February 16, 2014
Scripture:
Scripture:
Hymn 119 – Nothing either great or small
Prayer
We didn’t finish our parable last time. The Pharisee invited Jesus to his house on the Sabbath day. They wanted to watch Him, but what they didn’t know was that He was watching them.
Luke 14:15-25
The Pharisees were sounding spiritual as they ask Jesus about eating in the kingdom of God. Jesus uses this opportunity to tell a parable.
A rich man was putting on a great dinner and He invited many people to it. When it was time for the dinner he had his servants go to get the guests. Each one of the guests had an excuse of why they could not come. One man said that he bought a piece of land and he wanted to look at it. Another had just been married and another wanted to try out his new oxen. These were all silly excuses. Jesus was showing the real attitude of the righteous Jews.
Since the first guests wouldn’t come to the dinner, the lord sent out more invitations to those that were in the poorer side of town; these were the Gentiles. They weren’t God’s chosen people, but after the Jews rejected him, He turned to the Gentiles. The servant went to the lord, he told him that all the new guests had come, but there was still room. The lord told him to go and get anyone who would come. The gospel is for whosoever will come.
At God’s feast there is love, forgiveness, joy, peace, strength, and life. Each of these gives us the ability to walk for him. The Gospel is still going out today and is for whosoever.
Acts 9:1-22
The last time that we saw Saul—in the end of Acts 7 and the beginning of Acts 8—he was breathing out threatenings and persecutions against the Christians. He had heard all of Stephens history, heard him speak of Jesus’ crucifixion and ascension, and heard him tell that he saw Jesus at the right hand of God. This stirred him up to threaten and persecute the Christians. He was a true enemy of Christ; and yet we read that he was a chosen vessel! Even though he butchered Christians, he was chosen by Christ; though he still had to become what the Lord was going to make him. He thought that he was doing right by persecuting believers, and our Lord wanted that passion, but had to change his heart.
Our chapter tells how Saul of Tarsus got converted. He was on a journey—with political permission—to persecute the Christians in Damascus. As he traveled along, a light shone from heaven on him, and brought him on his face to the earth. He heard a voice ask, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” It was Jesus Himself. God met this mam and turned him around; and it was a blessing for us, because God used him to reach many people and to write a lot of the letters in the New Testament.
What made Paul and his doctrine different? The other apostles had seen Jesus on earth, and had witnessed his death, resurrection, and ascension. Paul, on the other had, didn’t see the Lord on the earth. His first glimpse of the Lord was in the glory, right here on the Damascus road. Peter knew the gospel of the grace of God, but Paul knew the gospel of the glory of God because that’s where it all started for him: seeing Christ in the glory.
Jesus didn’t ask Saul, “Why do you persecute my Christians?”, He asked him: “Why do you persecute Me?“. What’s interesting is that it was Paul who learned the truth of the one body (pictured in the remembrance loaf), and the believer’s unity with Christ.
“Who art thou Lord?” was Paul’s response to this light and these words. He recognized the Person he was speaking to as master, someone higher than himself that he was responsible to. “I am Jesus who you persecute,” was the reply. Christ and His body are one. If you touch one, you touch the other.
Some of the lines that we have here in the KJV—verses 5b-6a—are supposedly not in the Greek manuscripts. Even if they aren’t, they are still a good response, “What do you want me to do?” He was told to go to Damascus and there he would be told what to do. The men who were traveling with him had heard the voice but seen no man, and they led the now-blind Saul into the city.
What an introduction this all was to the Lord in the glory! Saul went to Damascus with a commission from the High Priest, only to get a bigger commission from a much greater High Priest. This confrontation turned him inside out, too. He found out that he was wrong, after all his threatenings and slaughter.
Saul was now blind; what did he think about during those three days of darkness? 1 Timothy 1:15 tells us that he considered himself the chief of sinners. Perhaps he was thinking of all his wrong-doing, but we can thank God for the meeting on the Damascus road that turned him around.
The atheist has none of the light that Saul saw; he sits in darkness. May we who have the light—God’s word—always value it. It is holiness and righteousness, and it illuminates our path. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105
Hymn 330 - A message came from Heaven
Prayer