Paul Speaks to the CrowdMy Understanding: Since the Lord gave me the title, The Crooked Path, I wanted to first of all have an understanding of what I believed he meant by that in relation to this passage of scripture, so I did a Bible word search on the word “crooked.” As I was searching out the word, trying to understand the Lord’s meaning, I heard him say in my mind, “The road to Calvary.” So, I began another search on the road Jesus traveled to Calvary, and these are the results. I believe this is the “crooked path” the Lord is referring to here today:
37 As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander, “May I say something to you?”
“Do you speak Greek?” he replied. 38 “Aren’t you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?”
39 Paul answered, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people.”
40 Having received the commander’s permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the crowd. When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic:
“Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.”
2 When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet.
Then Paul said: 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. 4 I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, 5 as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.
6 “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’
8 “‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.
“ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. 9 My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.
10 “‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked.
“ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ 11 My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.
12 “A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. 13 He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him.
14 “Then he said: ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15 You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’
17 “When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw the Lord speaking. ‘Quick!’ he said to me. ‘Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’
19 “‘Lord,’ I replied, ‘these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. 20 And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’
21 “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”
22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
Via Dolorosa - the Way of Sorrow - http://billpetro.com/2009/04/10/history-of-good-friday-5/; http://www.newsofap.com/art-391-via-dolorosa-jerusalem--history-and-info--.html.
In this passage of scripture, Paul gave testimony to the sinful lifestyle that he lived before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, which was his road to Calvary. When Jesus took this path to Golgotha, he was forced to carry his cross. The cross represents death, but it also represents our sin that he bore on himself so that we could go free. So, in our path to Calvary, we, too, will carry a weight of sin on our shoulders, as did Paul/Saul, until he met Jesus and Jesus set him free. Saul/Paul was a persecutor and murderer of believers in Jesus Christ until he met Jesus and Jesus transformed his life and then he became one of Jesus’ followers and became one among those whom he had previously persecuted.
When Saul was encountered with Jesus Christ on his way to arrest believers in Jesus and to persecute them, Jesus asked him, “Why do you persecute me?” Jesus was telling him that what Saul did to the believers in Jesus he did to Jesus. And, that is the same for us today. When we mistreat other believers in Jesus Christ, when we persecute them, reject them, say all manner of evil against them, gossip about them, mock them, make fun of them, ignore them because they are not our kind of people, mistreat them, etc., we are doing this to Jesus. And, Jesus is asking us the same question, “Why do you persecute me?” And, what will be our response?
Saul’s response was, “What shall I do, Lord?” He was humbled by what Jesus said to him and he was ready to do whatever it was that the Lord had for him to do. When Jesus points out an area of our lives where we are sinning against him, perhaps through how we treat other people, what will be our response? Hopefully, we will respond as Saul did by saying, “What shall I do, Lord?” The Lord may have us confess to those whom we have persecuted, he may want us to make some kind of restitution to ones we have wronged, yet for certain he wants to transform us from those who persecute Jesus and his followers to those who live lives such worthy of the calling of the Lord that we are now among those who are persecuted and who can thank the Lord that we are counted worthy to suffer as he has suffered.
The Lord Jesus told Saul/Paul to get up and go into Damascus and there he would be told all that he had been assigned to do. When Jesus sheds his light on our sin, we should not let that get us down and depressed and feeling sorry for ourselves to where we just remain in a continual state of defeat. That is a tool of Satan to come against us with his vague accusations that say things like, “Look at you. Look what you have done. God can never use you.” We have to reject those lies of Satan, and we have to get up on our feet and we have to move forward in God’s grace and strength and go wherever the Lord sends us. He doesn’t usually unfold the whole plan at once, yet as we take each step of faith, he will unfold the plan he has for us and will show us what we have been assigned to do, and then we just need to do it. A lot of people get stuck there on the road, and although they have been given their assignments, they never truly follow through to the end to complete the work they have been assigned to do. May we not be ones who are stuck on the path.
Then Saul received his assignment. He was to be a witness to all men of what he had seen and heard from Jesus (See Acts 26:16-18). Then, Ananias, who was the one chosen to give him his assignment, said to him, “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” I think “What are you waiting for?” is a key question Jesus is asking many of us today. Some of us Jesus has appeared to on our crooked path and he has let us know that we are persecuting him and that we need to repent of our sin, turn from it and turn to Jesus in faith and obedience. Others of us have walked the path of obedience, but have perhaps gotten off the path, and we need to get back on it. Either way, when Jesus meets us on our path and he tells us that we are persecuting him by how we live our lives, and he even shows us the path that we must take and he gives us our assignments, then his next question to us is, “What are you waiting for?” You know the right way. Now, walk in it. Do as He has instructed you to do.
I believe the Lord is showing me this path to Calvary, not just as the road to an initial decision to believe in Jesus Christ, but as the path our lives take as we are being saved until our salvation is complete at Jesus’ return for his bride. And, he is showing me the path as crooked, not because it is necessarily sinful, though we will sin along the path, but rather that there are these junctures (stages; occasions; intervals; crises situations) in our lives when we must make critical decisions about what direction we are going to go, i.e. if we are going to continue to follow the path to Calvary or retreat. After Saul/Paul met Jesus, Jesus confronted him with his sin, he learned that he had been persecuting Jesus, he asked Jesus what he should do, he got up and went into Damascus, he was given his assignment, and then he was asked “What are you waiting for?” then he returned to Jerusalem and he prayed and Jesus met him there, as well. These were all junctures on that “crooked path” to Calvary in which Saul/Paul had to make a decision whether or not he wanted to take the next section of the road to Calvary, and we will have those crises junctures in our lives, as well, when we will daily have to make a choice to take up our cross and follow Jesus.
Paul’s next juncture was that Jesus warned him that he must leave Jerusalem (another juncture in the path) because the people there would not accept Paul’s testimony about Jesus. Sometimes Jesus gives us warnings about what awaits us and he often will give us instructions about what to do, and we have a choice to listen or not listen. God was warning Paul that the Jews would not accept his testimony and that he was to leave and go to the Gentiles. When he told this to the crowd, they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He is not fit to live!” The crowd listened to him up to that point. So, what made them turn on him? He confronted them with the truth that they, too, were persecuting Jesus Christ by their rejection of his messengers, and they didn’t want to hear that because of their own pride and self-righteousness. They thought they were better.
So, the “crooked path” to Calvary will involve encounters with Jesus, with being confronted with our sin, with Jesus giving us instructions what to do, and with us making those decisions at those junctures on the “crooked path” as to whether or not we want to continue. If we choose to continue, we must know that the same things that awaited Jesus will await us, too. He was accused falsely, arrested for no crime that he had committed, he was spat upon, scourged, beaten, mocked, made fun of, given a mock trial, his friends deserted him, one of his own denied him, and another betrayed him unto death on the cross. The junctures in the drawing of the Via Dolorosa represent events or circumstances that took place along the road to Calvary for Jesus, and our Via Dolorosa will have those kinds of junctures, too. Jesus could have quit. He was God. He could have called ten thousand angels to rescue him. Yet, Hebrews gives us this account:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12:2-3).
So, our path to Calvary (taking up our cross daily) will involve these same kind of junctures along the way as Jesus faced and as Paul and many others have faced, yet we, too, need to keep our focus on the joy set before us so that we, too, can endure the cross and can walk with Jesus the Via Dolorosa – the Way of Sorrow – to Calvary.
Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross / Fanny J. Crosby / William H. Doane
Jesus, keep me near the cross;
There a precious fountain,
Free to all, a healing stream,
Flows from Calvary's mountain.
Near the cross, a trembling soul,
Love and mercy found me;
There the bright and morning star
Sheds its beams around me.
Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day
With its shadow o'er me.
Near the cross I'll watch and wait,
Hoping, trusting ever,
Till I reach the golden strand
Just beyond the river.
In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever,
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.
Lead Me to The Cross – Hillsongs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdq9Q8wJdjc
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