H. Hollingworth, Oxford and Cambridge Journal, Oct. 18th, 1877. II. iii., p. 310; W. Brookfield, Sermons, p. 74; Bishop Barry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. (2) He was chosen or ordained of God unto the work of the Apostleship. He remained there blind for three days. Acts 10:4.—E. Nothing is more remarkable in the whole narrative than the tenderness of the remonstrance which our Lord addressed to the persecutor. “Brother Saul,” he says, “the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit” [Acts 9:17]. If you endeavour to obtain any one of His actings without the rest, probably you will thwart Him. It made retreat more difficult. Acts 9:11.—Ibid., vol. 1823. Acts 9—Contemporary Pulpit, vol. And here, too, in these outlines of his conversion, we must read what must be the main features of our own. And such must be our lives, such must be our conversion. To past impressions. "He is a chosen vessel unto Me." Acts 9:1-9 – Do You Hear What I Hear? And the outer difficulties, which gather like the inner doubts, will, like them, be dispersed, and you will see them no more; or better still, seeing them, you will not fear or regard them, but go on your unswerving way. Have you already been thinking about the best friends you've had? But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He stands before them, as He stood before Balaam, with a drawn sword in His hand, willing them to go back to the path of duty and to choose the way of life. So he decided to conduct a test without her knowing about it. I believe that the Holy Ghost generally begins His consoling processes by increasing our distress. He meets in the way. That this was the decisive moment in his history there cannot be a question. 1838. I think they must have arisen from his education and experience. But deep and utterly out of reach as His methods are, it is a wonderful provision that the Third Person in the blessed Trinity should be revealed to us characteristically as a Comforter. Thus, then, even in His comfortings, the Holy Ghost, in His incalculable processes, vindicates the truth of the emblem, and is as the wind, acting in His sovereignty, but no man knoweth whence He cometh nor whither He goeth. iii., p. 266. The text carries on the same idea. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 801. 1315. References: Acts 9:15.—Bishop Stubbs, Christian World Pulpit, vol. The word here rendered "vessel" may also be translated "instrument," but either reading gives a good sense. "The Churches... were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied." I. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 309; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. The immediate occasion of Saul's change of life was quite as exceptional as the change itself was eventful. With God there is no undue haste. I. The Conversion of St. Paul. Some beginnings are like the spring on the mountain side, gushing into life and flowing clearly. Not something which we remember once to have been, not something which every day is receding into greater and dimmer distance, but something in the ever new power of which we are to live from day to day. The important fact that such a man suddenly abandoned the Pharasaic theology and became the Church's foremost preacher amply justifies the detail with which the story is here related. The whole after life of St. Paul was a continuation of the work which on that day was auspicated and begun in him. Acts 9:34.—G. III. And what were these past expressions, and whence did they arise? The spiritual sense of the man, purged now from pride, which always blinds us, and illuminated by the Holy Spirit of God whom before he kicked against, saw what false education and self-righteousness had kept him from seeing, that the law by which alone we may please God is a spiritual thing. A man was having difficulty communicating with his wife and concluded that she was becoming hard of hearing. "Sermon Bible Commentary". We must not seek comfort without holiness, nor holiness without comfort; and often the path to any one of His influences lies direct and straight from the other. ix., p. 38; Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 349; Preacher's Monthly, vol. Yet observe how thoroughly he is changed, and how the transformation was effected by the might of gentleness. Go to, To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use our convenient, Commentary Critical and Explanatory - Unabridged, Kretzmann's Popular Commentary of the Bible, Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures. 9 So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus. So again, in dealing with young converts, how slow some are to believe in the genuineness and thoroughness of God's own work! II. III. xxvii., p. 49. And your new consciousness will become bright and clear, as it never will do by abstinence and repression. Because in the next moment, Ananias has gone to Saul to lay hands upon him, to restore his vision, and he calls him “Brother.”. But the means—the way by which, and in which, the blessed end is to be carried out—how difficult to select, how dangerous to be mistaken; to have the bright future forfeited by a wrong choice! Twice did the Apostle repeat it in detail before public assemblies; and the book in which we find it recorded was written less than thirty years after the events were said to have occurred. If the principle is true, it is applicable all down the scale; not to great men only, but to every man. But everything indicates the contrary. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 48. With God nothing is too minute to be taken count of. Used by Permission. The wisdom of God's providence. There is only one out of two courses—to bow and acknowledge the grace and power of Christ, or resolutely set yourselves against Christ, and at last be broken as a rod of iron. We are not permitted to see what passed within him during those three mysterious days when, having been brought to Damascus, trembling and astonished, he saw no man, and did neither eat nor drink. Action is the necessary result of Divine illumination. His letters are all accurately addressed, and none of them go astray. It is this which makes Him over to us in a relationship that matches the necessity of our daily being. It conformed his faith. He gives to Ananias the street and the house in the great city of Damascus where Paul is sitting in his blindness, and sends him thither to his help. I received a call from my dad and he told me he was in a dilemma. He who would preach to others must be much alone with his Bible and his Lord, else when he appears before his people, he will send them to sleep with his pointless platitudes, or starve them with his empty conceits. References: Acts 9:5.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. Them, too,—. 8 As Saul picked himself up off the ground, he found that he was blind. There had been influences and arguments at work on St. Paul's mind, and these had been the goads against which he had rebelled. II. (1) Straightway. II. 1860; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 308; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. But here is a vigorous clear beginning; here is the saliency of a new life. I. Saul is here a vessel. II. Acts 9:5, Acts 9:6.—Ibid., vol. (3) You will give to your soul one of the first and most indispensable conditions of growth. We sometimes assume that there was no resistance of the old man in him, and that there could have been none—so mighty were the spiritual forces brought to bear, to cast down the strongholds of sin and Satan in him, that in this respect at least his conversion was unlike any other. (3) The work demanded much moral courage. i., No. Bibliography InformationNicoll, William R. "Commentary on Acts 9:4". Acts 9:3-9.—B. I. But of one thing we may be sure—that they were days of a mighty internal conflict; and in that "Behold, he prayeth," uttered by him who seeth in secret, in that, and only in that, at length there was a token that he had at last yielded himself the captive of Christ—vanquished by Almighty love. iii., p. 131. Acts 10:1, Acts 10:2.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. Spiritual strength goes from one to another like electricity, and a soul in prompt action necessarily gives it out, charging other souls with the celestial fire till they too glow and burn with love to Christ. He first came in person by the way, and brought judgment, darkness, horror, and almost death. xvi., No. xvi., p. 354; vol. No RENEGADE of grace is TOO FAR from the long arm of the Lord.