So Acts chapter 8, as we had just covered the martyrdom of Stephen, he had called out to the Sanhedrin that they were a stiff-necked people, something that God himself had said to the Israelites many times. Uncircumcised in hearts and ears, which is what the whole point of circumcision was supposed to do, was to indicate for them it's not just your body, but your heart, soul, and mind should be consecrated to God. And he's saying, look, you have the outward symbols, but absolutely nothing inside the heart that indicates that you're following God whatsoever. Uncircumcised in hearts and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. What happens if you resist the Holy Spirit? Death. What happens if you resist the Holy Spirit? Death reigns. Just as your fathers did, so do you. That was verse 51 in the previous chapter, right? They took him out, they stoned him, he's full of the Holy Spirit, gazes into heaven, saw the glory of God. That's a remarkable little phrase right there that we can't get sidetracked on, but seeing the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, he said, behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. That's a remarkable thing, obviously. The promise of life even in facing death is going to be a very, very important aspect going forward as the church faces martyrdoms for the first time now. So, all of this continues. A young man named Saul was there the day that Stephen was stoned. He was taking care of all their coats. He was in training to be one of them, one of the Pharisees at the time. And we are introduced to Acts chapter 8, verse 1. Saul approved of his execution. Now, you got to understand. When the book of Acts is being written, when Luke-Acts is being written, those two books, Luke is traveling with Paul well into his ministry. That's when the book of Acts is being written. Obviously at the very end of the book of Acts we see Paul is awaiting trial as he appealed to Rome. That's when Acts is being written. And Luke is one of the closest friends of Paul at this point. So, including this and knowing that backstory, knowing at what time this is being written. Paul is sitting there while this is being written. I mean, how would you like some of the worst things you've ever done included now in Scripture? And here's the thing. Unique among all of the writings of the New Testament, we have testimony from Paul's writings that Luke Acts is Scripture. He quotes it to Timothy as scripture side by side with the book of Deuteronomy. Not two years after it's written, which means while this is being written, Paul is witness to it being written and he knows it's scripture. And he gets his backstory as a persecutor and a murderer of the church told. That's got to be a very humbling experience. There was a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. They were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except to the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him, but Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now, do you notice what's happening here? Does this sound like bad news? Or is there just a bit of a hint at good news in the middle of this? Did you see it? They were scattering the church. Where are they going? They started in Jerusalem, now where are they going? In verse one. Judea and Samaria, the next steps along the path of how God was going to send his gospel out. This is how it works. It's not going to be that Jesus just commissions us to go to the ends of the world. It's going to involve our sufferings. And it's going to involve a great deal of it. Persecutions, even deaths. But the gospel is going forward. It's not going to stay in Jerusalem. Now here, through persecution and great fear, and even great dread inside the church, they're scattered to the regions of Judea and Samaria. The apostles still stayed in Jerusalem. they had a job to do there. Saul was ravaging the church, et cetera. Verse four. Now, those who were scattered went about preaching the word. There's the good news. There's the reality of this. They're not just getting scattered and staying silent. No, they're sharing the gospel wherever they go. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. So we've already gotten to Samaria. We're expanding out fully. And Philip is a new character here that we're working with in the Book of Acts. Now, don't pass over that quickly. That means Philip, just going to Samaria, did more miracles than are mentioned by all the other apostles combined, just in one city in Samaria. Paralyzed people, lame people from birth, exorcisms, evil spirits. This is intense stuff. You're not to the end of watching the ratcheting up of the Spirit of God and what he does here. There's a lot of joy in that city. Correct. Correct. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I'm covering it, because those types of actions are not done by Philip's, you know, great skill. This is the Spirit of God, even though it's not explicitly said, it's implicit here in what's going on. Verse 9, But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city, and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. They all paid attention to him from the least to the greatest saying, this man is the power of God that is called great. And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. Now, a word on magic for a second. A lot of us living in the modern world think that magic is not real. It was real. In fact, we had several eyewitness accounts of it in the ancient world, not only in scripture, but outside of it as well, of things that people were capable of doing that are not physically possible. Can anyone think of a Bible story where magic actually occurred? Yes, ma'am. That's right. They were coming through and attempting to follow up the miracles that Moses was working with their own miracles. They made their own snakes out of stabs. They made their own blood out of water. This was something that they were capable of imitating on a certain level. Magic in the ancient world was well attested through throughout that certain things were happening that were not just physical things that were going on. Charlatans and illusionists are one thing. Magicians are a completely different thing and they were very much legitimate. And so Simon the sorcerer, who's coming through and looking at all this, obviously he has all of the town paying attention to him. He has something great. And the people in Samaria were already mistaken in that what he had was the power of God. He obviously has the power of God called great. It's a specific, unique claim that was going on there. And so what Luke is doing is including the story to show us not just anyone who does magic works is of the Holy Spirit. It has to do with what it pushes them towards. You don't see Simon the Magician going out and healing paralyzed people and giving sight to the blind. There's very specific miracles that the Holy Spirit does. He's going out and doing specific tricks that are not physically possible, but are supernaturally, strangely possible. Great things he was doing. A lot of people were amazed. We're not told with specificity about what it is, but we are told about what it points to, himself. This is one of the massive issues with faith healers today. They point to themselves and their ministries, not to Christ. Which is why even if there are things going on there, It's not the gospel. Why is it that he is expressing these things? It's not saying in Acts that these things were impossible. No, he's saying they truly were. Great things were doing. Signs, wonders, all sorts of things. Verse 14, when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John. They came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, and they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now this is different. In Jerusalem, what happened on the day of Pentecost? What did Peter say to them the very first morning? It was 9 a.m., first morning of the church. Here, it doesn't happen that way. There's a difference. And anytime there's a difference, always sit up and take note. Because the reality is, while the gospel has already gotten to Samaria, the Holy Spirit has not. This is one of the things that we're going to see in the book of Acts that is a rolling out of the Holy Spirit. I don't know another way to put it. I've never even actually heard somebody talk about this, but the only picture that I can liken it to is a gradual rollout of the Holy Spirit. But here's the thing. The gospel always goes first. And then the Holy Spirit. Always. The Holy Spirit does not come where the gospel isn't, but the gospel can go where nothing is. This is one of the reasons why as they go, what is it, Philip, he preaches to them the word of God, they become Christians but they do not receive the Holy Spirit immediately. Now by the time we get to the close of the book of Acts, anyone who is saved gets the Holy Spirit. End of story. But here we have all sorts of little different intricacies going on because the church is growing past Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the other parts of the earth. That is a gradual thing that the gospel does first and the Holy Spirit follows in its wake. So, Peter and John were sent from Jerusalem to Samaria to come down to pray for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Now, that is not an easy thing for Peter and John to do. That is a very, very difficult thing for them to do culturally. Culturally, they have no dealings with Samaritans. Remember? It's the same generation that the woman at the well in Samaria, Jesus was talking to her, broke all those rules. Peter and John are breaking all those rules. They just came from the temple in Jerusalem. Now they're going to an aberrant sect of Judaism that Christ has come to and saved. Kind of a remarkable thing. They laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. This is not prescribing what we ought to do, it's describing what happened as the Holy Spirit was being rolled out. Correct. Right. So I believe that what's happening is Luke is emphasizing the reality of what happened. The gospel goes first and the Holy Spirit comes next to express to us the order that these things happen. Because what we're about to see is Simon is trying to get the Holy Spirit without the gospel. And what Luke will make clear is that Peter and John don't allow this. The gospel must come first. There must be repentance and faith on Christ, and then the Holy Spirit. And here, so Luke actually separates out the events to describe to us that. Now, in actual history, those events were separated here in Samaria. Most likely for this to be written down, just to be made clear, but also because the Holy Spirit followed in the wake of the gospel. The same thing that happens to us, right? While the Holy Spirit comes and regenerates us now, we see it all combined. But here we see that the actions here are not about the signs and the wonders, it's about repentance and faith on Christ. And so seeing the proper order of those things is really important before we get to the time where when somebody does repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's indicative that the Holy Spirit has already risen them to life. Not Simon, Right, so it was about the people in Samaria yet, so let's watch what happens with Simon. Verse 16, as you just said, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, the Holy Spirit hadn't, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit. Now, when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money. Is that how the Holy Spirit is going to be given? And this is why I think Luke is including this to show that you cannot have the Holy Spirit without the gospel. It doesn't work that way. And so what do they say? Saying, give me this power also so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. In other words, I want to be an apostle. I want this ability to go out and give this Holy Spirit to anyone I want. But Peter said to him, may your silver perish with you. because you thought that you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God." There's no way for the Holy Spirit to come and live inside the heart of one who has not repented and followed Christ. Right. And so what does Peter express to him? Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours. Pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. You're a slave to sin. I mean, this is the message of the gospel. Simon answered, pray for me to the Lord that nothing of what you have said may come upon me. Now, when they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. Again, culturally, this is nuts. Culturally, it makes no sense for them to be doing this because it strengthens one of their enemies. This would be very similar to if Israel today was repentant and followed the Lord and had the Holy Spirit and immediately went across the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians and started sharing the gospel. It breaks every cultural motif that they have, every conviction that they have as a people in Israel. So do you believe Simon received at that point? He asked him to pray for him. I mean, up to verse 13, he believed and he was baptized, but he had wrong motive. Correct. It's not really clear whether he was truly repentant or not. People differ on that. I mean, obviously his prayer in verse 24 seems to indicate this, but we don't see any works in keeping with repentance. We really can't make a call on it. All we can see is he wants to avoid the danger because he saw that the power was greater than his. And he was born, right? He was born. in a sense, by repenting of your wickedness. Now, now we move on to the rest of Philip's story. Philip is just a fun little parentheses in all of this, but a fascinating thing. Obviously he was sent to Samaria, and then now we see Philip being used to send not only to the north, but now we have something to the south. And Angel of the Lord said to Philip, this is verse 26, rise and go toward the south. to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. And he rose and he went, and there just happened to be an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. What a coincidence. What's happening here is that all of a sudden an Ethiopian eunuch who's in charge of the Queen's treasure from Ethiopia, right? He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated on his chariot and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Now, is this a strange thing to you? It's a very odd thing, isn't it? Because what we have here is somebody who is not Jewish, not even half Jewish, like the Samaritans were, and yet he has a personal copy of the prophet Isaiah. Nobody has a personal copy of the prophet Isaiah. You have to be enormously wealthy and very well connected, and we're told how. He is the guy who watches over all the treasure of the queen of Ethiopia. That's remarkable stuff. And what happens, here is that Philip happens to be along the road. And watch this. One of the very few places in the scriptures where the spirit speaks audibly. The spirit said to Philip, go over and join his chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet. And he just asked him, do you understand what you were reading? He said, how can I, unless someone guides me? and he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading, yet another coincidence, happens to be... Like a sheep led to the slaughter. He's reading Isaiah 53. If you're not familiar, that's the great passage that describes Jesus in enormous detail in the Old Testament, and the Ethiopian eunuch happened to be reading it. Like a sheep that was led to the slaughter, like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation, for his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the gospel about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, obviously he had covered the whole gamut because now he knows about baptism. He knows about faith in Christ. He knows about the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection. I mean, this was a long conversation. If he's gotten all the way to, it's time for me to be baptized. Notice what Philip begins with, the scriptures. He tells them the gospel. As they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water what prevents me from being baptized. He commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. And the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself," I love this verb here. He just kind of found himself in Azotus. And as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came all the way to Caesarea. Yep. Yep. What does that do to the Ethiopian eunuchs theology and concept of the world? Yeah, holy smokes is exactly right. That's all it'd be left. Why this? Such an unusual story. What is the Holy Spirit doing here? One, we hear him audibly speaking. That's happened what? Hardly ever. I mean, that does not happen. The Spirit of God does not speak audibly like this. That is the job of the son and the father. Primarily the father. Yes, ma'am, you had a question? Let's see, so well Caesarea is the place he travels to next. He went down to the south along the road in a desert place and then all the way back to Azotus. Azotus is all the way up on the Mediterranean Sea, the previous Philistine city of Ashdod, I believe. And so if he's taken the south road, we have no idea how long he traveled down that road. But it was long, considering how much the Ethiopian eunuch had learned. That's a long story to tell. And then he was baptized and immediately back up on the Mediterranean Sea. 40, 50 miles? In a blink. And then passes through Caesarea and then works his way back to Jerusalem. Just remarkable stuff. So when people look at the Book of Acts and go, oh, see, this is how the church should always work. Where is this happening? This doesn't happen. People are not being healed from paralysis. People are not getting their sight back from their blindness, not without cataract surgery and things like that. That's not miraculous. That's natural stuff. This breaks the natural order in very weird ways. The Holy Spirit is not speaking to you unless you're hearing it audibly. That's not how this works. The Holy Spirit speaks 99.9999999% of the time through scripture, that's it. Right? It's not a bubbling up emotion that I have. That's you. Here, we have him speaking audibly. This only happens to my, it was either two or three times in all of scriptural history. This is not a normal thing. This is not a natural thing. Even when it comes to miracles, the amount of time that miracles are happening in the corpus of scripture is enormously small, vanishingly small, outside of the ministry of just Jesus and just the first apostles. It is insanely rare. The prophets, what was it? Elijah had seven miracles in his entire life. And Elisha asked for a double portion, so 14 miracles are recorded of his. But that's it. There's a few other random things, a little bit, that are strange and weird, but this kind of stuff, translation from one place to another, 40 miles away, in an instant, to just blink out of the water. Where is this happening today? That's the effect. What we know from history is from this Ethiopian eunuch, the Ethiopic church is started. It still exists to this day. It exists outside of almost all of the interactions of church history. They had their own concepts of scripture and everything like this, but it still exists to this day. Yep. Luke interviewed everybody. Right. So we're actually hearing it from Philip telling Luke about this. Luke says how he did this is he went and interviewed everybody. Remarkable stuff. So like the first couple of chapters of Luke is all from Mary, but this is obviously all from Philip. and coming through and you could have almost thought it was sorcery. You could think of that. Oh yeah, absolutely. Because stuff like that magic was happening. Yep. And you see something like this. Oh, and we will see later in the book of Acts, Ephesus, center of magic in the ancient world. The stuff that happens in Ephesus is off the charts, historically even. And so the Holy Spirit saves his most flashy miracles for Ephesus. This is meeting people where they're at. And so what they expect on one thing, and it goes over and above. Like the stuff that happens in Ephesus that we'll see, the Spirit was doing works, the book of Acts says, in Ephesus that were different than everywhere else. When a handkerchief had brushed across Paul, that handkerchief could be carried away to sick people and heal them. This is not normal stuff. Yeah. Wait, how am I on the coast? Right. Yeah, it's crazy. And I think it's one of these things that helps us ground us in reality that this is not the way that the church is always going to be. This is a very unique time where as the Spirit is rolling out, we're going to see incredible gifts for the first generation or two that are being given to the church. And sometimes has nothing to do with how good this person is or how moral. We see some of the most extreme gifts for a gathered body being given to the church in Corinth. An absolute insane group of Christians that have all sorts of syncretetic problems. They have They have incest going on there. They have all sorts of unbelievers that are joining in the communion. The leaders of the church are proud of the fact that they don't even judge the people that are involved in incest. And it's like, what? You're smiling? You should be crying. What are you doing? And yet they had extreme charismatic gifts there. But this is not the norm, even in the churches of that age. You don't see that in Philippi. You don't see it in Colossae. You don't see it in Thessalonica. You don't see that as the norm. You always see it as the exception. All the other apostles aren't being blinked around, translated from this place to that place. No, they have to travel. Even in the Old Testament, when we have Elijah, for instance, he's supposed to beat, if you remember this, he's supposed to beat Ahab's chariot. And the Spirit gave him ability to run faster than a chariot. We just learned that the Spirit has the ability to blink him. Why didn't he do that? Again, this progressive revelation of what God is capable of and doing and willing to do and the goals in which it was given. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, sure, yeah. When he's writing the book of Acts years later, he's with Paul. He wasn't with Saul for that. No. He's with Paul when he's writing this many, many years later while Paul is in prison. Yep. That's something that we always kind of forget. If a book is being written about a 20-year span, it's being written at the end of the 20-year span. And so that's the context and it helps us because this is a memory of what went on from that perspective. And so it's being written to the church in that year. So the year that Luke acts is written is about 60 to 61. This is about 30 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. But it's talking about all the events of the acts of the Holy Spirit for that entire generation. But it's being written in the 60s about the 30s. Cool stuff. Always good to keep in mind, right? Always good to keep in mind where something is written. Most of us don't even think about the fact that the book of Genesis was being written by Moses while they were wandering in the desert. That's when it was written. Moses wrote it while they were wandering in the desert. That changes the way you look at that book big time. That changes the perception of it. Why are we learning about Abraham? You're learning about it because that's your father, that's where you all came from. And what is the God that we serve? The same God who created heavens and earth. This is the one that we serve. He's not sitting here just trying to give an anthology of the history of the world. He's trying to ground the Israelite people in who they are. Where did you come from? and why did you end up in Egypt, which is where the book of Genesis ends. Anyway, so always good to keep in mind when something is being written and to whom and for what. So, this is being written to the church, obviously, to express to them the way in which the salvation of the people of God is going to roll out into the world. It's going to go with the gospel, it's going to go with the scriptures, it's going to go with the Holy Spirit, all in tandem, mostly miraculous in the early parts and then slowly We'll move out into all the world. Alright, let's cover the conversion of Saul. Chapter 9. But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way." Now, that's an interesting name. I really kind of wish that Christianity was still called that. Yeah. Yeah, belonging to the way, men or women, that he might bring them bound into Jerusalem. Now, as he was on his way, he approached Damascus. And suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Arise and enter the city, and you will be told there what you are to do. The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were open, he couldn't see anything. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus, and for three days he was without sight, and he neither ate nor drank." Now there was a disciple at Damascus. Okay, so the picture is this. Someone who he was about to come and arrest. There was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. Different than Ananias and Sapphira, by the way. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias. And he said, here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight. At the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he is praying. And he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight. But Ananias answered and said, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has the authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. So Ananias departed and entered the house, and laying his hands on him, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized, and taking food he was strengthened. Now we have the Holy Spirit coming on someone before baptism. This is one of those things that when people start talking about which of these things saves. Does baptism save? Does the Holy Spirit save? Does faith in Christ save? Look, it's all part of the picture of it. But the reality is that there's nothing about the water that's going to save somebody. But there is something about the Holy Spirit, who is the life giver, who's going to save someone. And that's going to come through the auspices of faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. From our perspective, which happens first is actually not that important. Because the reality is that, now, I will say the actual answer is that the Holy Spirit regenerates somebody. And then that new life that they have, the first thing they do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the actual way the scripture spells it out. But here you see in the book of Acts, from the experience, sometimes we're not aware of what's going on. Right? Paul had already been praying. He's already believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, obviously, but he hadn't received the Holy Spirit. Ananias had to come, put his hands on him, give him the Holy Spirit. And then he was baptized, which means he was already saved at this point, even before the Holy Spirit came. Because again, the gospel, the message of the Lord Jesus Christ is going to go first. That should be the focus of the church. It should not be trying to give the Holy Spirit to unsafe people. That's not going to save them. It doesn't work like that. You can't just dole this out. That's what Simon, the magician, was trying to do. I want to be able to give the Holy Spirit to whomever I want. And what Peter is saying is that's not how this works. The gospel must go first. It can't be that you're in charge of casting the Spirit onto people. Right. In verse 5, he questions, who are you? And he says, Lord. So he must have knew something. Yep. Oh, yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. it would have been an overwhelming significance. Even looking at an angel, mortal humans are given to worship. wrongly, right? We see this of the Apostle John in the book of Revelation. Even at an advanced age, having preached the gospel for almost 60 years at that point, still gave in to the fact that just being in the presence of an angel was overwhelming enough to cause him to try to worship the angel, which the angel corrects him. Don't worship me, I'm a fellow messenger, a fellow servant. Doesn't work like that. Here, Paul is just simply overwhelmed by what in the world just is happening. And overcome by his sin, because what's the first thing that the Lord says to him? You're persecuting not my church, not my people, but me. That's a message to the church direct too, isn't it? Same thing that Jesus had said to his people, you know, if they reject you don't don't take it personal They're rejecting not you but me, right? This is this is the message that's been going on and and here it's not even so much that Saul is aiming for the people he's aiming to stop the preaching of the gospel and What Jesus is saying is that's that's directly offensive to me. I'm going to put an end to that his conversion is completely unnatural. Someone in Saul's position would have set his mind and his thoughts and his intention and his teeth against the church in a way that really you don't come back from unless something absolutely overwhelming stops you in your tracks. This guy is leaving to go arrest everyone so that hopefully they can be stoned. And just on the road, he goes from intending to kill Christians to now being one. That doesn't happen. That is such an instantaneous switch around that is showing that the reality of all this really doesn't depend on, well, I tell you what, let's make sure Saul goes down the right roads. Let's get a light show together or any of these types of, the conversion of people is not going to be dependent on our tricks and our abilities. It's God who's going to ensure that this happens. And I would argue this is one of the reasons why Paul writes so much about the doctrine of election. Not only because God had him write that in Scripture, but because he learned it straight up. There was no way that his conversion wasn't going to happen that day. I mean, look at this experience. Paul didn't want this. He didn't want to become a Christian. He hated them. And before the hour was done, he already was one. That is an overwhelming interaction with the Lord. Ananias comes, regain your sight, brother, be filled with the Holy Spirit, verse 18. Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes. He regained his sight. Why did he get blinded? Have you ever wondered that? What a bizarre thing. Yes, ma'am. What do you think? There you go. Both. Both are expressing the exact same thing. In order to hear the gospel, One must have eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus said this all the time. Paul will say it. And here, it's metaphorically showing up, but in reality. It's kind of the fun part about this is that metaphor and reality kind of bump up against each other when God's at work. So you'll get people that were blind to the gospel. Here, Jesus is basically giving them a three-day test on the reality that you don't think you're blind. Here, let me show you what blindness is. It's just a remarkable thing. Yep. Yep, exactly. And that's the experience. If he's been seeing his whole life and now he's blind, it's not like someone who's blind from birth learned how to get around on their own. Now he's completely dependent on everyone around him. And he's learning something very, very specific about the gospel. It's all about dependence. And who's the one guiding you? Yeah. Yep. Now, I like this reality that Jesus has expressed to Ananias, right? Paul is, or Saul here is blinded, right? And then he can't see anything. But we see when the Lord comes to Ananias, we see that the Lord gave him sight for a vision for just a moment. Look at verse 11. The Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight. He's saying this to Ananias, right? To the house of Judas and look for a man of Tarsus named Saul for behold he is praying. He is seen in a vision. Basically, God has said, oh, I'm going to let you blind. The only thing that you're going to see is what I'm going to give you, which is a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on you that you might receive your sight. He's going to see something so that he can see again. It's a really cool turn of phrase there. And obviously, Ananias is very nervous about this. The Lord says, go. He is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name. Again, here we see the goal, but here it's backwards. to the Gentiles, the kings, and the children of Israel. Right? Now, we know from the rest of Scripture that Paul's ministry was to the Gentiles. Peter's ministry was to the Jews. And here we see it reversed because Paul is part of the next plan. It's not just going to be Jerusalem where the apostles tend to stay and mill around. It's not just about their little trips to Samaria or to the Ethiopian eunuch. It is now just to the Gentiles as a whole. We are going to have an instrument of God that is meant specifically for carrying the gospel to the Gentiles. Verse 16 is a terrifying verse. I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. Yeah. pretending this to go out to the world all over. Now it's happening. Right. I mean, he had to have guards with him. He had people traveling with him, yeah. He bore instructions from the chief priest, so he would had temple guards with him. Yep. Yep. Which were there to witness this. He had to tell them Yep. It's a fantastic expression of what is about to switch in place here. Right? So, immediately something like scales fell from his eyes. He regained his sight. He rose and was baptized, took food and was strengthened. For some days, he was with the disciples of Damascus. You want to talk about some interesting church services that would have been. Hey, everyone, we have a guest. He's the guy who was sent from the temple to kill all of us. What's that? It's not Judas, but it's just about as close. And... He's not just here visiting, he's actually here to preach this morning. Watch what happens, verse 20. Immediately, he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue, saying, he is the Son of God. And all who heard him were amazed and said, isn't this the guy who made havoc in Jerusalem on those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. This is the exact reason why God chose Paul to accomplish these things. His specific and unique training, position, and reputation would have made him irrefutable. His conversion makes no human sense. Zero. None. None whatsoever. It doesn't make any sense at all because nobody immediately does a 180 on all these things and then immediately has miracles coming out of them. This is just kind of one of the strange things. Notice where he goes. He doesn't go to just church service. He starts with the church service, but then he goes to the synagogues. And he just lays it out before them. They're still carrying orders from the chief priests from the temple. Kind of remarkable stuff. And so, well, what happens in verse 23? Well, the same thing that happened to Jesus. Many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. What a turn of events. That's what he came to town to do, was to kill Christians, and now the Jews are trying to kill him. He's become a target of the gun he used to be holding. He was a Jew that was aiming to kill Christians, now the Jews are aiming to kill him, because now he is one. His disciples took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. So do you think, I mean, I guess Saul spent days with his disciples at the ranch, don't say how long, just his days. Right. Had to learn more and more, had to hear more. Right. he immediately preached Christ. He had to have heard more, because all he heard was just from God, from Jesus himself, God the Lord, right? Just speaking to him. He didn't really, he didn't hear the whole gospel per se. You know what I'm saying? He did from Ananias, but yeah, no, at that point he hadn't, right? You know, as we do know, God sometimes takes over our tongue, right? Yep. So, we have a really interesting thing that's left out of the book of Acts here. After his conversion and his discussions with Ananias, Paul actually, he includes this in the book of Galatians, goes to the deserts of Arabia. And this is part of what the Lord says to Ananias. I'm going to show him how much he's going to have to suffer. He spends upwards of three years in the desert learning from the Lord straight before he goes to Damascus. Saul does. Yeah. So you want to talk about where he's learning the gospel. He went to the desert for three years to learn from the Lord. how much he was going to have to suffer. And what we're going to see in the later part of the book of Acts is Paul includes this reality that every time he comes to a city, the Holy Spirit tells him what's going to happen. Including his stonings and everything else. Imagine that. Because in most places he went, he was just persecuted and beaten. Imagine that. He comes to the gates of the city and the Holy Spirit goes, okay, so in this one, here's what's going to happen. You're going to go and you're going to preach in the synagogue and then they're going to stone you. And then they're going to drag you out of the city because they think you're dead. And then I'm going to have you get up and go to the next one. It is some brutal stuff that he deals with with the Holy Spirit the rest of the book of Acts. No. No, the historical account of him is short and bald. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Paul wasn't a guard, no. He was a representative of the Pharisees. He was kind of an egghead. He would travel with the temple guards. Yeah, no, he was, according to tradition, he was short and bald. And, you know, like, little guy. Yeah, that's kind of how it works usually, isn't it? So, it's an it. Now, that doesn't mean it's true, but that's the only account that we actually have. Which, you know, in light of any disparaging evidence to the contrary, most likely. You know, what would anyone have to lie about that? And so, they continue on. Saul proclaims Jesus in the synagogues. He escapes from Damascus, goes back to Jerusalem, right? Still, again, you got to see it from the apostle's perspective. It's kind of hard to pick up in the book of Acts, but when we reconstruct the whole timeline, we realize that Paul was saved and then immediately went to the Arabian desert for up to three years, came back to Damascus, and that's why he's able to preach in the synagogues and everything, because all of a sudden we have this, and they go, what has happened to this guy? It's possible, but it looks like it was before he went to Damascus. Like after Ananias left to the desert, went back to Damascus to preach all of this, and then he tries to come back to Jerusalem. So think from their perspective. This guy just up and disappeared after he had orders to kill a bunch of Christians from the temple. And he tries to come back to Jerusalem. Watch in verse 26. When he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, for they did not yet believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly the name of Jesus. And so he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed with the Hellenists, the Greek, and they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned of this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus, his hometown. So the church throughout all of Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Correct. Yep. Yep. And the real fervor of Paul's ministry is going to be when he starts writing letters to churches. And the first one that he's going to write is going to be after Acts 17. After they're in the Council of Jerusalem, he's going to write the book of Galatians. And he's going to refute the Jews that were in Galatia trying to teach Gentiles to be Jewish. And he's like, oh no. Former Pharisee here, that's not how the Spirit of the Lord works. It's not through you doing something in your flesh. It's not how it works. So once we get to Acts 17, we're going to stop from the book of Acts, and we're going to cover each of his letters chronologically, so we can see what happened when it happened. Really helpful. Yep. Yep. Yep. like proof. Oh, yes. Yep. That he was converted. When he goes from place to place, he talks about meeting with the disciples. Are these the 4,000 people on the time that have been supposed to be different? Good question. Good question. Very good question. The term disciples, in the early part of the Book of Acts, is a term for all Christians. Those who are discipled by Christ, those who are the followers of the way. It wasn't until they went to Antioch, and we're told specifically when that happens in the Book of Acts, that then the disciples were called Christians. It was an insulting term at first, you little Christs. And they took it and made it their own. And they were just like, yeah, you know what? That's exactly what we are. Good luck fighting against us, right? And so that doesn't happen until Antioch. That's later in the book of Acts. So here, when you read the disciples, don't necessarily think the 12 apostles. Think all Christians. Oh, absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. And because we know that the, the, uh, the apostles stayed back in Jerusalem. So yes, they were definitely there. In fact, James, the Lord's brother was the main teaching pastor of the church in Jerusalem. Um, which is really fascinating because he also writes a book after the council of Jerusalem. And we'll deal with that too. Um, those two books are the earliest ones in the new Testament, James and Galatians. are written right after the Council of Jerusalem. One to Jews, one to Gentiles. It's kind of real cool. So, but here, yeah, we have the apostles are still all there. They make these little journeys out, but then they come right back. And so, yeah, all of them very wary of Saul, not knowing what in the world to do with him. That's a good question. I don't actually know why they did that. That doesn't really, we're not really, I'm not familiar with any explanation of that other than, well, you know, if God sent you the Gentiles, how would you go to them? You know, who knows? Who knows? Okay, we're going to stop there at verse 31 in Acts 9, where they're walking in the fear of the Lord, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and the church is multiplying. And we'll come back and pick that up next week.