b-31 Saul? Him?

Good morning. We are having just a really great time going through this. As I've been looking at the passage this week in Acts 9, 19b, which is the second half of that verse, through verse 31, I've just been really excited about the things that I'm seeing in it and discovering, even just discovering a new One of the things I shared with Nancy recently is, as we were traveling through Israel with the Hemingways, and that was now two and a half years ago, One of the things I had to repress myself from doing is just constantly chattering about all the things that I saw in order not to just come across as a madman. And that's one of the things, as I look through this passage, there are just so many things in it I have to kind of contain myself. So anyway, we'll see in this passage how even Saul, later to become the Apostle Paul, becomes a basket case. And so yes, that's true in this passage here. Just to review, the beginning of Acts chapter 9, verses 1 and 2, here's Saul in the summer of 35 AD.

He had gained letters from the high priest authorizing him to round up Christians. They weren't called Christians yet. other names, as we'll see, in Damascus, and to bring them back to a trial in Jerusalem, the intent to put them on capital punishment trial. So in doing so, they traveled from Jerusalem up to Damascus. We used this map previously, and that's not the one on your handout, although Jerusalem and Damascus are shown. This is a portion of the road on the way to Damascus.

Next we have the Lord confronts Saul on the road to Damascus. And the Lord says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And his response, who are you, Lord? And then the interaction between the Lord and Saul there, and Jesus says, I am Jesus, and the way he says it, I being in fact deity, am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

And so his the group that went with him on the way to Damascus, the ones who are supposed to be the ones to help him to arrest the Christians and bring them back, take him by the hand into Damascus. This is the ruins of Damascus, and I'm afraid with the war going on there, there are more ruins than there used to be. But nonetheless, this is before the war took place, that's the condition of it.

In Acts 9.10 we have this perspective, and this was again in the summer of 35 AD.

There was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, and he said, here I am, Lord. And the Lord proceeded to give Ananias an assignment to go to Saul and to lay hands on him, and Ananias' response was, well, wait a minute, isn't this the guy that's going about gathering up people and taking them back for trial. And the Lord says, yes, except that he is my chosen one and I'm going to use him in great ministry and tells him other things. So Ananias says yes in response to that. The Lord tells them to go to the house of Jason on Straight Street in Damascus.

One of the things we brought out last week is the street is anything but straight. It has a configuration more like a corkscrew. So that's why we think Dr. Luke wrote it as the street called straight rather than to tell him specifically straight street. It may have been tongue-in-cheek.

When Ananias gets there, he first lays hands, very interesting the sequence, he lays hands on Ananias and then speaks to him. Very interesting. It's as if there's understanding before he even speaks. of what's taking place. And Saul then has his sight restored and then strengthened.

We have this as page one on your handout. It shows some particular places. We'll revisit where those are. That's to give you an initial introduction. We have a larger scale, as you will, of the New Testament world. That is a supplement available if you want to take a look at. So this is just a portion of it off to one side that we're using for the handout this morning. But you're welcome to take the supplement to kind of guide us through some of the other places and see it in the larger context. Here's Acts 9, 19b through 20.

It says, Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus, and immediately, so this is right away, he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue, saying, He is the Son of God. And so this He is Saul. As we said, the Hebrew would have been Shaul, later to become the Apostle Paul. He was with the disciples, and this is the church body definition. There are the ones who are at Damascus. This is the ancient city. Lots of history there. And then even history going back to the time of Abraham and before.

And then immediately that is right after Ananias came, he began to proclaim Jesus. And it's actually in the original text of the Greek, the Jesus. That one, the one whose name he was prohibited from speaking about, and others were prohibited from speaking about, and the one whose name was the reason for coming to arrest people there, now he began proclaiming that one, the Jesus, in the synagogues.

These are Jewish gathering places, and one of the things to recall, this word synagogues is Greek. Synagogues was something between the Testaments. It literally means to lead together, although that's not anywhere near enough of an explanation. The synagogues were not simply Jewish churches. They were also a place, by the way, for carrying out justice. You could be fined and whipped and other applications of the law in the synagogue. And I'm glad to tell you we don't do that here, okay?

So anyway, in saying he is the son of God, so you can imagine here's Saul who comes here with the ideas of arresting people who make these claims and now he is turning around and making this claim himself. He is the son of the God, not as the pagans would teach of the son of many gods or son of one of the gods, but the son of the one singular God.

Here is the word, the disciples. It's a word repeatedly used from chapter 6 until chapter 21. It has a specific meaning in the church, the body of Christ. It's not the same as found in the four Gospels. People often make the mistake of looking to the definition of disciples in the Gospels, and that is quite a mistake, because that was under the rabbis, that was under the law. Even Jesus, when He had His twelve disciples, He told them to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

This was very different. Obviously, by the time we get to the end of the book of Acts, they'll be far outside. So the definition of this word is quite different in the book of Acts than it is in the rest of the New Testament, the Gospels particularly.

With the exception of two places in Acts, and we'll have pointed them out or will, and that's Acts 9.25, which we'll see in this passage, and then 19.1 is the other one where Saul, then to be the Apostle Paul, meets the disciples of John the Baptist. So that's different.

Here's Acts 11.26, which says that the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. But we who are believers in Christ are called to be His, that is, Christ's disciples, knowing Him intimately and depending upon Him and learning from Him. This is the passage we make reference to here in John 15, 1-8, where Jesus says, Abide in Me and I in you, and so bearing much fruit you will prove to be My disciples. It only happens by abiding in Him. with dependence upon him, intimately knowing him and learning from him. We also introduced last week the Silk Road trade. I had some legal-sized papers that I showed this map on. We have additional copies because we ran out with the other handouts that are on the cabinet to the right as you exit the room.

One of the reasons for introducing this, the term Silk Road was actually only invented, if you will, 104 years ago this year. But the Silk Road trade, it turns out, though it's never mentioned in the New Testament, impacted most of the books of the New Testament. The Silk Road trade brought Eastern ideas into the Roman Empire, with which Paul and the other apostles had to deal. But we also have evidence that the gospel went to China while the last of the apostles were still alive. even at least a decade before John went home to be with the Lord, and even to the point where we have evidence of the Nativity story being told in China while John was still alive.

Amazing things. And so somebody, we don't know who it was, it was probably not an apostle, somebody went to the Gospel, with the Gospel, in China along the Silk Road, taking the Gospel there. So that's why we introduce it, looking at the New Testament, the impacts there. I have in small scale the Nativity story engraved on a Chinese tombstone, right? From 86 AD, that's 10 years before John went home. Really astounding.

Okay, here's Acts 9.21, all those hearing him continued to be amazed and were saying, is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on his name and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?

Now in the English, this word amazed several words down the line. In the original Greek text, they have a way of emphasizing by bringing it first. So this verse actually starts in the original text, amazed, with emphasis, right? And then continues on with the rest of the sentence. That's really astounding here. So amazed is emphatic. It is the focal point of the whole verse.

And we're saying, is this not He that is the He, the specific One, who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called, and this is Again, only in the word destroyed is only again in Galatians 1.13 and 23. So it's a word that only shows up three times.

In Galatians 1.13 and 23, it's the Apostle Paul also saying that he sought to destroy the churches. So very interesting, and it's not used anywhere else in the whole New Testament except for here.

Finally, bring them down before the chief priest. And so this was the idea. This was a death penalty trial. This is not we're going to come here and slap your hand. This was not going to we're going to make you feel sorry. This is we're going to bring it before the chief priest so that you can die.

That's the idea. All right. So finally, this chief priest, this was the head of the Sanhedrin, also known as the council. This was the gathering of the head of Israel, a gathering of 71 of the leaders, the chief priests being at the head of this group called the Sanhedrin of the Council.

So the Greek text does not mean being mildly or somewhat amazed. This is not just slightly amazed, it's emphatic. The Greek text says emphatically the Jews listened to Saul and they were very, very amazed. You might say these Jews were floored, they were blown away. This is an extreme statement. To put it away, we would say blown away. They could hardly believe it.

Is this the same guy? I thought this guy was coming here to have the Christians get killed. And now here he is proclaiming Jesus, the Jesus, that One, as the Son of God. So they found it really hard to believe that the persecutor-in-chief was now the preacher of belief. Just astounding to them. Very, very amazed. Belief in the name of Jesus. The very name that He came to wipe out and eradicate.

Here's Acts 9.22, but Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ.

One of the things to look at here, and we'll take a closer look at it, this word for lived, Dr. Luke makes a different point here. He uses this word repeatedly when he's pointing out permanent long-term residence. And so we'll see this word again. He's already used it, and he uses it subsequently. And the Apostle Paul uses this word, too, in a special way we're going to look at shortly here.

This word for confounding is only used by Dr. Luke and only in the book of Acts in these references, this 922 being the second use of that one word. It's a figure of speech, you know, meaning from the idea of to pour together, to get all mixed up by pouring together, right? All those who's confounding the Jews, he was getting them all mixed up. He was getting them... they had lost their bearings when he was talking to them. They just could hardly believe what they were hearing.

And this proving is interesting. It's a word that doesn't mean proving in the sense of some kind of logical proof. It's to bring together so as to instruct. To bring it together so as to instruct that Jesus is the Messiah. That's what he was telling me. He says, I'm telling you guys, Jesus is the Messiah, and let me give it to you, bring together the teachings that make that clear.

Here's this passage, and this one, and this one, and we're going to bring it together and demonstrate to you guys clearly that Jesus is the Messiah. So how many of them got it? Well, some did, but a great many did not, and they were confounded, confused, bewildered. It just turned their heads upside down.

So for this word here, lived and dwelt, so the lived is here in the New American Standard. Dwelt may be what you find in a lot of contexts in the King James. It's in the Book of Acts, and as we mentioned, the Apostle Paul uses it. This form of the word is used for long-term residence, and like I said, we're going to encounter that again as we go through the Book of Acts. Here's where it's key, because the Apostle Paul used it as well.

Here's an example of where the Apostle Paul—this is this guy Saul, right?—used it in Ephesians 2.22, but in whom, that is, in Christ, You also are being built up together into a dwelling of God that is a long-term resident.

Settle down. Are we a dwelling of God as a church? Are we a dwelling of God with Him as a visitor coming to see us from time to time? No. He is a long-term resident. Key point. Again in 3.17, Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Is Christ coming to visit? No. This is long-term residence. So anyway, keep an eye out for that, knowing that Luke will use it for long-term residence. The Apostle Paul, as he will become, uses this repeatedly for the dwelling of the Lord within our hearts individually and with us as a church body.

So his claim is Jesus is the Messiah. So the Jews outside of the land of Israel were not Sadducees. They were all of the Pharisee viewpoint, if they had any viewpoint at all. There were no Sadducees who did not believe in a Messiah. So the Jews, in great part, and those who went to the synagogues, all believed in a Messiah.

Saul, who had been raised as a Pharisee under Gamaliel, was now saying that Jesus was the Messiah, the one that you guys have been teaching about, the one that has been long promised that you find in the Scriptures. He is the one. So the Messiah has been promised from long ages ago. You can start back in Genesis and go through the Old Testament.

Most of the Jews did not believe that Jesus was the fulfillment of those many prophecies. And as a matter of fact, it was late that the apostles themselves would come to discover it, only after Christ's resurrection did they really come to see and understand that.

Here's Acts 9, 23-25, And many days had elapsed, the Jews plotted together to do away with Him. But their plot became known to Saul. They were also watching the gates day and night so that they might put him to death. But his disciples took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a large basket.

So this word plotted is only here within the Book of Acts. It does occur elsewhere, so I'll make that clear. But it's only here within the Book of Acts. Do away is actually a favorite expression of Luke. It's a figure of speech for killing, right? So Dr. Luke uses it repeatedly and including this passage.

So their plot became known as actually, as the Greek text makes clear, was actually made known to Saul. It wasn't that he discovered it. It was made known to him. So that's clear from the text. They were also watching the gates. And in the New Testament, this is only used with evil intent.

Something that I had been discovering as I've been proceeding with the book of Acts is that learning that, and we talk about it from 2 Corinthians 3.18, we all, with unveiled face, with open face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

This is the beholding that scripture calls believers to. And by the way, that beholding is apart from the law. There are all sorts of different words used for beholding and watching. And interestingly enough, this word here is only used in the New Testament for watching with evil intent. Isn't that interesting? This is the opposite of biblical beholding of Christ. And there are other words that we've been seeing in the book of Acts as we go through it.

This beholding the Lord through his word from 2 Corinthians 3.18 has a kind of a spectrum of other kinds of beholding. This is the evil beholding.

Watching the gates, day and night. This is, we would say, 24-7, modern vernacular. Just watching it all the time. So they had people, you can imagine, they're posted. Okay, my time here to watch is here. And we've got people at the gates. Now there's multiple gates, right? So you've got people running shifts at multiple gates to make sure that this guy doesn't get out. This is not a couple of guys keeping an eye out. This is essentially a team of people keeping an eye out for this guy. Why do they watch him at the gates? Because if they can catch him going out at the gate when he goes outside the city, there they can stone him. They can't do it inside the city, so that's why they're watching at the gates. that they might put him to death. And by the way, that put him to death, there's that, you know, to do away again.

That's their favorite expression, right? So his disciples, so this is Saul's disciples, and by the way, that's unique in the entire New Testament. There's no other place where Saul's disciples, where that word is used in that way, ever again. So this is unique.

So this is through an opening. So this is a defensive niche or possibly a window. He says later on, he talks about a window. So it's a break in the wall of some kind, whether it's a window in the way of being a hole or whether it's kind of a drop in the top part. Either of those are possible. And then lowering him in a large basket is where we say Saul becomes a basket case, right? Something to bring up here, of course, Saul here was being persecuted. He had persecuted the Christians.

Very interestingly, in recent years, there is a New Testament scholar whose name is Candida Moss. She says that all the accounts of persecution in the book of Acts and on into for the next several centuries are all made up. She says, what we just read here is bogus. And of course, a name like Candida moss, I'm not sure if it's a yeast overgrowth or a botanical phenomenon. But nonetheless, she's written this book. And actually, the following year, she actually had a movie made with this idea that all the accounts and acts in this book were studying and in subsequent decades and centuries were all made up. They're all bogus. That's not true. We have available a four-page supplement, which offers a rebuttal to Dr. Moss' assertion that early Christian persecution is just all made up.

So at any rate, you're free to take hold of that. That was produced by J. Warner Wallace, who was a former atheist, retired as a homicide detective. in Southern California and is now in ministry defending the faith that he once didn't believe in. So at any rate, feel free to take advantage of that, which is on the cabinet to the right as you exit this room.

Here's another insight, and we have from 2 Corinthians and Galatians particular additional insights into what was taking place with the Apostle Paul here. So 2 Corinthians 11, 32 and 33 reads like this. In Damascus, the Ethnarch under Aretas the king was guarding the city of the Damascenes, that is the city of Damascus, in order to seize me. And I was let down in a basket through a window on the wall, and so escaped his hands." So this is Paul's personal insight into this same event.

Here's Acts 9.26, and he came to Jerusalem and he was trying to associate with the disciples that they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. So it says there, he came to Jerusalem, possibly traveling and entering by himself. He was trying to associate with the disciples, that is, other believers in Christ, with the general Acts definition there. But then they were afraid of him not believing that he was a disciple, that is, a believer in Christ by the Acts definition.

Here's Acts 9.27, but Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles, and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road and they had talked to him and how Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus.

So one of the things we find is Barnabas is mentioned in Acts 4.36 early on.

He is one who, unlike the Ananias and Sapphira who lied about how much money they got, he is one who sold a piece of property and brought the funds before the apostles. He now shows up as one who holds out for this Saul in standing kind of in front of him and say, hey, you can trust this guy, okay? And we'll find he continues to show up multiple times in the book of Acts on into chapter 15. We're going to take a further look at this Barnabas guy and actually focus on him particularly on down the road. A very significant guy in this first half, if you will, of the book of Acts.

And then the apostles, in this case looking at the twelve and possibly other leaders along with them. And then notice he had seen the Lord, this is the Lord Jesus, on the road, the road to Damascus. And that he, Jesus, so to clarify the pronouns here, that he, Jesus, had talked to him, that is to Saul, and how at Damascus, in the synagogues, he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. And remember, when you see the name, it is not simply name-dropping, okay? In our culture, we tend to say, well, the name, well, that's the sound that goes along with the name, right?

And so, my name's Vern, for example, it means green, okay? I don't even have any green on, and it's a good thing it's not St. Patrick's Day, right? So, that doesn't mean that much. But in New Testament times, the name of meant who someone is and what they have done, okay? Who someone is and what they have done is the focus on the name of Jesus. It's not simply dropping the name. Here's Acts 9, 28 and 29.

"...And he was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews, but they were attempting to put him to death." So he was with them. Saul was with the apostles and other disciples, moving about freely in Jerusalem. This is because of Barnabas, right? speaking out boldly, and this is the same words as in verse 27, say brought forward in the name of the Lord rather than in the name of Jesus, but the same idea.

The Hellenistic Jews there were Jews of Greek language and cultural background. And so he was arguing with them in Jerusalem. So there were those who were native and long-term residents of Jerusalem. These are the ones who had come in from areas where they had Greek language and cultural background. He was arguing with that particular group there. And they didn't want to slap him on the hand. They didn't want to just argue with him. Again, they wanted to put him to death.

It's the same word as in verses 23 and 24, which translated do away. Alright, here's Acts 9.30.

And when the brethren heard of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus. So this is the brethren, the disciples, the church. learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea, which is a port city on the northern coast of Israel. We're going to be taking a closer look at that as we continue through the book of Acts. It has a pivotal place in where Peter presents the gospel to the house of Cornelius, the first kind of Gentile family there, and we're going to take a look at that. And so that's Caesarea, a pivotal port city in New Testament history. They sent him away to Tarsus, which was Saul's home city. That word, or name, Tarsus, is only brought up in the book of Acts. It's brought up about five times. It's out of the districts of Jerusalem, Damascus, or Caesarea.

That is, a different leadership was there, so that hopefully he wouldn't be pursued as he had been. And then that send him away was not just send him away in a regular sense, but actually sent him away for a special purpose. It is a special word, telling them to send him away for a special purpose.

So the brethren and disciples in the church, the term disciples first used in Acts 6.1 to refer to the believers in Christ.

The term brethren first used in Acts 6.3 to refer also to the believers in Christ. We talked about this earlier.

The term church was first used in Acts 5.11 to refer to the believers in the body of Christ, although that term, the body of Christ, would not come up until later through Saul, later to be the Apostle Paul. Each term has its own nuance. Think about it. The brethren means that we are brothers, brothers to one another, and even brothers to Christ.

Disciples, in the Acts context, it was used for both males and females immediately after they were saved. And it was used from Acts 6 to Acts 21. We'll talk about why they stopped using the term at that point. Also, the term church was also used, and that referred to the assembly. And so all three were used as synonyms, but each with a different nuance, a different implication. All three are used in this same passage. So that's interesting. There's a passage where all three are used at once.

Here's Acts 9.31, the last verse in our passage today.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace being built up and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. So throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, These are parts of the land and people of Israel, all parts of Israel. So Judea was the southern part, Galilee in the northern part, where Jesus had had his ministry. Samaria there being an area between Galilee and Judea. So basically saying in all Israel, but looking at the parts particularly. And they enjoyed peace as opposed to the persecution. So this was a day and night contrast. And now we're being persecuted and it's terrible. And so as opposed to the persecution, they were being built up.

This is a term used again by Saul later to become the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2.7 and 1 Peter 2.5 and related words are used elsewhere.

So the church is being built up. Going on in the fear of the Lord. When we say the fear of the Lord, this is not saying, oh no, the Lord, and just cowering in fear, but it means ultimate respect. Ultimate respect in regard for the Lord. Now this is really cool.

And the comfort of the Holy Spirit. So this is the comfort of the comforter. In John 14, 6 and 26, John 15, 26 and John 16, 7, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Comforter, as the New American Standard has the Helper. So we have the Comforter of the Comforter was acting among the church body there.

And it continued to increase. This has a growth in numbers. But notice, it doesn't say just the numbers increase and went on. It talks about what was happening spiritually that was behind the numbers increase. As the term has been used here before, they're not just counting nickels and noses. This is looking at what's behind the growth that took place.

And what's behind it is they were being built up and they were going on in the ultimate respect of the Lord. And the ministry of the Holy Spirit, particularly comforting them, was apparent there among them. We have the church asterisk that is the brethren, the disciples, the ax definition, and the believers in Christ. That's what it's talking about there.

Here's an insight because one of the things as we look through this passage in order to get the full picture of what was taking place during the time of this passage, because this passage actually outlines things that took place over a period of a few years, we have to draw from the second Corinthians passage we just quoted, but also Galatians 1. And we have here on the slide 13 through 17.

I'm going to read the first part of that and then hold off on the next part for reasons that will become apparent. And you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. There's that word destroy, the same as in the book of Acts that we just read. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. And so we'll get to the rest of that shortly here.

Here is a timeline that goes through the passage from Acts 6.8 to 9.30 that we just went through here, and it puts it in the context of the larger timeline we've been looking at. We have here, as we handed out earlier, here's a chronological table of the time of the Apostles going essentially through the end of the Gospels and into the book of Acts, and then pulling in information from other passages as well. So it's a two-page chronology. It's again a supplement. What we'll be doing is going through just this part of it here this morning, but feel free to take hold of the supplement if you like.

So the first part, Stephen was martyred, Acts 6.8 to 7.60.

This took place in April 35 AD. It was two years after Christ had been crucified and buried and resurrected, and not quite two years after Christ had ascended. So this is April 35 AD. Stephen was martyred, the first Christian martyr, and one of the things that we pointed out is Stephen had particular focus on the Lord during his martyrdom, but that was the the Timeline the next one is Paul's conversion as we've been stepping through Here it begins with Acts 9 1 through 7 and of course we see the rest of it and how that plays out This was in the summer of 35 AD. So what that says is that the persecution that Saul led initially went on for a few months from April to when Stephen was stoned on into that summer of 35 AD. The next Paul was in Damascus and Arabia that goes from that summer of 35 AD which we looked at into early summer 37. Next Paul was in Jerusalem for his first visit and we find that reference in the passage we just looked at here.

He also makes note of it in Galatians 1 18 through 20. So this was in the summer of 37 AD, so two years later after he was converted. And then Saul went to Tarsus and then Syria-Cilicia area, and this was in autumn of 37 AD. So in the fall, he went there to his home city or hometown.

Here's the map that's on page one. And again, we have a kind of a larger scale version available. But we point these things out because each of them is relevant to this passage. One is here's Jerusalem down at the southern end of what's shown on your map.

It is the place where Saul takes off from, having carried out a persecution against the Christians in Jerusalem. He goes from there to Damascus. Damascus is where the account in Acts has been taking us up until today's passage. It's on the road to Damascus that Saul is confronted by the Lord. It is in Damascus where he begins testifying This is the Christ and He is the Son of God.

And then finally we have here Petra. That name is not shown or that name doesn't show up in the Bible. That's the more modern Roman name. We bring that up because this is more likely the area of Arabia where Saul, later to become the Apostle Paul, went when he met with the Lord.

Here would be an example of it. If you've seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which is by this time becoming historic. This is one of the things that's briefly shown at the end, and this is called the treasury. There's actually a great number of buildings carved out. And there are actually two points of biblical significance. Here are some of the deep canyons in that area nearby.

And there are a great many of them deep and also very beautiful. But it is very likely in these canyons where Saul would meet with Christ and actually be taught by Him. So here's what Galatians 11 and 12 says, It says, For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. We don't know the certainty, but very likely among some of these canyons here is where the place that he would have met with the Lord in Arabia. Here would be another picture of some of these remote canyons.

And so here in Galatians 1.15-17, but when God who had set me apart even from my mother's womb, called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia and returned once more to Damascus." So again, meeting with the Lord. So Saul did not learn things by going to the apostles and say, hey, tell me about Jesus. But he learned things directly from the Lord, very likely in some of these canyon areas around Petra. Here would be an aerial view of Petra and some of the deep canyons and whatnot that we showed kind of pictures down under.

And by the way, this area comes into play In the last scenario, at the end of the tribulation period, this is the area where the Jews will be protected by God. So we're not done with what's going to happen here. God will protect them miraculously and all Israel gathered here will be saved. Okay, so anyway, you have that.

You also have Cyprus, which is the home of Barnabas, the son of encouragement. We're going to be looking at his place again. That will be one of the places where they go on Barnabas and Saul's first missionary journey, okay, is Cyprus. And we're also going to see Caesarea more than once. We're going to see it in the next chapter. as Peter goes there and presents the gospel to the household of Cornelius. And then finally Tarsus, Saul's home city where he is sent there is referenced here in this passage in the book of Acts.

So some points for us to ponder here about if you were Ananias and the Lord said to you, now I want you to go to this guy that kills Christians regularly And I want you to go and I want you to lay hands on him and talk with him. Is that something you would do? We brought up last week, it would be comparable to, let's say if the Lord said to you, I want you to go to the guy who's the head of ISIS and present the gospel. Right? You know, ISIS, that organization that's famous for killing Christians and they shoot them and cut their heads off. Yeah, I want you to go to the head of those. How many volunteers we got?

So this is what Ananias was doing, to give you some sense. This guy was being faithful to what the Lord said to him. And if you think about it, it is our believing the Lord, we may not be exactly in Ananias' situation, it is our believing the Lord in what He has revealed in His Word that is the only way we put what the Bible says into living out in practice. It's faith. It's belief. It's not just knowing it in your head, but it's believing it. Also there it says, you as a believer in Christ who are called to be His disciple. This is the John 15 passage. And one of the brethren, among us who are all brethren in Christ and brothers of Christ, and part of the church, the assembly of the body of Christ. All those have different nuances, but all of them have spiritual significance and applicability to us.

So, have you considered what each of those means? Saul later wrote that he had been set apart from his mother's womb, even chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. This is Ephesians 1, 3 and 4. even though it took him years to realize these things, right?

And isn't it something for us to realize that, you know, at some point each of us believed, and that's why we're gathering here this morning. Each of us believed that Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose again. That's the gospel, and that's what we believed, and so we're saved.

To come upon a realization, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. God didn't just come along and say, oh, here's this believer, I guess we've got to do something with him. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He had all these things set in place.

So, let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this. It is very apparent as we look at this, you're working among us. We thank you as we look at it. We see immense examples of the life of Saul being radically turned around. We see examples of people who believed the gospel. and what that meant, and those who did not. And we see, too, the things that you revealed to Saul later to become the Apostle Paul. The things you revealed to him are things that you want us to know and understand and grow in as well. And so we bring these things before you. We ask that you indeed be teaching us as we intimately depend upon you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.