Have you ever thought about Saul who would later become the Apostle Paul? What an outstanding young man Saul became. His parents had to be proud of him.
We are able to piece together several things about his younger years. In Acts 22:1-3 we see that he is a Jew born in Tarsus. Now Tarsus was the capital of the province of Cilicia. This city enjoyed no taxation. It was a free city, and a place of culture and learning. Saul lived in a place of Roman influence and in fact later in this same chapter of Acts we see that Saul was a Roman Citizen as well as being a Jew.
He was trained in Jerusalem at the feet of the highly respected Rabbi Gamaliel.
We find out more about Saul in Philippians 3:4-6
Saul was born of Orthodox parents. He was an Israelite by race and not a proselyte. Saul was of blood descent and able to track his lineage back to the tribe of Benjamin. The tribe of Benjamin would provide special pride to Saul since Benjamin was one of the two southern tribes who remained true to the house of David and to Jerusalem. Who knows, but maybe Saul’s parents named him Saul after King Saul the first king who was from the tribe of Benjamin.
Saul could also speak the Hebrew language as well as the Greek language. Paul learned Hebrew even though he was born and reared in the Gentile city of Tarsus.
Saul was also trained as a Pharisee, blameless in keeping the law, and zealous in persecuting Christians. Saul had it all together. He was a Roman Citizen, a blood line Jew, highly educated from a very influential teacher and was growing in power and esteem among his peers. He was the real deal.
Saul had to have a great amount of pride in what he had achieved. Here is what he says about himself in Acts 22:4-5
He had an inside track to the top religious leaders of his day. Receiving letters from them to go arrest these Christians and drag them back to Jerusalem to be punished. But Saul had a problem. His pride and zeal had blinded him from seeing the truth. He was on a destructive course, because on that way to Damascus at about noon he had an encounter with God. The bright light and the voice. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
Can you imagine this? The resurrected, glorified, sitting at the right hand of God Jesus rightly accusing Saul of persecuting HIM. Saul, you have been found guilty of persecuting God. Talk about a death mission. Think about being at war and your adversary is God himself! Saul is spiraling down out of control with his pride and self-righteousness to the point where he is fighting against God.
Life has a tendency to put is in some pretty difficult spots. Like Saul we let our pride get in the way of common sense and we end up in all sorts of bad situations where we find ourselves guilty of persecuting God. Sin easily entangles us and like a knotted up ball of yarn, it is very difficult to untangle the mess!
There was a Suspense Radio broadcast that was aired on May 19, 1952, called “The Flight of the Bumblebee” which illustrates this truth and what we must do to untangle ourselves. This story was based upon a factual flight during the Korean War where a B-29 and her crew went on a routine bombing run over Korea.
It was a 600-mile flight to the target and this seasoned crew had run many such runs without resistance from the enemy. A routine flight on a beautiful day. Once they neared the target the bombardier would need 125 seconds to lock on the target and make the drop.
The B-29 neared the target, the bomb bay doors were opened and the Captain gave control of the aircraft to the bombardier. With 60 seconds left before the drop fighter plans were spotted moving in fast. They thought they would have just enough time to make the drop before having to engage the enemy planes. They were a few seconds off and they took a lot of rounds.
Engines 3 and 4 were out. The right flap was missing. The enemy aircraft knowing the damage caused started to turn around to make the final kill on the crippled B-29. With 2 engines out they were limited on electricity to move the gun turrets. They fired up the onboard backup generator to give them a little more to try and track the incoming planes with their guns. The first three planes they were able to stay off, the fourth plane hit one of the gunners’. One plane left coming in and it was coming in on the blind side.
The pilot had to hold the wing without the engines higher to keep control of the aircraft. This fighter was coming in under that raised wing. The pilot told the gunner to let him know when to drop the wing so the gunner could have a chance of getting a shot off. Closer and closer came the enemy and finally the gunner yelled, “Drop it Captain!” The gunner made a direct hit and sent the enemy plane flaming towards mother earth. The rest of the planes decided to go home.
The Captain went to see his shot gunner. The wound was bad, but the captain knew he could get him home and he promised the gunner that he would. However, the plane was losing altitude and would not make it home if something did not change. They had to get rid of weight so they could maintain altitude with just the two engines. If they dumped the fuel, they still would not make it home, what to do? The captain ordered everything that could be tossed be tossed out the plane. Armor, guns, anything that could be removed and not hinder the flight of the plane was to be tossed. Finally, they were holding altitude.
They made it home, everyone on board made it home. They had to do a belly landing since the gear would not come down. But the pilot kept his word and the gunner made it home and lived.
We start off our Christian walk as newborn babes. So full of hope and joy. It is a glorious and beautiful day with no clouds in the sky. It is going to be a smooth routine flight. All is good and then seemingly out of nowhere the enemy appears and attacks. We find ourselves sinking fast entangled in the sin that we inflicted upon ourselves.
Two of our engines are gone, our right wing flap is flapping! We need help because the course we find ourselves on will leave us crashing behind enemy lines. So, how do we overcome and make it home?
The author of Hebrews, using a different analogy of a runner instead of a plane, wrote this in Hebrews 12:1-3
We have to start chucking things out of our plane! Every obstacle that is hindering us needs to go bye bye! The sin that sneaks up on us and entangles us needs to go overboard as well. It is hard folks and I know it, but to make it home these items have to go overboard. We need to only look to our pilot Jesus. He has promised to get us home.
Back to Paul in Philippians 3:7-16 tells us the same thing in different words starting in verse 7:
All of Saul’s achievements, rubbish. All are chucked overboard because the only thing that matters is knowing the pilot Jesus Christ. Christ has the power of resurrection. Christ is the only one who can take us home.
Of course we know that Saul headed the voice on the Damascus road. He threw overboard his pride, his Jewish bloodline, his education, his persecution of the Way and the plane started to rise back up in the sky. Instead of persecuting Christ Saul became a friend of Christ.
What a message of hope for all of us. We may be struggling, entangled in sin, or we may see ourselves sinking fast. Take a lesson from Saul and surrender it all. Take the steps to get rid of those obstacles and sin and fix your eyes on the author and perfector of our faith. Our pilot Jesus Christ and he will take us home.
