might think of, you know, sunlight. We're told when we're younger, don't look at the sun too long, you'll go blind if you look at the sun. You know, we're told about welding, welding arcs and the light that comes out of welding.

You must wear goggles. You can't look at that because it will affect your eyesight. Well, those are, those are bright lights that we might look at. What Paul is looking at, or what probably happens with Paul here is a light that is so bright, that it literally knocks him to the ground. It just simply stops him, stops him in his, in his, in his walk here. So in verse 3, he came near Damascus and suddenly, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven.

And he literally falls to the ground, literally falls to the ground. He just can't stand, he can't stand. He fell to the ground and he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You can almost hear Jesus Christ saying those words to him, you know, Saul, Saul. You know, sometimes when, when God says things twice, it's like he's, he's talking, he's, he's talking, he's engaging Saul. We might remember him saying, you know, Martha, Martha, Martha, you're worried about many things.

It's kind of a term of endearment almost and as he's there and Saul, he's, he's approaching him, you know, relatively calmly, he's struck into the ground with this bright light, but here's this voice, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And Saul answered and he goes, well, who are you, Lord? And as you look at the commentaries and at the Greek word there, Lord just means master. You know, someone's talking to him. He doesn't know yet who is talking to him, but whatever is going on, he knows it's something that's more beyond him, beyond him, and he's showing the respect that he should as, as this happens.

And then Christ, you know, Christ says to him, I'm Jesus, whom you are persecuting. I'm Jesus, who you are persecuting. Now, why do you think Jesus would say, you know, Paul or Saul, you're persecuting, you're persecuting me.

I mean, he wasn't persecuting Jesus. He was up, he's, you know, at the right hand of God. He's, he's lived, he's died, he's been resurrected, he's been ascended again. Why would, why would Paul or why would Christ say, Saul, you're persecuting me? Why are you persecuting me? Anyone got a thought on that or? Yeah, yeah. Remember, remember Christ said, I think Matthew 25, you do it on to the least of these brethren, you're doing it on to me. You know, they, they weren't feeding and clothing and visiting people in prison and so forth. Very good. Yep, that's exactly right. He sees, he identifies as his people, right? We're one with him. And if you do it to the least of these, yeah, very, very good point. Matthew 20, 25. So, you know, so it makes an impact on, and then, and then, you know, Christ says the very next sentence to him there, it's hard for you to kick against the goats. Now we've, you know, we've, we've heard that sentence many times, probably been explained many times. Anyone have an explanation as to what does that mean? If we live back in the first century, we'd probably know exactly what Christ was saying. You know, Saul certainly knew exactly what, what Christ was saying. Anyone have an idea of what that means? Saul, it's hard for you to kick against the goats.

Okay, let me, let me pick this up. You know, this is, this is where commentaries, you know, come in handy. We'll see a couple of times here today. Sometimes we don't look at commentaries to derive spiritual understanding. God gives us that through his Holy Spirit. And sometimes when you're looking for spiritual understanding or whatever means, commentaries can lead you astray into some other belief. You've got to be watching it. But for some of the background, some of the explanation of these things, they can be very valuable. Here's, I don't remember if this is Adam Clark or Barnes or whoever it is, but this is, this is what to kick against the goats means. This is says the expression. Oh, am I, I don't think I even bothered sharing that with you, did I? Do you see that on the screen? Nope. Okay, let me go back and do that. Let me share the screen. I pulled it up. There we go. Now you see it, right? Okay, the expression to kick against the goats and the newer the newer versions of the Bible use the word pricks, you know, to kick against the goats is derived from the action of a stubborn and unyielding ox kicking against the goat. As the ox would injure no one by his action, but himself as he would gain nothing. It comes to denote an obstinate and refractory disposition and course of conduct resisting recently talked about resistance resisting the authority of him who has a right to command and opposing the leading of Providence to the injury of him who makes the resistance. So what he's saying is, you know, I don't know exactly what it is that ox have probably something to do with the yolks they have on they can kick against it but as they do that they're not hurting anyone but themselves. They're not hurting the person who's leading them. They're not hurting the master. They're not hurting anyone else's thumb. They just they just kick when it injures only them. It denotes it says here rebellion against lawful authority and thus getting into greater difficulty by attempting to oppose the commands to duty. So what Christ is saying to Paul here is, Paul, you've been resisting me, you've been hearing the proof that I am the Messiah. You keep doing these things. You're persecuting me when you persecute my people, you're persecuting me. You don't even realize what you're doing. You're hurting yourself. Don't resist God. Don't resist Jesus Christ. Don't resist the truth. Don't resist what he's leading you to. Paul would have known exactly exactly what Christ was saying when he said those things. And know that God, you know, Christ here has Saul in a situation where he is absolutely just powerless. He's just there on the ground and he is just, he is just there. You know, and he is totally subservient at this point to this higher power that's there that's blind. Well, basically blinded him by the light and thrown him to the ground. And he hears this voice and is claiming to be Jesus Christ who is making a tremendous life altering effect on Saul. So let's go let's go on to verse six. You know, Paul does Paul does what any of us would do. So in verse six, so he trembling and astonished.

You know, none of us, you know, I would say that we would all say we fear God, that we understand his power. And I think we do understand his power as God has allowed us to understand his power today. But none of us have seen the power of God the way Saul is seeing it here on the road to Damascus. None of us have seen the power of God like Job saw the power of God at the end of the book of Job when he completely yields to God, completely powerless, completely knows what am I doing? How can I fight against God? Or how can I even assume that I know anything compared to him? You know, you see the other men in the Bible when they come to the face of God and the power of God, they have absolutely no power left. They just simply melt. And that's what happens to Paul. You and I have yet to experience that. But one day, one day we may see, you know, as God in his time and as his will, the power of God and you and I too will absolutely just melt. We will just tremble at God's power and his fear and we will know. We will know. We'll be filled with love with him for him. But we will also tremble and we will fear him in the right sense of the word, understanding his power. But we'll also appreciate his love and his concern and his patience for all of us. And that's what happens, you know, I'm reminded of Hebrews 10.31 here in verse 6, where it says, It's a fearful thing to fall under the hands of the living God. You know, that's what's happened to Saul here. He's under, he's there with Jesus Christ right there with him, speaking to him and showing his power in a way that has Paul absolutely trembling before him. So he trembling and astonished says, Lord, what do you want me to do? Here's a man who, here's a man who stood by as David was getting stoned, probably, you know, at least mentally cheering on this man, Stephen needs to die. He's gone out. He's got letters from the chief priests. He's on a, on a hunting mission. He's going to go back and find people who believe in Jesus Christ and hear, seeing the power of God and being stopped along the way of Damascus. He stopped in his faith and he simply has, you know, realizes this, this is, this is God. I cannot fight against God. And he says what you and I should say when we come face to face with God, Lord, what do you want me to do? Just let me do what you want me to do. And so in verse six, Christ answers him.

He says, arise, go into the city and you will be told what you must do. Now, it's an interesting thing there that the way God, the way Christ puts that. He's speaking to Saul here. He's got his name. Saul is just sitting there, a melted, a melted semblance of the man he used to be as he realizes how powerless he is. Also realizing I have no choice. This is what I must do. I must yield to God and I must yield to Jesus Christ. Christ could have told him everything at that point that he wanted him to do. He could have laid out the whole plan for him there. But you notice he doesn't even say, well, go on, go on into Damascus, continue on your way, and I'll come back to you later and I'll kind of tell you what the plan is. Now he says, someone else, you'll be told when you get to Damascus what it is you need to do. And it shows us how God works. Sometimes we have our direction that comes directly from him, and we can read through the Bible and we can read something that God's Spirit in us will have us, you know, our eyes stop on a scripture that we may look at and say, whoa, I don't do that the way God says to do it. Or that's showing me, you know, I see me in that person, I can't do that anymore. That is God that shows us. But other times he shows us through people, right? He works through the body, he works through the church, and he tells Paul, go on to Damascus, you'll be told what to do. And the thing is, listen to him. Listen to the disciples that I send you and follow his way. We, you and I have to be very aware of the way God works and how he has us in his body and where to direct us. That's why we need to know God's Word. We need to know the Spirit of God. We need to know when we are bound together and we feel the Spirit between, you know, people. We know when God is leading us to do something or someone is telling us to do something and we are aware not to do some other things and think that's not the way. Watch the Spirit and as we grow in God's grace, as we grow in his Spirit and as we exercise it, you know, it finds us together. It finds us together and we become brothers. We become brothers by that. Well, we're going to find out when we get here to chapter 17. That's exactly what happens to Paul. Jesus Christ doesn't come back to him again and say, well, this is what's going to happen. Paul is Ananias who comes and tells Paul what's going to happen to him and what he's going to do. We'll see that here, you know, in a minute. So here we have Paul. He's already been through a lot. Life-changing, life-altering. If you couldn't have a more dramatic change, of course, if you tried to, here's a man 100% against Christ who in this one little episode, a life-changing episode coming before God and knowing the truth now is going to follow Jesus Christ. And Christ tells him, get up, continue into the city, and you'll be told what you must do. Verse 7, then, it says, and the men who journeyed with him stood speechless. As you can imagine, God made sure they heard some things and saw some things as well. The men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.

So they were taken aback, too. They knew whatever was going on here was not just an isolated or just an episode with Paul. Something significant was going on. And then as they lead, you know, they lead Paul into Damascus and know this is something that they've been, you know, something that they have been privy to here.

Now let's pause for a second, because Paul is going to talk about his calling many times as he goes and he works with people. And it is a dramatic story. And so, you know, he's sincere when he's telling it and people when they hear, you know, Paul say, I was against the way I was against Jesus Christ. I went out and I just wanted to kill these Christians. But when I understood when I came face to face with Jesus Christ and the truth, I turned my life around and now I am an advocate for Jesus Christ. And I'm going to preach him and no matter what happens to me, I will continue preaching him. That carried a lot of weight. And the dramatic calling of Paul, you know, he talked about many times as we watch him talk about it, or as we read him talk about it, some of the blanks or some of the the space blanks, I guess, are filled in. Let's go to Acts 22 and read some verses there where Paul is recounting this occasion again as he is talking to, you know, some people and explaining what his calling is. In chapter 22 of Acts, we'll pick it up in... Let's just pick it up in verse 3 of Acts 22. He's introducing himself. He says, I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel. You remember Gamaliel. He's the one who, you know, warned the Jews, you know, don't fight against this. Is this of God? This is of God? You don't want to be found to be fighting against God. I was brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our Father's law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. Well, zealous is almost an understatement where Paul is concerned. He is on fire, you know, as we meet him at the beginning of Acts 9 to find the Christians.

I persecuted this way, verse 4, to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. As also the high priest bears me witness, and all the counsel of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, I went to Damascus to bring in chains, even those who were there, to Jerusalem to be punished.

Now it happened as I journeyed and came dear to Damascus at about noon, so we know the time of day it was, not in the middle of the night, but at noon suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me. And I fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So I answered, Who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.

And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, as you can imagine, but they didn't hear the voice of him who spoke to me. So I said, What shall I do, Lord? And he said to me, Arise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do. And then he starts recounting the things that he was told, not by Christ, but through Ananias, not from Christ, of course, but through Ananias, of what he was going to do.

And since I could not see, verse 11, for the glory of that light, now it never says that Paul was blind. I mean, he certainly couldn't see, and we'll see that. He was struck where he just couldn't see, but it's interesting. It never says that he was struck with blindness. Now, some of the commentaries, when you look at that and just ask yourself, why doesn't it say he was blind? It'll talk about the light being so bright that it just may have stopped him. But I'll mention that it doesn't ever mention blindness, and then when he's healed and the sight comes back, it talks about something like scales following his life.

So, since it's just a thing, God restored his sight, something like scales fell off. So, it's different than that, but whatever it is, it makes no difference. He could not see for three days. Anyway. And since I could not see, verse 11, for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came to Damascus. And then a certain Ananias, a devout man, according to the law, having a good testimony with all the Jews who dwelt there, came to me and he stood and he said to me, Brother Saul, receive your sight.

Now, we'll go back and we'll read about some of Ananias, because this was a test and a trial on him, too, to come to Saul, and you know, who was persecuting the Jews.

But here's Ananias. He comes, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at the same hour, I looked up at him and he said, The God of your fathers has chosen you, that you should know his will and see the just one and hear the voice of his mouth. For you will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. So, as Ananias comes to him, you know, in Acts 9, we see a little bit of that.

Paul gives us more of the details of what he was told to do. Just as Christ said, you will be told what to do. Don't kick against the goads, Paul. Simply do what you are told to do. You can't fight against God. So let's go back to Acts 9. Let's go back to Acts 9. You know my notes here for a moment. Acts 9, we've left in verse 7, with the men who were with him, they hear a voice and say, You know one.

And verse 8, Saul gets up. Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no one. So he's in complete darkness. He's had this monumentous event in his life that would shook him to the very core of who he is, changed his whole life around in that one instant there.

Saul rose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

Verse 9, and he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now let's pause and think about that for a moment. Saul has had, like I said, a life-changing event, the life of which you and I haven't had. We have had our moments where God has opened our minds to know the truth of God, and it's made us stop and think, What have we been doing? How could we have thought that we were pleasing God and obeying God when we were doing the opposite, in many cases, of what the Bible says to do when Jesus Christ says, If you love me, keep my commandments, and we realize whatever church we were in, or if we were doing nothing, we weren't doing that at all. Yet we may be fooling ourselves thinking, Well, of course we love Christ, but he tells us how to love him.

But Paul has had this tremendous thing happen. It's a complete shock to his system. And here he is now, for three days he's in complete darkness. He can't see what's going on around him. He doesn't want to eat. He doesn't want to drink. I don't think he was consciously fasting. He was just, I think, Paul was in a mental state of shock, if you will. But he had to kind of have the time to absorb what had happened to him, because a lot had happened. And here he was. He set out on the journey for one purpose, and now he's got a totally opposite purpose in mind. Mr. Shavey. Yes, yes, sir. Paul. Didn't we just read in Acts 22.9 that the men with him did not hear? They just saw the light? We did read that, yes.

And yet, it says here in verse 7 that they did hear the voice. We'll leave that one for now. I don't have an answer to that one. But I'm glad you picked it up. I picked up on it, and I thought, I'm not bringing up that variance unless someone else does. Anyway, I think, whatever. They know that something went on, and maybe Paul's memory like ours sometimes gets a little bit faded, but the event overall was exactly the same. Leave it to me. Leave it? That's right. But what do we have? We have Paul, and he is sitting here in complete darkness. You know, when things happen to us sometimes, we just need to absorb what's going on.

We need to just kind of be away from our everyday life. We need to be away from people. Mr. Shaby. Sorry to interrupt, but I may have an answer for that. In the New American Standard Bible, it says those that were with me saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of the one who is speaking with me. So maybe they heard it, but they just did not understand it as Paul was able to understand it. Okay. Yeah, they wouldn't have... Okay, now that makes sense. Let me see, the next 22.

Let me look at that again here. Does it say they even heard the voice? That they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. Okay. Well, okay. That's just one of those we put there, and you continue on. I want to draw the fact here that Paul had to stop and think. Many times when you look at what Jesus Christ, when he was on earth, he would have to leave the apostles for a while.

Remember that? He would say, I need to go. I need to be alone. And he needed to just kind of think about what was going on and put it all together. Now I'm reminded, too, of Elijah and one of the shocks that he had in his life when he was there with the prophets of Baal. And they spent all day calling down, calling Baal to come and consume the sacrifice, and it never happened.

And then when Elijah came and called on God to consume the sacrifice that was there, he did it in an instant. And you remember that Elijah thought, well, there's no way that Israel can deny that God is God.

And he learned, oh yeah, Jezebel, she couldn't disprove it, but she did. What Satan does, she does what opponents do, is like, you know, I don't care what you prove, Elijah. Now I'm not for you. Now I'm going to kill you. I don't want to believe it, and I'm going to kill you. The very same attitude we hear. What did Elijah do? He had to run away, and there he was in a cave.

He just kind of had to absorb what was going on for a while. And I think Paul needed that time, those three days and three nights, where he couldn't see. There was nothing he could do. He was in complete darkness, and he had to come to realization of what was going on. And perhaps during that time, Christ was working with him as well. And he was realizing what he had to do and how his life had changed, ordering himself to do, to do what God had wanted him to do, you know, going forward.

So there in verse 9, I think it's a notable thing here, that for three days, for three days, he just had to absorb what was happening. And so in verse 10, then, we come to this man, Ananias. Ananias, you know, says he's a disciple. There was a certain disciple. So we know he believed in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. He's a man we read in Acts 22 as well, respected by the Jews. He was a leader in the church at that time. There was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him, the Lord said in a vision, Ananias, and he did what every good Christian would do.

Lord, or here I am, here I am, Lord, I'm at your call, I'm at your service. And so Christ said to him, Arise, and go to the street called straight, and inquire at the house of Judas, for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying. A notable thing that God says here when he describes Saul, he's praying.

Well, Paul was in the dark, he wasn't eating, he wasn't drinking, and he was praying. And Christ said he's praying.

Christians pray. Christians talk to God. Christians are led by God. They pray in a different way than many others do, and perhaps different than the way the Jews did.

You'll remember that Jesus Christ, when he was talking about praying and his disciples, as they would see Jesus Christ go off and pray to God, or maybe even heard him praying to God, they asked him, teach us to pray. You do it differently than we do. And the Jews may have had these, as Christ would call them, those vain repetitions.

You know, they may be believed in public prayer. We're going to be out here and just, you know, praying to God so other people can see us, or we have these repetitions that we say, and God will hear us for our many words. Christ said that's not the way to pray to your Father in heaven. Talk to him. Develop a relationship with him. Ask him for things.

Ask him to teach. Ask him to ask him for the Holy Spirit. Ask him to lead you and guide you. Make him your guide. Make him your counselor. Make him your way. He is your Father, and he wants to lead you in the way that he wants you to lead. He wants everything good for you. So when Paul, or Jesus Christ, says, hey, Ananias, you're going to find this Saul of Tarsus, he's praying. It says something to Ananias. This man is a Christian. He's praying, not in the way the Jews did, but in the way Jesus Christ did, in the way that Christians do.

And in verse 12 says, and in a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight. So we have Ananias. Paul, in a vision, has been told, this man is coming, Ananias. He's going to lay his hands on you. Whenever we see hands being laid on in the Bible, we know something is there.

At the time that we're baptized, hands are laid on us afterwards, and we ask God for his Holy Spirit to be put in people. We read that back at the end of chapter 8. We saw that in Acts 2. We'll see it again. And when we get to Acts 19, it's the way of God. Well, we anoint someone who is sick. God says, in James 5.14, go out, lay hands on them. Now we anoint them with oil.

Well, we ordain someone to an office. We lay hands on them. It says if God is putting his hands on them through the representative he has there on earth, he is the person that's been appointed to do that. So he tells Paul or Saul, you know, this man, Ananias is coming, and he's going to lay put his hands on you so that you might receive his sight. Well, it could be an anointing that's going on here. Paul is blind. He can't see. But when Ananias comes, one of my disciples, Christ, says, when he lays hands on you, you'll receive your sight. So, you know, Christ is telling Ananias this.

Now imagine if you're Ananias. He is well aware. He is well aware of who Saul of Tarsus is. This man is famous for his hate of Christians. Every one of the way knew who Saul of Tarsus was. There was no greater enemy that you could come in contact with than Saul of Tarsus. This man breathed fire. He was zealous. He just wanted to take you, bring you back to Jerusalem, and have you punished or even put to death, and that would be okay with him, because if you believed what he didn't believe or the Jews didn't believe, then you weren't worthy, you know, to go on living. So Ananias has to be thinking, wait a minute, there's a Saul of Tarsus, and you want me to go and, like, present myself to him?

You want me to actually go and present myself to Saul? So you can understand where Ananias is coming from. It's like, if God, you know, is, if we looked at the beast power somewhere down the road and we know there's this beast power that says, you know, in Revelation 13, it tells us that these, you know, everyone bows down, and if you don't bow down, you don't, you know, if you don't take the mark of the beast, then da-da-da-da-da, and God said, yeah, go right there, go right to there, that little beast, and present yourself to him and be like, whoa, okay.

Can we pause here for a moment? Let me absorb this. And this is kind of what Ananias is faced with. So you can see why he would ask God or pause here for a moment and say in verse 13, Lord, I've heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. He heard the story about Stephen. He knew what had gone on there. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name. I know he's coming to the maskers. He came to the maskers to round us up, to haul us up, put us in chains, and send us back.

Send us back there to Jerusalem. But God, for Jesus Christ, said to Ananias, go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. Go on, Ananias. I'm telling you to go ahead. He's a chosen vessel of mine. He's going to preach my name to Gentiles, to kings, and even to the children of Israel. And Paul did all those things in his day, and even today he still does it, right?

His writings here, we're talking about it today, and people all over the world, and everyone that God calls reads the epistles of Paul. He is a chosen vessel of God, for I will show him, verse 16, I will show him how many things he must suffer for my namesake. You know, Paul did. Paul did suffer, and Christ apparently did let him know your life was going to be a life of suffering.

It's not going to be an easy way, Paul. You know, I've called you, you are following me now, but your life is not going to be an easy road. You're going to suffer a lot. Remember the Paul, what his intent was, that he was going to bring suffering, pain, and death on all the Christians he could come across. God said, you're going to go out, and you're going to preach me, Jesus Christ, to all these Gentiles, and you're going to suffer a lot.

Paul tells us how much he did suffer. Let's go back to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 11. And as God says here in Acts 9, Paul's or Saul's going to know, he's going to know how much he's going to suffer. Paul did. And he explains that here to the church in Corinth in a letter. Let's pick it up in 1 Corinthians 11. 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 23. He asks, he says, Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more. In labors, more abundant. In stripes, above measure. In prisons, more frequently. In deaths, often. From the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes minus one.

I can't even imagine what one stripe feels like. But five times Paul suffered that. Five times, 39 stripes. I don't even know if I could survive 39 stripes. But five times he had that happen. First time it might take us by surprise and the pain would be indescribable.

The second time you know what you're in for. But five times he had to go through that. Three times in verse 25, I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I've been in the deep.

In journeys, often. In perils of waters. In perils of robbers. In perils of my own countrymen. In perils of the Gentiles. In perils in the city. In perils in the wilderness.

In perils in the sea. In perils among false brethren. In perils in the city. In weariness and toil. In sleeplessness, often. In hunger and thirst. In fastings, often. In cold and nakedness. Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily? My deep concern for all the churches. He was willing to endure all of that. All of that. His life was not easy. Yet when he was converted, when God turned him around, he was willing to go through it all.

Because he believed Jesus Christ, it was his calling to do that, and he did it very well. He really did sacrifice his life in a way that you and I may not appreciate. But when God, or Christ says back here in Acts 9, he's going to be aware of the sufferings that he's going to go through. Paul did go through many. He was aware, he was aware, and I have a feeling that every time Paul was being punished, or going through those trials and those sufferings the way that he did, he thought back to, I know I deserve this, this is exactly what I wanted to do to other people.

And so it's only fitting, only fitting that I bear this punishment because what I wanted for others is now happening to me.

And it didn't take long for it to be. If we go back to the book of Acts, you know, we see that not too long after Paul began his ministry that we have a few occasions where he is, you know, these things that he talked about here in 2 Corinthians come about. Acts 14. Acts 14 and verse 19. Acts 14-19. He says, Jews, Jews from Antioch, Jews from Iconium came there.

And having persuaded the multitudes, remember that's, you know, they didn't disprove anything that Paul said. He preached the truth from the Bible, but we have the crowd mentality. We have the mob rule. The mob says we don't want to hear it. Having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. Oh, you know, that didn't feel good. I mean, that's that's one thing you and I can't imagine. Being stoned to the point where we're unconscious, the people think we're dead. We're dragged out of the city, but God wasn't done with Paul yet. His job wasn't done. God gave him light.

And there's the one time that he was stoned. He knew exactly. He knew exactly how Stephen felt when he was standing by consenting to Stephen's death way back in Acts 7 at that time. A couple of chapters later in 16, chapter 16 and verse 22. Let's pick it up in verse 20. 16 verse 20. They, you know, bring Paul and Silas to them. They're disrupting the city with the preaching that they're going on. They brought them to the magistrates and said these men being Jews, they exceedingly trouble our city.

And they teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe. We don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear the truth. We just want them gone. And then the multitude rose up. Here's my rule again. The multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore off their clothes.

You can kind of just imagine. That's the emotions are running high. The hate is running high. The magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. So Paul as he went from city to city and as he was preaching the Gospel, I think he became accustomed to it's likely there's some suffering that's going to be going on here among the people. And he, to his credit, was willing to go through it all. Never complain. Never complain. Just follow what God had in mind for him. So if we go back to Acts 9, as Christ is talking to Ananias and telling him Paul's going to know what his life is going to be, I will show him how many things, verse 16, he must suffer for my name's sake.

Ananias understood. He didn't understand the magnitude of what Paul or Saul's suffering would be. But he did what a good Christian does. I'm not going to be afraid. I'm going to go because God said to go. And he goes on to Saul, verse 17. Ananias went his way. He entered the house, in Acts 9, and laying his hands on him, and he goes, as we talked about, just as God said, and laying his hands on him, he said, Brother Saul.

No, I want to stop there because look what Ananias said. You know, he had an opinion on Saul of Tarsus. Couldn't have been a good opinion on Saul because he knew what Saul was there for, what he was coming for. But God had told him, Ananias, he's my chosen vessel. I've called him.

He's going to be the one to take the message to the Gentiles, to the Israel, to the Jews, to kings, to magistrates. And Ananias accepts Saul. He comes there and he says, Brother, Brother Saul, to this man who the last, you know, just a few moments before, Ananias saw him as nothing but an enemy. This is an enemy of ours. I need to steer clear of him. But God said he's mine. He's my vessel. And Saul goes, or not Saul, Ananias goes and he says, Brother, Brother Saul.

Now, there's a lesson for us in that as well. You know, we all know each other, but there will be times, and there were times when Jesus Christ was on earth, when he may call people that we don't approve, maybe, of their past lives. Maybe they've lived a life that's different than what we would say, you know, that's the acceptable life. You know, maybe they've had a rough life.

Maybe they did whatever it is they need to do, just fill in the blanks with the only things that you would have a hard time accepting the way someone lived their past life. But God calls them, and he makes them part of our body, of his body, right? And he says, you know, they are your brothers. They are now one with me, and you need to be one with them.

And sometimes that can be hard to take. Here's Ananias. He sees Saul as an enemy just a few hours before, or whatever it was, and now he's coming in and saying, brother. Now the apostles themselves, when Jesus Christ called the disciples to follow him and the apostles, they came from different backgrounds. Now, Matthew was a tax collector. You know, no one liked tax collectors, and yet here he was one of the apostles. So the other apostles might have looked at Matthew and said, we don't even want anything to do with tax collectors. They're terrible people. And yet he was one of the twelve, and they had to accept him.

They might have looked at Mary Magdalene, who was in that group of disciples, and said, wow, she had seven demons in her. We don't want to associate with people who had seven demons in them. You had to cast the demons out.

But Christ made her part of the disciples, and she was there, and she was loyal. And so, you know, there may be times when God calls people into our congregations that may not look the way we want them to look, or they may not have the background that we want them to have. We've got to remember, we're brothers. We're brothers and sisters. And when God calls someone, and they're the Holy, he puts the Holy Spirit in them when they repent.

They become one of us. And we'll know the Spirit. And if it's a different Spirit, we'll know that too. And we will know that, you know, we know those who are with us and who are not with us. So here's Ananias. You know, to someone like Saul, who hears this man coming and calling a brother, it had to be a heartening thing for him to hear.

Brother Saul, as he lays hands on Saul, Brother Saul, verse 17, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you might receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

He sent me, I'm laying hands on you, laying hands on you that you might receive your sight. I could look at that as an anointing, just as we're told in James 5, 14.

And also he says, I'm laying hands on you that you may be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Paul hasn't been baptized yet, but here is Ananias doing what God has told him to do, laying hands on him.

And Ananias says, I'm doing this, that you may be healed, that you may receive your sight, and that you may be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Different order, but still part of the process of conversion that God has called us to and said is absolutely necessary for salvation.

Now verse 18, it says immediately when this happened, there fell from his eyes, Saul's eyes, something like scales.

You could look up the Greek words there. There weren't actually scales that fell off. Whatever it was like, something like scales, and the Greek verbiage is that. It's something, it's a comparison.

Something happened. It wasn't just blindness. There was a miracle that occurred there. Something happened. We don't know what.

But when he was anointed, when hands were laid on him, they're fall from his eyes, something like scales.

We could probably go to the other, you know, and see that God had opened his eyes, of course, through this whole process, to what the truth is.

Immediately there fell from his eyes, something like scales, and he received his sight at once. And he arose, and he was baptized.

Exactly as he recounted to us in Acts 22 that, you know, what Mananias told him was, get up, be baptized, and Saul has done that.

Not the same order that we do it today, where we repent, baptized, and then, and then receive the Holy Spirit, have land laid on it.

But the same occurred, you know, here to Paul. He was baptized. He certainly was repented, and during those three days, he realized his life, for the rest of his life, he was turning to God and doing what God's will was.

His life showed he completely yielded to God to do his will.

Same thing that you and I do.

And here he is. He's been baptized, and he's had the Holy Spirit.

You know, I mentioned this after, and I'm going to mention it again, but you look at these things, and, you know, there are people out there, and I've only come to understand this really in the last six months to a year, that there are people out there who do not believe, or who believe that you don't need to be baptized at all, to be saved.

That they just say baptism isn't necessary. God knows your heart. Baptism is just a simple, a simple physical process you don't need to go through.

And yet, when you read the Bible, and you see things like this, and you see that Jesus Christ even, you know, he was baptized. He didn't need to be baptized, but he had to be baptized.

Someone, you know, mentioned to me, not only an example, but he had to be baptized, part of his salvation. He had to do what God had to do for us to do.

So how anyone can say baptism isn't necessary just kind of boggles my mind, and yet, you know, I've had someone, you know, look at me and say baptism isn't necessary.

It's something that isn't done, and just closed mind doesn't want to talk about it, and that's, you know, that's too bad. The Bible is very clear in what it is, in what it says here. Anyway, that's just an aside.

So Paul, Paul has come through this. He's been baptized, he's been healed, or he's received his sight, he's received the Holy Spirit.

And verse 19, when he received food, he was strengthened. And then he spent some days with the disciples at Damascus.

You know, some days, some days at Damascus with the disciples, he had a lot to learn. You know, he's learned a lot in the days that he's had, you know, that he's had this experience, but he had a lot to learn.

Just like you and I have a lot to learn. He wasn't ready to go out and teach the way. He had to understand the way, and he had to apply it into his life.

We can't really effectively teach the way until we live the way, and we can look at people and say, this is, this is what works. You know, this way works. When we, well, we're, you know, as God works with us, and as we work with people in the millennium, as he says in Isaiah 30, and we're teaching them the way, you know, it's going to be very good to be able to recompt our experiences today.

I know this works because I did the same thing that you're trying to do. It doesn't work. It doesn't lead to peace. It doesn't lead to joy. It doesn't lead to happiness. It doesn't lead to, you know, lasting relationships.

But we have to live that. We have to live the way of the life of the kingdom now to be able to teach you. We can't just repeat chapter and verse back and say the things. We've got to prove it and show it through our lives so it becomes part of us. And Paul needed the time to do that as well. Well, here it says he spent some days at Damascus. Let's go back to our forewords of the book of Galatians.

Because in Galatians, Paul talks a little bit about this time as well, where he was called. He talks about what some of his preparation, you know, period was like.

In Galatians 1 and verse 11, just read through some of the verses here and fill in the blanks of what he did when he was in Damascus as God prepared him. Galatians 1 verse 11. Watch out. Watch out for people who are looking to destroy the church of God or any part of the body.

Of the church of God. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. He was one who was extraordinarily committed to Judaism. And of course, he was going to rise because he was out fighting against anyone who would dare say anything against Judaism.

And then after three years, I went up to shoot to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. So as we see Paul recounting his history here, he didn't go to Jerusalem for several years, three years, but he did go to Arabia. But he came back to Damascus and he spent some days in Damascus learning the ways of God. He didn't go to Jerusalem.

Remember in Jerusalem, we'll see here if we get down to chapter 20 or verse 25 and 6 here, which I hope we do tonight. You know, they would have been scared to death of him. This is the enemy. This is the enemy. They were going to have some processing of that to do too of what is going on with Paul.

So here we have Saul back in Acts 9 and verse 19. He spent some days at Damascus. He spent some days at Damascus and verse 20 it says, immediately, immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues. This would be the synagogues in Damascus that he is the Son of God. He came there for one purpose, to gather people who were preaching this. Now he's the one in the synagogues preaching that.

He would have had an open door. He would have had an open door to any synagogue in Damascus because they never thought he was there to round up Christians. That all who heard, verse 21, were amazed. That would be the Jews as well as the Christians. All who heard were amazed and said, isn't this he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem and has come here for that purpose so that he might bring them bound to the chief priests? What's going on here?

This guy came, we're confused. Now why is he preaching that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? When he came here to gather up those people and take them back to Jerusalem, those how God works, Saul increased all the more in strength. And he confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ. That confounding, that time where the Jews, what is going on?

I'm sure they couldn't even believe their ears and thought there must be some explanation. But here it is, Saul, he's preaching in his manner, very boldly, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He's preaching that, and God is giving him the time to do that while the Jews are coming to realize what is going on here with him. Saul increased all the more in strength. It was God. It was God who was working through him in this time and giving him the time to do that.

Saul increased all the more in strength. He confounded the Jews, proving this Jesus is the Christ. Now after many days were passed, the Jews did what the Jews have always done. We don't like the message you're giving. We don't want to hear that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We don't want to hear Jesus Christ is the Messiah. So what did they do? After many days, they plotted to kill him. Just like Stephen told the Sanhedrins, you always kill the prophets that are sent to you. They did it to Jesus Christ. They did it to the prophets. They did it to Stephen.

Now Saul is there, and they're looking to kill Saul as well. We don't want to hear the message. But their plot, verse 24, became known to Saul, and they watched the gates day and night to kill him. However Saul understood whether there was someone that heard in the synagogue what was going on and brought it to his attention, you know Saul, they're going to kill you.

That's what their mission is now. You know, whether God revealed it to them, we don't know. But as they say, they watched the gates day and night to kill him. There is something that we learned back in 2 Corinthians 11 again. A little detail that Paul gives us in 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 32. About that time, you know, when the Jews are plotting to kill him, and the next verse and next nine, you know, tells us he's going to be lowered, lowered over the wall in a basket.

In 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 32, it says, In Damascus, the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me, desiring to arrest me. But I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped from his hands.

Now God gives us this little name, Aretas, right here, Aretas the king, the governor who is under Aretas the king. And again, you look at these little details that are added in there, you think, what is, who's this Aretas? He's not mentioned anywhere else. What about him? So I did look at some commentaries. Again, they could be helpful in, they can be helpful in looking at some of the, you know, history, if you will, that's there. And I think this was in the Adam Clark dictionary about this Aretas. So we got to get the picture of what's going on in Damascus as they are watching for Saul.

Or did they really command the whole city to watch for Paul, you know, to make sure he doesn't leave the city? Here it says this about Acts 9.24. It says, at this time, Damascus was under the government of Aretas, king of Arabia, who was now at war with Herod, his son-in-law. I remember Herod, you know, Herod is the one who had John the Baptist in prison, John the Baptist had told him that he was in a non-lawful marriage, etc. And here's the same Herod. Aretas is at war with Herod, his son-in-law, who had put away his daughter in order to marry Herodias, his brother Philip's wife.

As Herod was supported by the Romans, Saul's enemies might intimate that he was in league with them or Herod, which would automatically make him an enemy of the state. As Herod was supported by the Romans, Saul's enemies might intimate that he was in league with them or Herod, and as the gates of the city were constantly watched and shut, that no spy might enter and no fugitive get away, they thought it would be easy to apprehend Saul.

And doubtless got orders from the different officers at the gates to be on the lookout that he might not be permitted to escape. So we get a little bit of insight, if you will, if indeed what Adam Clark, wherever he put this history together from, shows us that, you know, again, they could say, Saul, he's an enemy of the state.

You know, he's in league with Herod. He's there as a spy. We don't want him to go either. Now the Roman kings, the Arabian kings, they didn't really want to be bothered by matters of religion. They even piloted. Pilate was told, oh, he's claiming to be king of the Jews. That's an assault on the Roman Empire. He's not being yielded to Caesar. And you can look at the way stories can be spun and accusations can be met. Somewhere down the road, the same thing could happen to you and me.

What could happen to you and me is, as people can spin stories and say, oh, they're an enemy of the state because of this or because of that. We don't like what they say. We don't like what they believe. We don't like what that church has to say. And this person, you know what, it might be that he's over here, so we need to kind of watch every move he makes. Maybe the FBI needs to be watching his move. Maybe we need to apprehend him if he tries to do anything.

Maybe we need to monitor everything that's going on with him. They were monitoring everything that was going on with Paul and had gotten the city together so that he wasn't going to be able to escape. You know, people do things and Paul found himself in an untenable situation humanly. But of course, God devised the plot that Paul was going to be able to escape. Yes, go ahead. Great question. Yeah. Paul was also accused of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

But the Nazarenes, were they on God's side? Yes? Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I don't really know. But let me know our saviors from Nazareth. But I'm just not sure about the Nazarenes, who exactly they were. That's all. Okay, maybe some of those know who the Nazarenes were. I can't answer that question other than just by without really a whole lot of knowledge. If anyone does know that, you know. Sure. Yeah, okay. Another comment, Ralashibi.

We're going back to chapter 22, verse 9 and 9, 7. In 7, like my brother Pramara said, it's supposed to be sound. They heard sound, but they couldn't. They heard sound. And in verse 9 of chapter 22, they could not hear the voice. The word not is uk, and it's a participle and it's a negative participle, meaning impossible. Meaning they could never have heard what he said, though they heard sound, but they could not hear his voice.

Okay, they could hear a sound. They had no idea what he was told. Yes. Yeah, and a negative participle, meaning it was absolutely impossible. Like Christ, a uk. Uk is a very strong word. Could I offer a thought there? Yes, yes, you may. Yeah, I thank you for those thoughts. Yeah, I decide to look at a commentary. I mean, the Bible doesn't contradict itself, of course. And I think in Acts chapter 22, it said the word voice has more to do with the words themselves. Okay, so I thought that might be helpful to offer that.

They didn't notice John W. D. was saying they heard something, but they had no idea what the sound was. Yeah, but in both cases, they heard a voice, but they just couldn't tell, guess what it was. Yeah, these things are reconciled. It is an interesting point that was brought up that it looks a little bit different, and the difference will be in translation. You guys are working through that. That's great. Okay, let's go back to Acts 9. Only one more verse I think I want to do tonight, and then we're going to pause.

Okay, Acts 9 verse 25 says, well, I think we've read this already. 25 says that disciples took Paul by night, they led him down through the wall in a large basket, and he escaped, right? Verse 26, and when Saul came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were afraid of him and didn't believe that he was a disciple.

So they have some things to learn. They have some things to learn as well. I want to stop there, and the next week we're going to talk a little bit about Barnabas as we're introduced to him and his role and the need for people like Barnabas, you know, in the church as God provides what we need and various gifts that we have and some other things that happens with Peter as God opens up the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. So let me follow us there, if there's any other comments.

Isn't 25 and 26 like three years apart? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, you know, because he was in the raising and learning. But he was close, but he jumped two years further, yeah. Yes, I was thinking the same thing, too, yeah. Mr. Shaby, can I make a comment? You absolutely may, yes.

Paul spent a few days with the disciples before he started preaching, but he immediately preached, and it says that nobody taught him those things, that it was revelation from Christ. So the disciples were afraid of him, it sounds like. I don't know why they didn't take time to teach him at all of the way.

Well, they were going to learn. Remember, as we get into Acts and we'll see some things other in Paul's writings, they were doing what people do, right? Oh, well, you know, Saul will kill us. He's determined to kill us all. So they were going to have to learn that, yes, God had worked with him as well. I remember when they got together, you know, I don't remember exactly where it is in the Bible, but it says when Paul did meet with Peter and the apostles, they saw that they saw eye to eye. That they were in the complete agreement of everything. So they knew, oh, Jesus Christ walked with us for three and a half years. Jesus Christ has taught this man Paul, too. He is one of us. And it was exactly the same. So, you know, and that's when they came to understand, yes, Paul is an apostle. He's a disciple. So one other question. When they took Paul and it lowered him down in a basket, as you're saying, I see God's people being persecuted and attacked, especially with things that are happening in the future here. So the proper way of approaching that is we're not supposed to answer a fool to his folly. Right? Why is it a serpent harmless as a dove? But we don't have to fall for traps. If somebody puts a trap in front of us, I mean, we don't have to automatically go. I mean, if we don't ever deny the truth, but as the disciples did right there, I mean, it wasn't time for Paul to be persecuted, you know? It wasn't at that point. Well, they were determining to kill Saul, right? So if they got their hands on him, their purpose was to kill. So God delivered him. You know, remember how many times Jesus Christ said, and he knew the Pharisees were there to trick him, that they were testing him with that? That's going to happen. And God will give us the appropriate answers. He'll give us, you know, if we stop, if we pause and we think, you know, I don't know how to answer this. What, ask God, give us the words to say, we can confound people too and not have to run or be silent. And you'll say, if people ask, give an answer for the reason that's in you. And the way things are worded, you know, God can give us that wording just as he did Jesus Christ. So that would be, you know, we're just going to have to trust him. We're going to have to trust him and learn to speak as he gives us the words. Yeah, Christ didn't get drawn into any kind of debates, right? Yeah. Yeah. And Mr. Shavey. Yes. I just thinking about this kind of a series of events, it's absolutely, you know, you said it's a lesson for us in life to... That Jesus called or God calls people and it's his calling and he decides to those that are ready based on their heart. And it's amazing to think that you're right. Saul was a cold-blooded killer. I mean, if you really think about it, I mean, he was hunting people down and murdering. And I mean, it's just crazy to think that. And then it kind of opens your eyes to show you how much God actually loves each one of us and that if God can work with Saul and Paul, that there's nothing that he can't... He's not willing to work with us as long as we are showing that side of us and our hearts in the right place and our minds are in the right place. That when we submit or have problems with our human nature, God's always going to be there. And it's just amazing to think that, you know, there's some atrocities that Saul committed. I mean, that are awful, but yet he still showed that he had faith behind him.

No, it isn't. Well, when you reflect on what... Yeah, reflect on the calling there, what God did. And then ours is like that to us. At some point, we had to stop and look and turn our lives around and realize the future eternity is God. And, you know, we have to do what he wants. There is no other choice. The only way to eternal life is through Jesus Christ, right? We read that in Acts 4, 12 and other places as well. There's only one name by which salvation comes and it'll be his way, not our way. So, yeah.

Okay. Did anyone think about Shamgar when we heard the goats? That's for fun.

It just shows that those goats are dangerous because, you know, God had killed a couple hundred men with an ox goat. So, yeah, this is one of those things.

Shamgar is in Judges? Yep.

And it actually uses the word goats there? Yes. Very good. Okay. Yeah, that would have been a good tie. So, it's going to be very good. Dangerous tool.

We don't want to kick against the goats.

Okay. Anything else?

Okay. I will, like I said, Orlando and Jackson, they'll watch your emails tomorrow. You know, we will have a webcast. The webcast coming out of Orlando at 1130 this week. Just watch. That'll be all the detail I give you right now. Some events that have actually come to you this week. So, watch your email.

Everyone, have a very good week. Have a very good rest of the week. A very good Sabbath.

Thank you very much. I'm seeing all of you back here next Wednesday, I hope. You got to do it, because once... Do what? I'm talking to Zephaniah. Oh, okay. Bye, Zephaniah. Bye, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. See ya. Bye, everyone! Bye-bye. Bye.