Bible Guys Classics: Acts 9 Part 1

Well, today's story in the Bible reminds me of that seventies song blinded by the Light. Okay, well, we're talking about Saul's conversion today. He's Chris, I'm Jeff, and we're the Daily Bob guys. All right, Jeff, Well, I just want to say it's probably a good thing that you're a decent speaker. Yeah, whatever, singing. Whatever, coming on. People loved it. I'm sure they did. They were like, sing Moore, they're going to email. In please sing and that one of them has said, have Chris singmore? Hey? Good one. Well that's okay because I don't know the next line. I always say it, I always say it wrong, and I don't want to repeat that. Okay, So, uh so listen today I have a little segment for you where you have not read these but I have. They were handed to me and I'm going to read them out. And it's simply this. What is the segment called? Oh it's well, I was about to say that, Okay a psalm? Is it a psalm? Or is it a pop song? Oh? Talking about singing? Yes? Wow? Yeah what a segue? Yes, totally missed. Okay, you're ready. Well, your instincts for this are great? This this wow? Yeah, okay, here we goes ready, Yes, their days are like a fleeting shadow. What I'm trying to do is figure out are these lyrics a psalm or a pop song? Is that too much for you? Well, I just want to make sure our listeners know what I'm supposed to be doing. Okay, yeah for the listener, Yes, for the listeners. It's all about the listening. Here's the phrase. Okay, their days are like a fleeting shadow? Is this a song or a pop song? Correct? That's a song? Yeah, that was pretty easy. That's why. That's why I first fleeting is the giveaway? And so what just take a stab anywhere? Thirty seven? That's what I thought. What do I say? I haven't this one? Okay? Okay? Uh. And there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark. I hope that's waiting for you. Uh it is, yes, scars to You're Beautiful at least it's Kara okay, yeah beautiful Yeah that song? Okay, Okay, My sun Rise, My Sunrise on the Darkest Day. So I'm terrible pop songs. I don't know. I'm gonna say pop song. It is oh you're three for three, three for three and that song comes from Despasito by Justin bieber Well and whoever that other guy is. Uh, then this one is just know that you don't have to do this alone. Just know that you don't have to do this alone. Uh. That's a pop song. It is Okay, Treat You Better by Seawn Mendees. Okay, look at this. I'm four for four baby. Yep, okay, but it is you a man like myself, a companion, a close friend. Uh, I'm gonna say some. It is a song, so you've got you've gotten all five? Okay, five for five and some what take that was? That was a scar some palm. Fifty five? Oh I almost was fifty five? Yeah, yeah, almost almost. I think that's very I think they're very similar. Yeah, okay, okay, so this last one. Ready, last one? This is it. Yes, it's the marble. It says let it go, let it go, don't hold it back anymore. Just kidding. That's it. It's just five of them. Okay. Good. So we want to remind us I noticed there were no tailor swift lyrics in there. No, there were there were no Swifties. Yeah. So we want to remind our listeners to subscribe on YouTube. If you get just a second and you go on YouTube and subscribe to the Daily Bible guys, it's going to really help us and help you, yeah, help get the word out, yeah, and get you know, in our interactions. And it also helps the metrics. Yes. And by the way, like hundreds of people last in the last two weeks, as we've asked to sign up on Facebook or YouTube or whatever have done so. So all the cool kids are doing it right, right. You don't want to be the one kid that didn't sign up for this when all the other cool kids are doing it right, right. So I don't know the peer pressure my home. Yeah, I mean don't what are you a square? That's right, don't be such a nerd sign up on YouTube. So subscribe and that will help with the algorithms and things put positioning the Bible guys in a stronger light. So that's great. Okay, So is that all we had to talk about. That's it? Okay, Well, today we are continuing in this kind of a chronological walk through the Book of Acts, and this is the early Church. This is when it was still pure and everything was you know it wasn't perfect, but men were these exciting times as a gospel spreading for the first time around the world, and today's study is a pretty pivotal moment in world history, certainly in Christian history. Yeah, it's one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. So favorite stories. Oh good, good, Well that just elevates it to the next level. It does that. It's one of your favorites. Yes, it's strongly endorsed by Chris Sarabah. So Acts, chapter nine, verse one is Saul's conversion, and here's what it says. Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord's followers, so he went to the High Priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for the cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them, both men and women, back to Jerusalem and Chains. He was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you? Lord? Saul asked, and the voice replied, I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. Now get up and go into this city, and you'll be told what you must do. The men with Saul stood speechless, for they heard the sound of someone's voice but saw no one. Saul picked himself up off the ground, but when he opened his eyes he was blind. So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus, and he remained there blind for three days and did not eat or drink. Now there was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, calling Anonius. Yes, Lord, he the Lord said, go over to straight street, to the house of Judas, and when you get there, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He's praying to me right now. I've shown him a vision of a man named Annonius coming in and laying hands on him so he can see again. But Lord exclaimed Annonaius, I've heard many people talk about the terrible things this man is done to the believers in dru and he's authorized by the leading priests to arrest everyone who calls upon your name. But the Lord said, go for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel, and I will show him how much he must suffer from my namesake. So Anonius went and found Sault. He laid his hands on him and said, brother, Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road has sent me so that you might regain your site and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Instantly, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he regained his sight, and then he got up and was baptized, and afterwards he ate some food and regained his strength. So chronologically there's a lot, Yeah, for sure, there's a lot to talk about. The first one is we find Saal at the beginning of this chapter and he is commissioned by the high priests to take his method of persecution and many people believe execution that he was actually committing against the Christians in Jerusalem, and he wants to take it to other cities. So he goes to the high priests and they sign the commission legally for him to go take his mission to Damascus. So it says it doesn't say that he killed people, but he said he was eager to kill people, which is why most people believe that Saul actually murdered Christians. He killed them, We know that he persecuted them, but eager to kill. So so he is on his way and then he gets stopped by Jesus, and of course this is the reason later on why Paul is able to say I'm an apostle. And the requirement for an apostle is to have seen the Lord Jesus. And so later on, when his title apostleship was in question, Paul said, no, I've seen Jesus, and they said, how have you seen Jesus. He's left, He's already gone, He's ascended to Heaven. Paul's like, no, no, he appeared to be on the road, which is pretty cool. Right, right. So then Damascus is in Syria, So this is hundreds of miles away from Jerusalem, and it's a major hub for international trade, and so it's a very strategic city. I think it's strategic from palse perspective. He's a very very intelligent guy, and he's realizing that there are a number of Christians in Damascus, and so with all the traders coming in and out, and these Christians won't shut off about this Jesus guy. There's potential that this could wind up infecting much of the Roman Empire, at least the northern portion of the Roman Empire. And so he goes to Damascus heads there first, and he's working only in the synagogues, which really kind of highlights for us because those of us who aren't Jewish, and we're two thousand years into Christianity now, so we don't think of it the same, But at that time, most of the people thought of Christianity as just like a cult from within Judaism. And so that's why he's working directly with the synagogues, is because there weren't very many other Christians other than up to this point, other than the Jewish people who said, we've found the Jewish Messiah, who is Jesus right right. And it's very interesting because here we're given a nod to the fact that it wasn't called Christianity back then. Yes, that's right, it. Was called the Way, which is so cool. Yes, they were people of the Way, that's what they referred to themselves, That were people of the Way. Yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot of listeners that didn't know that. And you know, I'd like to think that it came from John fourteen six, where Jesus said I am the Way, and so they're thinking, yeah, this is the Way. And if you think about it, it's a pretty cool name. It's a great name. Way better you think. I'm not ashamed of being a Christian, certainly, but what a cool name. The people of the Way. And so these people are the followers of the Way. Yeah, so it's pretty neat, you know it. It's this interaction that Jesus has with Saul. And the first question that Saul asks is he says, who are you Lord? And then his answer is, well, I'm Jesus, whom you are persecuting, right, and it's hard for you to kick against the gods or the or the pricks, the or the gnawing at your soul. And this is what Jesus says to Saul. So imagine this. Imagine that you are a young, successful man like Saul. You're a Pharisee and you're a Jewish citizen. So you have the best of both worlds. You have, you know, sort of interned with the Pharisees. Many people believe that Saul was probably a member of the Sanhedron maybe, and if not, he was well on his way. And so you have all this political prowess, and you have success and money and fame and everything else and leverage, and you think this is where I'm getting, this is what I'm going going to. You think you're actually doing what's right. So Saul probably thought that he was absolutely doing what is correct. He is a Jewish person who serves the God of the Old Testament. He's trying to snuff out this false doctrine, this false Messiah. He completely thought he was serving God. I believe that Saul's intentions were good, even though that they were carried out in malicious intent. And then all of a sudden you realize Jesus is standing in front of you, which means everything about your life has been wrong. Yeah, yeah, can you imagine that? Yeah? And then what a supernatural way to get his attention right right now. It doesn't happen always that it's a supernatural event that is so miraculous like this, where there's a light from heaven and a voice from heaven speaks, Jesus says something. But it's always a supernatural event. When the Holy Spirit begins to convict somebody begin to draw somebody to himself. God is intervening. The Bible says that God's grace has always extended through the work of the Holy Spirit drawing people to Christ. So it's always supernatural, but it maybe sometimes it's not as flashy as this event. Sure, And the reason I really believe is most of our listeners are listening in an environment where the Gospel has been available for hundreds of years. Right, there's a church on every corner, there's a Bible almost in every house. You can get the Bible on your phone if you want one, almost every but he lives in some proximity to some Christian or somebody who claims to be a follower of Jesus. So the primary mechanism that God uses to get the Gospel out to people is other Christians using the words of God. Right, But on occasion there are, like in paulse circumstances, nobody was going to share the Gospel with Paul, right, he's killing people, he's arresting people, whatever. So in this situation, God goes, Okay, there needs to be some kind of dramatic supernatural intervention, and he reaches out and gets the attention of Paul in a way that is more dramatic maybe than the way that he reached you hear me. Do you know of people, Do you know any stories of people who've had like a dramatic encounter that otherwise would have never heard the gospel? Because if you don't, I have a story. But I don't think I can think of anything that certainly compares to what we're reading here. Yeah. I have a friend that was a general. I'm not going to say his name or the country that he was in, but he was one of the top generals in the Middle East and was struggling in his marriage and was kind of officially he would say he was an atheist, and he was one of the four top generals in his country, and so he was afraid to tell other people that he was struggling through these difficulties. So he began to just pray, which he didn't believe in God, but he said, Hey, if you are the God of Mohammed, let me know. If you're the God of Jesus, I want to know. I'm just looking for help and hope. So he kept praying along those lines for a substantial amount of time, and then he began to have dreams, regular dreams, to the point where he began to be convinced that it was Jesus that he was seeing. And finally Jesus shows up. He's got on a robe, he's got on a blue accent to his white robe, and he said, I'm going to send somebody to you, and when they come to you with the message, you can trust them. And it was a colonel in his army who came to him and said, I know I could be arrested for this, but I feel like Jesus wants me to tell you. And he brought him a Bible, a New Testament, and he said, I just feel like I need to tell you about my Lord, and he began to share the Gospel. And over the next couple of days, my friend gave his life to Christ. Radically transformed his life. Wow. And so it wasn't Christ that you know, Jesus didn't lead him to himself. There, Jesus said, you can trust the man I'm sending you. Very similar to this story. Yeah, it sounds like right God. Yeah, But he was in a Muslim majority country and then if it had been found out that he was exploring Christianity, he might have been arrested, put in prison or whatever. At that time. Sounds like the colonel took a big risk. The colonel did yeah yeah, which is what Anonius did right right. Can you imagine, So you're just sitting around doing your thing. Hey, I heard that Saul guy's coming into town. Isn't that scary? And then guy goes, so, Anon, I, I want you to go and meet with the number one hunter of Christians. Right. And by the way, what's amazing is is that when he meets Saul, he says, brother Saul. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So he greets her, He. Greets him knowing that God has chosen him. That that that that you know, God has done a great working in because God promised he had a rebuttal he said no, no, no, no no, And then God said no, I've chosen him, and and and he is, you know, obviously now a believer. And so he greets him with Brother Saul, and it's like wow, you know what it is, it's a great example for us to give people grace. So, you know, when people have pasted atrocities and sins and you know, lifestyles that are just bad or just in relationship, they're just mean. You know, and they just have a bad attitude whatever else. Well, when they come to know God, we have to be able to give them a chance to change, you know, we have to be able to you know, just accept the fact that you know, it was they once were lost and perhaps and now they're found. And so that's why he says, brother Saul. And so it's just a pretty incredible statement about whose Anoni's character is right. And you know, it's here's here's another thing about this, and I've all I've often thought about this. So it says that, you know, Saul has this encounter with Jesus on the road and then he goes into the city and he waits three days for Ananias. But keep in mind he's blind. So it says he neither ate nor drank. Right, so he's having trouble sleeping because it says later on, you know, he regained his strength and eat some food and everything else. So he neither ate nor drink and he's laying there blind after realizing that my whole life has been working against the true God, and after realizing what he's been a part of. So in next chapter seven, he's the one standing by and consenting to the image that he still has in his mind of Stephen being stone to death. So later on in Paul's writings, he calls himself the chief of Sinners. He talks about how wretched of a man he was. And so here's what I believe. I believe those three days were excruciating for Saul, who's now it is Paul, Paul who just laid there and just can you just imagine you can't see anything, So the only thing in your mind is your memory. Yeah, and so you are remembering every single persecution, every single you know, woman or child that you've hunted down and locked up and separated from their families or killed, and you know, consenting to Stephen's death. And you're laying there for three days. And I'm telling you he had to have had an excruciating three days. It hadn't been brutal, especially after having had this incredible encounter. You can only imagine how you fork this will be. At first it was shocking, but then how you fork it would be to have an encounter with Jesus and then to be blind after that that you ever hear the phrase I saw the light. Sure, that's where it comes from. This is where it comes from Hank Williams wrote that song I saw the light, I saw the light. You know, yeah, no more in darkness. So this this moment was high and then incredibly low. And you're right, he had this three days to kind of he probably a little oh yeah. But then one of the things I love, so it says, go over to Straight Street. Which, by the way, this is a really cool fact because for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years Damascus had been you know, under soil and rocks and stuff, and excavators archaeologists have discovered about one hundred and fifty years ago discovered Damascus again. And the main street from one end of the so it's a walled city right along the river from one end all the way to the other end. It's like a mile and a half long, perfectly straight street right down the middle. And that is Straight Street. And it was named Straight Street. There's little signs that say straight Street. It's really really cool that Luke was so precise that even in the hundreds of years when nobody even knew for sure where this city was. Once the archaeologists come back in later, not only is there this extremely straight street through the city of Damascus. It's called Straight Street right right, And so now there's a big market there and all that stuff. You can go, you can go visit. Well, I don't know that i'd want to go to Syria right now and visit. But again, yeah, I've always wanted to be on this road. I wasn't on Straight Street, but I've always wanted to be. Yeah, I'd love to be there too. But then, so the Lord says, I want you to go to Straight Street, and I want you to lay hands on Saul. And and Anonius knows exactly who he is. As my fact, Antonius feels comfortable. So here's God talking to Antonius. I don't know how many times God's talked out loud to you, and I talked a loud to me. But Antonius is so afraid of Saul that he decides to argue with the Lord a little bit. Yeah, he goes, but Lord, have you ever found yourself arguing? I have I found myself arguing, knowing what God wanted me to do, but trying to talk myself out of it, and then find. We're certainly finding reasons not to do it. That's right, And you know, this just reminds me to close wrap up with this. This reminds me. I think most of us have somebody in our life that we think they will never come to Jesus. And I think Jesus delights in bringing those people to himself in a way that just shocks us and a surprising and that's exactly what he does. So don't give up. Don't give up on the least likely person in your life that you think is too far from God. Yeah, it's what's leaning into. I've got one more thought too. Okay, So I know that the NLT this this version that we're reading, it translates a little bit differently, but uh so Saul has this interaction with Jesus, and in the KJAV when I read this originally, it translates with Saul asking Jesus two questions. The first question he asked Jesus was who are you Lord? And then the second question he asked him was Lord, what would you have me to do? And then Jesus says, we'll get up, go into the city and it'll be told you what to do. So I just I've always thought of it this way. These are the same two questions that you and I have to ask and answer for you know, and let God answer. The first one we answer for ourselves. The second one God answers for us. So think about any person listening. You have to ask yourself who is Jesus to you? Who are you Lord? And then and then the next question is just simply, hey, if Jesus is Lord, Lord, what would you have me to do? Wow? And so this is these two questions here the story are questions that can really guide us for every single decision when we're wrestling with you know, whatever it is that we're wrestling with it, we don't want to do it God's way. We have to ask ourselves who is Jesus to us? And Lord, what would you have me to do? So these are two great questions. Well, I think that that's a good place to wrap up, and we will continue on our story with Saul next time on the Daily Bible. Guys.