Today the modern churches talk about DECISIONS, not CONVERSIONS!
Illus: Someone said to a preacher, “Did you have any decisions last week?” The preacher said, “Yes, I had lots of them. Some DECIDED to go to the mountains and some DECIDED they would go to the beach instead of coming to church.”
When Paul got saved he got CONVERTED.
What the church today needs are MORE conversions, not MORE decisions!
Paul’s conversion is a model conversion for us all to examine. It ranks as one of the highest because of several reasons:
(1) THE MAN OF THE CONVERSION
The man was Saul of Tarsus. WHO WAS SAUL OF TARSUS?
He was a very devout Jew, and as a Jew he was thoroughly convinced that Christianity was a threat to Judaism, and must be wiped from the face of the earth.
I want to remind you that before his conversion, Paul was a devout Jew. A person can be SINCERE and SINCERELY WRONG at the same time.
Look at-
(2) THE METHOD OF THE CONVERSION
He was actually on his way to Damascus to find Christians. His plan was to bring them back to be prosecuted, when God supernaturally intervened. Let’s look at-
I. THE PLAN
The first thing we want to consider is-
A. THE SEARCHING
Look at verses 1-2. We read, “And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.”
• After his conversion, Paul was a man that had a great love for God’s church. He loved the church and prayed for it constantly.
• But before his conversion, Paul had no love for the Christian churches whatsoever.
One of the ways you can tell a person has truly been converted is that their ATTITUDE TOWARDS GOD’S CHURCH WILL CHANGE DRASTICALLY.
Paul was determined to put down this religion called Christianity. He sought them out and persecuted them.
After the death of Stephen, the Christians scattered everywhere. But Saul heard that some had fled to Damascus, and he went to the high priest to get permission to find them and bring them back for trial.
Look at verses 1-2. For example, we find him doing two things, and he literally sounds like a mad man.
1. He is “…Breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples.”
2. He is seeking permission from the high priest to go to Damascus and, “…If he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.”
These are the BIG PLANS he has, but aren’t you glad that sometimes God steps into the plans of the ungodly and ruins those plans?
• Remember when Nehemiah was re-building the walls, and Sanballat and Tobiah were doing everything that they could possibly do to stop them?
The Bible tells us in Nehemiah 4:4, that Nehemiah prayed this prayer to God: “Hear, O our God; for we are despised: and turn their reproach upon their own head…” And that is exactly what happened.
• Also, the Bible tell us in the book of Esther, that Haman, who despised Mordecai, had built a place to hang him because he would not bow and show him the respect he wanted. But God messed up his plans, and he was hung in the very place he had built to hang Mordecai.
Paul had plans to DESTROY the Christian church, but God messed those plans up, and caused him to become one of the great servants of the church.
He meant the church harm before his conversion, but probably no man who has ever walked on this earth, (other than the Lord Jesus), has done as much for the church as he did after he was converted.
Before his conversion, he went SEARCHING for Christians he could lay hold of, (men or women), and wanted to do as much harm as he could to them.
We have looked at THE SEARCHING, but let’s also look at-
B. THE SURRENDER
Look at verses 3-6. We read, “And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, LORD, WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.”
God knows how to get our attention. Sometimes He has to take drastic measures. Sometimes those measures may require that God will have to knock us down.
This is what He had to do with the Apostle Paul.
Look at-
C. THE SIGHTLESSNESS
Look at verse 8-9. We read, “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.”
Notice that he did not eat or drink for three days.
WHAT HAPPENED TO PAUL IN THOSE THREE DAYS?
Illus: Some of you may deal with computers: have you ever loaded a big file in your computer, and later on you deleted that file? Once you hit the delete button, you watched the monitor as hundreds, if not thousands of those files were deleted at an unbelievable rate of speed.
In the apostle Paul’s mind was tons of information from Judaism that had been stored. But now God was entering his mind, and in effect deleting all the false information that had been placed there, and replacing it with the truth of His Word.
We have looked at THE PLANS. But once God had deleted all this false information from Paul’s mind, we get a glimpse of -
II. THE PREACHER
He was without a doubt one of the greatest, if not the greatest, preachers who ever preached on this earth, other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at verses 20-22. We read, “And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither 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 is very Christ.”
After his conversion, he is preaching something he never preached before: he is preaching that Jesus, IS THE SON OF GOD.
In fact, the crowd was AMAZED when they heard him preaching this doctrine.
WHEN A PREACHER PREACHES THE WORD OF GOD, IT MAKES HIM LOOK GOOD.
Illus: A young boy started playing high school football. But he spent almost the entire first year sitting on the bench. His girl friend went to another school, and she told him her dad was going to bring her to the football game Friday night to watch him play. He had a problem, he told her he played football but he did not tell her he sat on the bench most of the time. But he had one thing going for him, he did not tell her the number of his uniform, so she could not tell one player from another. They all marched on the field, and sure enough, she could not tell one from the other. But he had another thing going for him that night. The announcer on the public address system got him mixed up with the star player. All night he got great recognition for doing all kinds of things, and he did not do a thing. And he was not about to tell her he did not do all the great things they said he did.
That is the way it is with a preacher who preaches God’s Word. People hear him preach, and they think, “What a great preacher!”
But listen, he is not anything; but the gospel that he preaches from God’s Word, is dynamite!
They heard Paul preach and they were amazed at him. But Paul was not anything. It was the Gospel he preached that was marvelous.
Look at verse 21, we read, “But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests?”
When preachers preach about the Lord, it enriches the lives of Believers.
Illus: An unknown person wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper, and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "And in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. For the life of me I can't remember a single one of them. So I think I'm wasting my time and the preachers are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:
"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. For the life of me, I cannot recall what the menu was for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me those meals, I would be dead today."
The Bible makes what Paul preached about very clear. “And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.”
A. HIS PROBLEM
As long as Paul went along with the “Jesus Hate Group”, the people of his age had no problem with him. But once he started preaching that Jesus died and rose again, and that salvation can only be found in Him, he got in lots of trouble.
This is true today. As long as we state that Christianity is only another religion on the face of the earth, and that everybody is one day going to die and go to heaven, you will not get in trouble with the lost people.
But when you start to tell them that Christ is not ONE of the ways to enter heaven, He is THE ONLY way to enter heaven, then you have to be prepared for trouble.
Illus: Dr. Jerry Falwell got in a lot of trouble when he appeared on the program called “Night Line”, with Ted Koppel. He made a statement about Christ being the Savior, and one of the guests on the television program said, “You are not saying that a person has to believe in Christ to be saved, are you?” And Dr. Falwell said very eloquently, “No, I am not saying that, but the Word of God states that clearly.”
This spread like wildfire across the nation. And to this very day, there are those who try to make him look like an idiot for making such a statement.
But that is exactly what this Bible teaches. The Lord said:
• I am THE door, not one of the doors
• I am THE way, not one of the ways
This is the truth that the Bible teaches about Jesus.
But the lost world needs to hear the truth of God’s Word. It is the only thing that will do them any good.
Illus: In the late 1800s, Charles Berry, an English preacher, became the pastor of the great Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. One day Berry described how earlier he had come to Jesus Christ.
There had been a time in Berry's early ministry when he preached a very weak gospel.
Late one night during his first pastorate, as he sat in his cozy study, there came a knock. He opened the door and found a typical Lancashire girl with a shawl over her head and clogs on her feet.
"Are you a minister?" she asked. Getting an affirmative answer, she went on breathlessly. "You must come with me quickly. I want you to get my mother in."
Thinking it was a case of some drunken mother out in the streets, Berry said, "You must go and get a policeman."
"No," said the girl, "My mother is dying, and you must come and get her into heaven."
Berry got dressed and followed her for a mile and a half through lonely streets in the night. He knelt at the woman's side, and he began telling her how good and kind Jesus was and how he'd come to show us how to live.
Then the desperate woman cut him off. "Mister. "that's no use for the likes of me. I'm a sinner. I've lived my life. Can't you tell me of someone who can have mercy upon me and save my poor soul?"
"I stood there in the presence of a dying woman," said Berry, "And I realized I had nothing to tell her. In the midst of sin and death, I had no message. In order to bring something to that dying woman, I leaped back to my mother's knee, to my cradle faith, and I told her the story of the Cross and of a Christ who is able to save to the uttermost." The tears began to run down the woman's cheeks. "Now you're getting it," she said. "Now you're helping me."
Berry concluded the story by saying, "I got her in, and blessed be God, I got in myself." (Gordon MacDonald, "The Centerpiece of the Gospel," Preaching Today, Tape No. 137.)
Listen, when people are dying they need to know that they ARE THE SINNER, and CHRIST IS THE SAVIOR!
And Paul realized that once he came to know the Lord, and the Bible makes it clear that he went everywhere preaching that CHRIST IS THE SAVIOR.
And when a minister of the gospel gets up and preaches the gospel like Paul did, some people will get very angry with him.
Look at verses 23-24. We read, “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.”
We have looked at HIS PROBLEMS, but look at also-
B. HIS PROVISION
Look at verse 25. We read, “Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket.”
Every minister of the gospel must always remember, it is our job to PREACH, and it is God’s job to PROTECT AND PROVIDE for us as we preach His Word.
Conclusion:
I. THE PLAN
A. THE SEARCHING
B. THE SURRENDER
C. THE SIGHTLESSNESS
II. THE PREACHER
A. HIS PROBLEMS
B. HIS PROVISION
