The Reason / Bob Kauflin / Ed Nalle / Group: Glad
There will never be another reason
For the dawning of the day
There will never come a moment in time
When the heavens cease to say
Glory to the Father’s hand
We must follow His commands
There will never be another reason
For the life that you’ve been given
Let the song of heaven pierce to your heart
Like a nail that’s firmly driven
Hear the earth rise up and sing
Giving glory to our King
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Acts 9:1-19:
Saul’s ConversionMy Understanding: As I read prayerfully and carefully through the words to this song that the Lord had placed in my mind this evening, and then I began reading in Acts where I left off reading last, the Lord, I believe, used the song lyrics to illustrate for me the message that he wanted me to get and to share from this passage of scripture this evening. The song begins by saying that there will never be another reason, the reason being Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins, was buried, but rose again conquering death, hell, Satan and sin so that we could go free from the penalty of, the control of and bondage to sin. He is the reason for the dawning of the day, for us to be pierced of heart, for us to follow his commands, for the life we’ve been given, and for the heavens to declare his glory.
1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 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. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
10 In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”
“Yes, Lord,” he answered.
11 The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. 12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”
13 “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. 14 And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”
15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
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.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.
Saul in Damascus and Jerusalem
Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus.
The dawning of the day – Saul was a persecutor of believers in Jesus Christ, a man who breathed out murderous threats against them and who plotted to take them as prisoners. He stood at Stephen’s stoning and gave approval to it. He is the last person on the face of this earth that most of us would think would be the man of God’s choosing to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. Even Saul himself, if told prior to this day that one day he would be used of God to tell people about Jesus Christ, probably would have responded with “No way!” Yet, God does not choose men as we choose men. So, when Saul was on a journey to Damascus to take Christians as prisoners, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and then he heard a voice speak.
The Lord immediately made a connection for me here between this “light from heaven” and “the dawning of the day.” So, I looked up the word “dawning” in my MS Word Thesaurus. It means, “Beginning; start; birth; emergence; and budding.” A day can be a period of time, an era, a generation, or daylight. There is no question about it, Saul was being reborn. His name was changed by God eventually to Paul, and Paul was changed from a persecutor of believers in Jesus Christ to a disciple of Jesus Christ, to a witness for Jesus Christ, and ultimately to the primary leader of the Christian church in the NT, writing over half of the NT books in the Bible. So, the light from heaven that flashed around him was not only a physical light that blinded his eyes and that got his attention, but it represents the dawning of a new day for Saul/Paul. He was never to be the same again. He would never go back to his old way of life. He was radically transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit in changing him from one thing to something else entirely different - a metamorphosis of his heart!
The song of heaven pierce to your heart – The voice from heaven asked Saul why he was persecuting him. Saul asked the voice, which he called “Lord,” who he was. Jesus answered that it was him that Saul was persecuting. There is nothing like when Jesus points his finger on something in our lives and says “you are the man (or woman).” When the convicting power of the Holy Spirit comes upon us and shows us our sinfulness and especially when he shows us how we are treating him, it pierces our hearts. And, sometimes, because of our own stubborn wills, it takes getting knocked off our horses by a light from heaven shining itself on our sinfulness before we really get it and we truly see ourselves through Jesus’ eyes. Saul was blinded by the light, but he got a spiritual glimpse of the one he was persecuting that he had never had before, and he gained insight into his own wicked heart, too. May we be willing to be knocked off our horses and to have a bright light shined on our sin, too, if that is what it takes to wake us up (the dawning of the day), to get our attention, and to get us to turn from our sin and to turn to the Lord Jesus in full obedience.
We must follow His commands – There were two people in this story who were given specific commands by God. One of them was Saul and the other was Ananias. Jesus shined a bright light on Saul’s sin. It got his attention big time! It humbled him beyond what he could have imagined. Then, Jesus told him to get up, to go into the city, and there he would receive his instructions. The Christian life is not something we can plot out with finely tuned plans and details of what we are going to do and where we are going to go. It is a walk of faith, one day and one step at a time. Saul/Paul had no earthly idea at that point what awaited him or what the voice from heaven, Jesus Christ, would tell him to do. Jesus didn’t feel the need to explain it all to Paul at that point, and the scriptures here don’t record that Saul had to know all the details of what would await him before he would decide if he wanted to take the job or not. God said “Go,” and Saul went, humbled before Almighty God.
Then, we have Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision. Not only was this a vision, but God told him to go to Saul. Ananias questioned the Lord because he had heard about Saul, yet God answered back, “Go!” Then, he told Ananias not only that he was to lay hands on the man so that he could receive his sight, but that Saul was God’s chosen instrument to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. How that must have blown his mind! I can imagine what some of us would say: “You’ve got to be kidding!” At least we might think it. Yet, Ananias trusted the Lord and he did what he said. How many of us would do the same? If God came to us in a vision or a dream, would we accept it as from God or would we immediately dismiss it as just our imaginations or as just a dream? If he told us to go to someone who we knew was a threat to our very lives, would we go? And, if he told us that, not us who have been following him, but a man leading the charge against Christians and who gave approval to our brother Stephen being stoned to death, was to be God’s chosen instrument, would we accept that? Yet, Ananias did just that. And, he obeyed God!
The life that you’ve been given - I love the story of Saul’s conversion! Saul, turned Paul, retold the story several times in the book of Acts when he was giving his testimony of his conversion. My favorite recording of his conversation with Jesus is found in Acts 26:15-18:
“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’”
Wow! Can you imagine what must have been going through Saul’s mind at that time? Although the passage in chapter nine says simply that Jesus told Saul to go and that he would be told what to do when he got there, this testimony of Paul’s in chapter 26 gives us a glimpse that perhaps Jesus did give him some understanding of his calling prior to him going into the city. He was to be a servant and a witness of Jesus Christ, Jesus was sending him to the Gentiles, and the purpose for which he was being sent was that the Gentiles would have their spiritual eyes opened to the gospel of Jesus Christ, that they would turn from sin to the light of Jesus, which was also from the power of Satan to God, and that they would receive forgiveness of sins and a place in heaven with God. That’s a tall order! Yet, that was the life Paul had been given. He could choose to accept or not accept his mission, just like we all have a choice to choose the life we’ve been given by God or not. Saul/Paul chose to say “Yes” to Jesus. His blinded eyes were opened, he was filled with the Holy Spirit of God, and he went on to be used greatly by God to bring many people to Jesus Christ.
The Lord told Ananias that God would show Saul how much he must suffer for the Lord Jesus’ name. With a calling like the one God gave to Saul comes much suffering. People did not immediately accept him with open arms. They were suspicious of him and his motives. He had a bad reputation that preceded him, so people were already disposed to reject him. In opening their blinded eyes, he had to tell them the truth. People don’t always want to hear the truth, no matter how kindly or thoughtfully given. He had to expose sin and rebellion for what it was. He went up against evil spiritual forces in his quest to turn people from the power of Satan to God. Satan holds on tight and does not relinquish those he has had under his power without a fight. He was now one of the ones he had previously gone against, so he went from the hunter to the hunted. Believers frequently accused him of false motives or of speaking too strong of words. He was a man of strong convictions for sure. He did not blend in. He was not a people pleaser. He told the people what they needed to hear whether they were receptive or not. And, he faced much rejection and persecution. Yet, this was his calling, for such a time as this he was placed upon the earth, and even though the job came with much suffering and persecution, he would have done it again, and he would never have gone back to who or what he was before. He knew the importance of the life he had been given, and he continually pressed on to be who God created him to be.
The earth rise up and sing glory to our King – “Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.” The man born blind whom Jesus had healed, when questioned about who it was who healed him, responded that he did not know the answers to the questions about Jesus, but one thing he did know – “Once I was blind, but now I see!” Saul/Paul was not only healed of his physical blindness, but he was also healed of his spiritual blindness. Now he would no longer persecute believers in Jesus, but he would be one of the strongest proponents for the gospel of Jesus Christ from that point on. And, he would be instrumental, and still is, in helping others to know that same Jesus who opens the eyes of the blind and who turns them from sin to the light of Jesus and who has the power to bring us out of darkness and the power of Satan over our lives to victory in Jesus. This is the reason that the earth will rise up and sing glory to our King! He is risen! He is risen indeed! Praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow!! Hallelujah to the Lamb who was slain! He is to receive honor and glory and blessing! He is alone is worthy! Amen!!
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