Hechos 9:1-22

Chapter 26

Prayer

Almighty God, make for us, through Jesus Christ our Saviour, entrances into the upper places, where the light is brighter than it is down here. We desire to mount as upon the wings of eagles. Thou hast created in our hearts a passion for better things. Our souls yearn for loftier skies than those which now shelter us. Thou art always calling us away to higher heights and more splendid scenes. In Christ Jesus we know not the rest of mean contentment, but the peace of noble ambition. We would therefore "press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus." We have not attained, neither are we already perfect, but knowing this and knowing the fulness of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, we would run with patience the race that is set before us.

Thou dost continually surprise us with some new comfort and some unexpected revelation. Thou dost keep the best wine; thou dost not give it unto us; thou hast ever something more behind. Thou art from everlasting to everlasting, and there is no searching of thine understanding. We have heard that power belongeth unto thee; unto thee also, O Lord, belongeth mercy. In thy mercy alone can we live; thy mercy as revealed unto us in thy Son, Son of man, Son of God, God the Son. Help us to see it in all its purity and fulness, and may it be applied to us in the depth of our humiliation. Our help is in God. In no other can help be found but in our infinite Redeemer. Comfort us every day with his grace, and stablish us in his truth. Accept the thanks we bring thee for all pity, and love, and care; and if any before thee wish to offer special thanksgiving for special mercies, the Lord hear the utterance of thankfulness, and return continual blessing.

Be with those who have new prospects opening before them, and new work on hand, hardly knowing how to do it. The Lord give wisdom to those who desire to walk in the way of understanding, and grant unto those who are looking on a confidence in what is coming, and the steadfastness that comes of faith in a living Providence. Deliver us from all fear, and inspire us with that noble trust in thyself which gives us peace even in the very sanctuary of the storm.

The Lord's blessing be upon this assembly. The Lord light the fire at the altar, and send us light from the upper Sanctuary. Amen.

Saul Self-contrasted

Act 9:1-22

WHAT wonderful contrasts there are in this narrative in reference to the character of Saul of Tarsus! He is not the same man throughout, and yet he is the same. The contrasts are so sharp, and, indeed, so violent, as almost to make him into another man altogether. For example, take the first of these contrasts, and you will find that Saul, who went out to persecute, remained to pray. The first verse reads, "And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter!" and in the eleventh verse occurs the remarkable expression, "Behold, he prayeth!" He breathed hotly. The breath of his nostrils was a fierce blast that burned the air. How changed in a little time! for his face is turned upward to heaven, and its very look is a pleading supplication. What has occurred? These effects must be accounted for. Have they any counterpart in our own observation and experience? Have any of us passed from fierceness to gentleness, from drunkenness to sobriety, from darkness to light, from blasphemy to worship? Then we understand what is meant by this most startling contrast. There may be others who have advanced so quietly and gradually as to find no such contrast in their own consciousness and experience; but we must not judge the experience of the whole by the experience of the part. This is precisely the work which Christianity undertakes to do. It undertakes to cool your breath, to take the fire out of your blood, to subdue your rancour and your malignity, and to clasp your hands in childlike plea and prayer at your Father's feet. Such is the continual miracle of Christianity. The religion of Jesus Christ would have nothing to do if this were not to be accomplished. Jesus makes the lion lie down with the lamb, and he causes the child to hold the fierce beast, and to put its hand with impunity on the cockatrice den. Other miracles he has ceased to perform, but this continual and infinite surprise is the standing miracle and the standing testimony of Christ.

Take the second contrast, which is quite as remarkable. When Saul was a Pharisee he persecuted; when Saul became a Christian we read in the twenty-second verse that he "proved." How many miles of the moral kind lie between the word "persecuted" and the word "proved"? Yet this is distinctly in the line of Christian purpose and heavenly intent. As a Pharisee he said, "Destroy Christianity, by destroying Christians. Bind them; put an end to this pestilence. Do not stand it any longer. Open your prison doors, and I will fill your dungeons, and we will bring this new and mischievous heresy to a speedy termination." Such was his first policy. Having seen Jesus, and felt his touch, and entered into his Spirit, what does he say? Does he now say, "The persecution must be turned in the other direction; I have been persecuting the wrong parties; now I find it is you Jews, Pharisees, Sadducees, that must be manacled and fettered and put an end to. I change my policy, and I persecute you, every man and woman of you"? Nothing of the kind. Observe this miracle, admire it, and let it stand before you as an argument invincible and complete. What is Saul's tone now? Standing with the scrolls open before him, he reasons and mightily contends; he becomes a vehement and luminous speaker of Christian truth. He increases the more in strength, proving that this is the Christ. Has all the persecuting temper gone? Yes, every whit of it. Why did he not prove to the Christians, in his unconverted state, that they were mistaken? When he was not a converted man, he never thought of "proving" anything. He had a rough, short, and easy method with heretics stab them, burn them, drown them, bind them in darkness, and let them die of hunger! Now that he is a converted man, he becomes a reasoner. He stands up with an argument as his only weapon; persuasion as his only iron; entreaty and supplication as the only chains with which he would bind his opponents. What has happened? Something vital must have occurred. Is there not a counterpart of all this in our own individual experience, and in civilized history? Do not men always begin vulgarly, and end with refinement? Is not the first rough argument a thrust with cold iron, or a blow with clenched fist? Does not history teach us that such methods are utterly unavailing in the extinction or the final arrest of erroneous teaching? Christianity is a moral plea. Christianity burns no man. Wherein professing Christians have resorted to the block and the stake, and to evil instruments, they have proved disloyal to their Master, and they have forgotten the spirit of his cross. Christianity is a plea, a persuasion, an appeal, an address to reason, conscience, heart, and to everything that makes a man a Man. Christianity-uses no force, and asks for no force to be used on its behalf. You cannot make men pray by force of arms. You cannot drive your children to church, except in the narrowest and shallowest sense of the term. You may convince men of their error, and lead men to the sanctuary, and, through the confidence of their reason and their higher sentiments, you may conduct them to your own noblest conclusions. How far is it from persecuting to praying? From threatening and slaughter to proving? That distance Christ took Saul, who only meant to go from Jerusalem to Damascus, some hundred and thirty-six miles. Christ took him a longer journey; he swept him round the whole circle of possibility. He made him accomplish the entire journey which lies between persecution and prayer, slaughter and argument. It is thus that Jesus Christ makes us do more than we intended to do. He meets us on the way of our own choice, and graciously takes us on a way of his own.

Look at the third contrast, which is as notable as the other two. In the opening of the narrative Saul was a strong man, the strongest of the band; the chief, without whose presence the band would dissolve. His nostrils are dilated with anger: his eye burns with a fire that expresses the supreme purpose of his heart. Nothing stands between him and the accomplishment of his purpose. The caravan road from Jerusalem to Damascus, supposing that he took that road, required some six days to traverse it. Saul knew not the lapse of time, so high-strung was his energy, and so resolute his purpose. And in this same narrative, not further on than the eighth verse, we read of the great persecutor that "they led him by the hand." What has happened? We thought he would have gone into the city like a storm; and he went in like a blind beggar! We thought he would have been met at the city gate as the great destroyer of heresy; and he was led by the hand like a helpless cripple! Woe unto the strength that is not heaven-born! Such so-called power will wither away. When we are weak then are we strong. Saul will one day teach us that very doctrine. Really understood, Saul was a stronger man when he was being led by the hand than when he breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. You are mightier when you pray than when you persecute. You are stronger men when you prove your argument than when you seek to smite your opponent. Something will come of this. Such violences have high moral issues.

Saul led by the hand; then why need we be ashamed of the same process? Saul began feebly; why should we hesitate to begin our Church service on a very small scale? Saul led by the hand; then who will despise the day of small things? Presently he will increase in strength, the right strength, the power that has deep roots; not the power of transient fury, but the solid and tranquil strength of complete repose. "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;" and remember that the mightiest chief under Christ that ever led the Christian hosts was conducted by friendly and compassionate men into the city which he intended to devastate.

Turning to another aspect of the case, we see two or three most beautiful and pathetic glimpses of Jesus Christ Himself. He ascended, yet he said, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age." There we find him leaving, yet not leaving; not visible, yet watchful; looking upon Saul every day, and looking at the same time upon his redeemed Church night and day, the whole year round. Events are not happening without his knowledge; the story of all the ages is written in heaven. He knows your persecuting purpose; he understands well enough what you are doing to interrupt the cause of truth and the progress of Christian knowledge. Jesus Christ knows all your antagonistic plans, thoughts, purposes, and devices. His eye is upon you. As for you Christians, he knows your sufferings, your oppositions, your daily contentions, your painful striving; he knows exactly through how much tribulation you are moving onward to the kingdom.

Not only is he living and watchful, but, in the case of Saul himself, Jesus Christ was compassionate. Listen to the words which he addressed to Saul: "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." He pitied the poor ox that struck its limbs against the sharp and piercing goads. There is nothing destructive in this criticism. There is the spirit of Christ in this remark, Yea, this expostulation repeats the prayer of his dying breath, and shows him to be "the same yesterday, today, and for ever." He does not bind Saul with his own chain; he throws upon him the happy spell of victorious love.

Not only is he living, watchful, and compassionate, he is consistent. He said to Ananias, "I will show him what great things he must suffer for my name's sake. When Jesus called his disciples to him, and ordained them to go out into the world, he laid before them a black picture; he kept back nothing of the darkness. He told his disciples that they would be persecuted, dragged up before the authorities and cruelly treated; and now, when he comes to add another to the number, he repeats the ordination charge which he addressed to the first band.

All these things were seen in a vision. Say some of you, "We have no visions now. Have we not? How can we? We may eat and drink all visions away. The glutton and the drunkard can have nothing but nightmare. A materialistic age can only have a materialistic religion. If men will satisfy every appetite, indulge every desire to satiety, turn the day into night, and the night into a long revel, they cannot wonder if the vision should have departed from their life. We may grieve the Spirit, we may quench the Spirit; we may so eat, and drink, and live as to divest the mind of its wings, and becloud the whole horizon of the fancy. But is it true that the vision has ceased? It may be so within a narrow sense, but not in its true spiritual intent and thought. Even now we speak about strong impressions, impulses we cannot account for, movements, desires of the mind which lie beyond our control. Even now we are startled by unexpected combinations of events. Even now we have a mysterious side to life, as well as an obvious and patent side. What if the religious mind should see in such realities the continued Presence and the continued Vision which gladdened the early Church? If you would see the spiritual, you must keep down the material. If you would have visions, you must banish the basely substantial. If you would have high dreamings and noble revelations, you must mortify the flesh.

See from this conversion how true it is that Christianity does not merely alter a man's intellectual views or modify a man's moral prejudices. Christianity never makes a little alteration in a man's thinking and action. Christianity makes new hearts, new creatures, and not new plans and new habits only. Other reformers may change a habit now and again, may modify a prejudice, attemper a purpose with some benign and gracious intent; but this Redeemer, who gave himself the Just for the unjust, who bought with the blood of his own heart, does not make a little difference in our intellectual attitude and our moral purpose. He wants us to be born again. "If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creature; old things have passed away, and all things have become new." There drop from his eyes "as it were scales," and, with a pure heart, he sees a pure God.