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God’s Chosen Instrument
God’s Chosen Instrument Acts 9:1-19 Key Verse: 9:15 “But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.’” Several weeks ago, we studied about the persecution of the early Christian church beginning with the stoning of Stephen. This persecution caused “all except the apostles [to be] scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” (Acts 8:1) As we will see in this passage, some of the Christians went even farther than this to escape the persecution. We must remember that the church up to this point is mostly a Jewish church whose members would meet in the synagogues every Sabbath. They would talk with other faithful Jewish people and try to convince them that Jesus was the promised Messiah who came into the world to save mankind from their sins. Just as Jesus was a threat to the Jewish ruling establishment, so too, the church of Jesus was also seen as a threat that needed to be dealt with. One of the most aggressive people to try and deal with this new sect, referred to as “the way,” was a young man named Saul. Saul had vigorously persecuted the church in Jerusalem and gained a reputation of cruelty among the early Christians that reached beyond Judea and Samaria all the way to Damascus. It was this man, who hated Jesus and the early Christian church with all of his heart, that God chose to be his chosen instrument to carry the Christian message to the ends of the known world of that time. May God bless our study of the conversion of Saul and help us to see that God can use anyone to accomplish His world mission work. First, Paul’s mission to destroy the Christian church. (1-2) According to Acts 8:1, after the stoning of Stephen, a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem. This was to be expected. While Jesus was alive, He was a threat to established Jewish leaders. The people liked Jesus ministry because he taught as one who had authority and not as one of the teachers of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. He also healed the sick, cast out demons and fed thousands of people. Most importantly, Jesus taught about the kingdom of God and the Heavenly Father who loved His children on earth. However, worst of all, Jesus publicly criticized and rebuked the religious leaders. Jesus was undermining the authority of these leaders and they were afraid of Him. Eventually, they conspired against Jesus and put Him to death on false charges. They thought this would be the end of Jesus. Little did they realize, this would only be the beginning. Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to many people giving convincing proofs of this before He returned to His home in heaven. Before leaving, He also gave His disciples some very clear instruction about what they were supposed to do; “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Therefore, after they thought they had gotten rid of Jesus, the religious leaders found that they had an even bigger problem on their hands. Now there was not just one person they had to contend with there were several hundred who would not stop talking about that one man. They had to do something, so they began by stoning Stephen and Saul began going door to door looking for followers of the way in order to throw them into jail. The persecution got so bad that many of the Christians began to scatter throughout Judea, Samaria and apparently, even as far as Damascus. By trying to destroy the early church, the Jewish leaders only made their problem worse by scattering the church and thus scattering the truth about Jesus. Now the Jews had to send people out of Jerusalem to track down and persecute the followers of Jesus. Look at verses 1&2. “Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.” These 2 verses tell us several important things. First, it gives us some insight into the type of man Saul was. Saul was “…breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.” Saul didn’t just disagree with the early Christians, he hated them literally wanted them dead. Saul was a Pharisee who deeply held to the traditions and faith of the Jewish people. As far as he was concerned, Jesus and His followers broke off from these traditions and the faith that went along with them. Jesus’ followers were now going into the synagogues around the country and preaching this new religion to the people. Saul hated this and was determined to do whatever he could to stop it, even if it meant he would have to kill the disciples of Jesus. Second, Saul went to the chief priests to get letters for the synagogues in Damascus. Damascus was not even in the country of Israel. Damascus is the capital of modern day Syria and at that time, it, like Israel, was under Roman rule. The Romans pretty much let the Jewish religious leaders have their way when it came to religious rule inside of Israel, but this time Saul was asking for permission to go outside of Israel to track down Christian. This was a risky move if the Sanhedrin agreed to it. If the Roman rulers found out that these leaders were sending out emissaries to foreign countries to persecute people there they could get into a lot of trouble. However, Saul and the religious rulers didn’t care about the possible political consequences, they just wanted to destroy the young church before it got too big to destroy. They were willing to go to any lengths. Third, Saul wanted to get every believer of Jesus thrown into jail whether they were a man or a woman. Typically, in religious matters only the men would be held responsible for any infractions. At that time it was a male dominated society and women weren’t even allowed to go into the temple proper. They could only enter as far as the “Court of Women” or the “Middle Court.” This was just inside the “Court of Gentiles”, but removed from the temple itself where the men could worship. In Jewish religious matters women were not often held accountable for things. This didn’t matter to Saul. He was going to round up everyone who believed and drag them all as captives back to Jerusalem where he was going to bring them before the Sanhedrin to stand on trial for their faith. In short, in these two short verses we can see that Saul was absolutely committed to destroying the early Christian church at any cost. Second, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (3-9) Paul had gotten his letters from the Sanhedrin addressed to the synagogue leaders in Damascus giving him permission to round up the followers of the way and drag them off to Jerusalem. Now he was on his way and he had almost made it to Damascus. However, something happened before he got there that would change his life forever, Look at verses 3&4. “As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’” In Luke’s telling of these events, it just says a light from heaven flashed around Paul, but when Paul tells the story in his own words in chapters 22 and 26 (especially in 26) Paul emphasizes that this light was extremely bright – “brighter than the sun” he says in chapter 26. The brilliance of the light from heaven was enough to knock Paul to the ground in astonishment. But then something even stranger happened; a voice came out of that great light and addressed Saul directly. “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” This must have been very confusing for Saul. I think Saul knew this voice was coming direct from heaven, but the people Saul was persecuting had nothing to do with heaven as far as Saul was concerned. In fact, in Saul’s mind he was persecuting the enemies of God. Saul thought he was working for God, so why would this voice which seemed to be coming from heaven accuse Saul of persecuting him. So, Saul asked a simple question. “Who are you, Lord?” The answer Saul got was the last answer he ever would have expected to get. The answer was “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Think about this from Saul’s point of view. This answer made absolutely no sense at all. First, Jesus was dead. He had been crucified by the Romans and nobody survives that. Furthermore, if the voice was coming from heaven it couldn’t be Jesus because Jesus was a blasphemer who would never be permitted to enter God’s Kingdom. And finally, Paul wasn’t persecuting Jesus, he was persecuting people who were trying to follow Jesus. This last point is very important. From a human perspective Saul wasn’t persecuting Jesus, he was persecuting Jewish people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. What was Jesus saying then. He was saying exactly what he promised His followers while he was on earth – if you open the door to your heart and believe the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will come in and live with you. Jesus was living in the people that Saul was persecuting, so Saul was directly persecuting Jesus. Still, to Saul what he just heard must have completely blown his mind. Anyway, the voice went on and gave Saul a mission. Just a small mission this time, but a mission none the less. Jesus said, “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” This must have been hard for Saul to do, not because he was blind, but that he was taking orders from a dead man that he hated. It is really hard to imagine what Saul was thinking at this time. Everything he believed in was suddenly turned upside down. Everything he had work so hard to achieve was in direct contradiction to what he claimed to live for. He prided himself on living for God as Jewish Pharisee. His greatest work was to stamp out and destroy the church of Jesus because he believed it was evil and opposed to everything that was good and God Himself. Yet, now it was beginning to appear that maybe he had been wrong about everything. Maybe his life’s work was actually what was opposed to everything good and opposed to God. Saul had brought several men with him because there was no way he could have rounded up all the Christians by himself, and these men heard something, but they couldn’t make out the actual words. They just stood their speechless not having any idea what going on. When Jesus had finished talking with Saul, Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he found that he was blind. His men had to lead him into the city. Look at verse 9, “For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.” I tried to put myself in Saul’s position. What was he thinking? What was he feeling. I have already mentioned a little about this above, but as he lay there alone in the darkness I’m sure it must have all sunken in very deeply in his heart and mind. Everything that he had lived for was wrong. Everything that he had achieved for God was actually him working in direct opposition to God. He must have felt dead and his condition reflected this. He was in utter darkness and he didn’t eat or drink. So what did he do? If you look down at verse 11 he did what we all need to do continually. He prayed. Being a Pharisee, I’m sure Saul prayed a lot. He prayed because that was what he was supposed to do. He prayed to make himself look good when he was in the temple or in a synagogue. But his prayers were just words. Now he was really pouring his heart out to God. He needed to find out what God wanted of him. God heard his prayer and He sent someone to help Saul. Who did God send? It was a disciple named Ananias. It would seem that Ananias was not one of the church members who had fled Jerusalem because of the persecution, but he was a Jewish convert to Christianity who lived in Damascus. In Acts 22:12 it says this about Ananias “He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there.” If we think about this verse carefully you will see something that most Christians and Jews both miss; i.e. there is nothing incompatible with the Jewish religion and Christianity except the belief that Jesus is the Messiah. I believe that what it says about Ananias in Acts chapter 22 is the way every devout Christian should live. Over the past several months I have been struggling with the word of God and how a Christian should live based upon what we believe. Just to sum up my thoughts on the matter, I believe in just a few things. First, I believe that Jesus is the word of God who was with God in the beginning. I believe that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. I believe that the whole Bible is the inspired word of God and that word is Jesus. I believe that Jesus lived a perfect sinless life and that means that He kept the whole Law of Moses which is described repeatedly in the Bible as Holy, Righteous, Perfect and Good (among other things). Finally, I believe that as Christians we should be growing day by day in the image of Jesus. Following Him and struggling to live as He lived. Don’t get me wrong. I am in no way saying that we should work our way to heaven by following the Law. I am saying that because Jesus loved me enough to save me and show me how to live a good life, I should love Him enough to follow his example. In verse 10 the Lord called out to Ananias by name and it is interesting to see how Ananias answered. He simply said “Yes, Lord,” as if he had spoken personally with God before. I’m sure he had. I believe Ananias was a very devout man of prayer and that is why God chose him for this most important mission. However, when God told Ananias what he wanted him to do, Ananias hesitated. Look at verses 13&14. “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.” Paul’s reputation had preceded him to Damascus. Damascus was well over 200 kilometers from Jerusalem and there was no such thing as the internet or even newspapers at that time. For someone to have heard of the actions of someone such a great distance away was truly remarkable. Furthermore, Ananias knew why Saul was coming to Damascus – it was to arrest and persecute people like himself. It must have seemed to Ananias that God was telling him to go and just surrender to this monster. It is understandable that Ananias would question this order. However, the Lord had chosen Saul for a very special mission and He was not going to negotiate with Ananias. Let’s look at our key verse. “But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.” There is an exclamation point after the word “Go!” indicating that this was an absolute command. To Ananias Saul was no more than a tyrant who was trying to kill him and all of his friends, but to God Saul was a chosen instrument to proclaim the name of Jesus to the Gentiles. From a human point of view Ananias was right, but God doesn’t look at people as we do. Where we see nothing but a terrible, even cruel sinner, God might see a great servant of God. It is not for us to judge people, it is our job to bring them to Jesus so that He can turn them into who He wants them to be. Maybe they will reject Jesus, but we can’t make that judgement before we go to them and tell them. God didn’t stop with Saul being his chosen instrument he went on to say, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Think about this for a moment. Saul had spent a good part of his adult life making others suffer for the name of Jesus, now Jesus was going to make Saul suffer for His name. God has a perfect sense of mercy and justice. He saved Saul from his empty way of life in opposition to God to a full life of carrying his cross all around the world. Ananias was a devout man of God, so he obeyed God’s command and went to Saul. When he got there he showed just how much he loved and trusted God. Look at verse 17. “Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Ananias called Saul his brother. This was a man who three days before wanted nothing more than to see Ananias and his friends thrown in jail or even killed. However, because God accepted Saul and chose him, Ananias accepted his enemy as his brother. This reminds me of what Jesus said in Luke 6:27: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” Ananias placed his hands on his brother Saul, healed him of his blindness and gave him the gift of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus we don’t have enemies, we only have potential brothers and sisters. When Ananias obeyed God, Saul’s prayer was answered. He got up, was baptized, ate some food and regained his strength. Then he began his new life as a powerful servant of God. |
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