Transcript

Peter Jenkins began a five-year, 4,500-mile walk across America in October of 1973. First published as two articles in National Geographic, his memoirs then led to two best-selling books.

Two years into the journey, he stumbled into an Alabama revival and ended up accepting Christ. Jenkins says:

I grew up in Connecticut in a very quiet, official, East Coast Presbyterian church. My parents made their six children go to church and Sunday school. But I wanted a religion that had emotion in it. I wanted a religion that had life.

When the revival began, this guy from Texas came out screaming and preaching and throwing his arms around. There was sweat dripping and everything. He was dressed in a three-piece suit and cowboy boots.

The two of us could not have more unalike. I was this young man with sun-bleached reddish hair down to his shoulders and an unshaven beard. But I honestly felt like when he was preaching the gospel, a huge sword was slicing me into a whole bunch of pieces.

He was saying, “Joining a church won’t make you a Christian any more than joining a Lion’s Club will make you a lion. From the day you were born, you wanted to do your own thing and you were rebellious against God. If you really want to really know God, you’ve got to [be saved from] this rebellion which the Bible calls sin.”

I could relate to that. I thought I was a pretty good person. I thought I was in search of the truth. The more I heard this stuff, the more I realized that religion is not the answer; salvation is.

You just have something inside of you that knows when you hear the truth. All of the things we think about ourselves, how we define ourselves all that is insignificant when it comes to what’s going on in our soul. James gave me the greatest gift anybody could have ever given me. He led me to the Lord.

We’re going to look at another conversion story in this episode, the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the Damascus Road.

Acts 26:9-11: “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.”

The Apostle Paul had been kept prisoner for two years in Caesarea in Israel on the Mediterranean Sea, by the Roman Governor Felix. Here in Acts 26, Felix had recently been replaced by Governor Festus.

The Jewish King, Herod Agrippa II, then comes to visit Festus with his sister Bernice, to pay their respects to the new Governor. It is while they were visiting that Festus brings up this matter of his prisoner Paul, who he had inherited from his predecessor and whom the Jews desired to kill.

This intrigues Agrippa, and he asks Festus if he could hear Paul for himself, to which Festus readily agrees.

Agrippa had a regrettable family history: his great-grandfather Herod the Great had slaughtered the innocents, those two years old and younger in and around Bethlehem when he tried to kill the Christ after His birth.

Agrippa’s great uncle, Herod Antipas, had John the Baptist put to death. His father, Herod Agrippa I, had the Apostle James killed with the sword. And Agrippa’s life to this point had been marked by corruption and immorality.

It says in 25:23, that Agrippa and his sister Bernice entered the place of the hearing “with great pomp.” Paul was then brought forward before King Agrippa. Paul then uses the meeting as an opportunity to share Christ through his testimony.

Paul begins the testimony of his conversion by saying “I verily thought with myself.” And that’s where the problem begins for millions upon millions: I thought within myself.

Many make their thoughts, what they think the absolute authority, that I know what’s best, that I know better, that I know how it should be, that I know what’s truth in myself.

Instead of looking to what God says in His Word, in knowing how to be saved, many often lift their thoughts above the Bible.

Every single person needs to make sure that they are not simply thinking within themselves as to what is the truth regarding Christ and eternity, because they may be as dead wrong as Paul was.

Our thinking needs to be based on the absolute truth of the Word of God.

Paul’s actions as a ruthless persecutor he shows here was based upon the authority of his own thinking and pride and what he thought within himself.

In doing so, Paul had even put himself under a personal sense of duty and obligation, believing he OUGHT to do MANY things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

He considered it his duty, he thought he owed it to his country, his religion, and to God to oppose Jesus of Nazareth that He was the Messiah and was risen from the dead.

Then Paul spells out what he did. Paul had apprehended many people in Jerusalem for their faith in Christ had them imprisoned.

They were then tried and Paul gave his “voice” against them, or literally, he voted for their execution and death, because of their belief in Christ and His resurrection.

Like a vicious, wild animal, Paul made “havoc of the church” Acts 8:3 says and was “breathing out threatenings and slaughter” Acts 9:1 says. He “destroyed” them which called on Christ, Acts 9:21 says.

And it says here he tortured many, compelling them, trying to force them to blaspheme and deny that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel and that He had risen from the dead.

There’s a lot of pain and cruelty in the word “compelled” for those Paul persecuted, as they were beaten, whipped, scourged and tortured.

But we see clearly that those who were tortured did not all recant, as seen by the “MANY of the saints” (26:10) that were put to death, as many went to their deaths refusing to deny Christ, and that He rose again.

Paul was not satisfied with only arresting and torturing and putting to death believers in and around Jerusalem, he “persecuted them even unto strange cities.”

Maddened with fury against those who believed in Christ, Paul even traveled to distant places, seeking to stamp out the worship and memory of Jesus of Nazareth.

Now this isn’t a Jewish hit man or hired gun we’re talking about here. Paul was a Pharisee. He was a revered religious leader in Israel. He was a scholar of the Word.

People looked to him for what the Scriptures taught, they came to him for spiritual advice.

He was a deeply religious man. He wore the religious robes. He talked the religious talk. He looked religious, He sounded religious, He smelled religious.

Paul was religious, but lost and unsaved. Paul had to lose his religion to gain salvation. He needed the Lord. And we all need the Lord.

Notice how Paul’s thinking had changed. Paul now called those whom he had so fiercely persecuted “saints” in verse 10. He didn’t call them that or believe they were that when he was persecuting them. But now his thinking about them had changed.

You know Paul had memories in his mind of the believers he arrested, tortured, and had put to death. He saw those people in his mind and it broke his heart.

Acts 26:12-14: “Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.

“And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

Paul tells Agrippa that he received authority from the chief priests, and they sent him to far away Damascus, 120 miles northeast of Jerusalem, to arrest believers there.

And as he was journeying at midday, he was struck down by a bright light, which was brighter than the sun.

The light that Paul saw was supernatural, it was the glory of God in the Person of Christ revealed from heaven.

It was the “light of the world,” the living Lord Jesus Christ in all His exalted glory. And the power and glory of His light knocked them all down to the ground.

Paul saw Christ’s light and he heard His words as well. It’s a wonder that Christ appears to him, and it’s a wonder that He speaks to Saul and reasons with him. It’s amazing that He does not wipe him off the face of the earth. All of this was grace and mercy.

Christ calls Saul by his name. He knows his name and everything about him and all he was doing. The same is true for us. He knows our name and everything about us.

The Lord calls Paul’s name, and asks him a piercing question. “Why are you persecuting Me?” The Lord identifies Himself with His people, those who belong to Him.

To persecute His saints was to persecute Him. Christ is so united to His people that their suffering is His suffering, their persecution is His persecution.

And then the Lord says “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

“Pricks” speaks of goads, which were long sticks with a sharp piece of iron on the end. It was used to prod animals along. Today electric cattle prods are used.

Often in Paul’s day, a stubborn animal would kick against the prick, the long sharpened stick, and it would harm itself.

And the Lord says that Paul was kicking against the goads, against the pricks of his conscience, kicking against the work and conviction of the Holy Spirit in his life, because of the faithful testimony of those whom he persecuted.

In seeing their love and amazing devotion to Christ, that they were willing even to die for Him than to deny Him, pricked Paul’s heart.

Years earlier, as he held the coats of those who were stoning Stephen, so they could throw those rocks as hard as they could, Paul saw the gracious manner in which Stephen died.

He heard him pray for God to forgive those who were stoning Him as he was dying, and this pricked his conscience and convicted him of the truth.

God had been dealing with Paul but he had been resisting the Lord, stubbornly kicking back against those pricks, refusing to believe the truth he’d seen and heard.

How about you? Have you been resisting the Lord? Have there been pricks to your conscience in your past to the truth of salvation?

Has the Word of God pricked your heart to your need for Christ? That is God’s working, that is God’s love for you in showing you your need of Him and His salvation.

And He doesn’t want us to kick against those pricks and to resist Him, He wants you to turn to Him and receive His free gift of salvation.

Acts 26:15-19: “And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And He said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

“But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,

“To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.”

“Who art thou Lord?” Paul asks. The learned and highly educated Paul, schooled and trained in the Jewish religion did not know who was speaking to him. He did not know the Lord and he wasn’t saved. Education or religion doesn’t equal salvation.

Faith in the Lord, knowing Him as your personal Savior, that’s where salvation is found. Christ answers that “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.”

And in that instant Paul knew and believed that Jesus was alive, that He is all that He claimed to be, that He is the living Savior who died and rose again, and I believe his heart was conquered in this moment and He was gloriously saved.

And that’s where salvation is: it’s in the miracle of a moment, it happens in a split second of time, when you believe. Salvation isn’t based over the whole of your life and whether you were a good person or did more good than bad.

Salvation happens the second you believe, the moment you believe that Christ died for your sins and rose again, you are saved, just like that. When you believe that you are instantly declared righteous, you have the forgiveness of sins, eternal life and a home in heaven.

The Lord tells Paul here that He had appeared to Him not only that he might be saved but to make him a minister and a witness for Him and to His resurrection.

Saul’s conversion marked the beginning of a new dispensation, a new dealings with mankind, and to Paul was committed and revealed the dispensation of the grace of God which had been kept secret and hid in the mind of God since the world began.

Paul was commissioned as the Lord’s Apostle of this dispensation, as the Apostle of the Gentiles on the very day of his conversion, as He says, “unto whom NOW I send thee.”

The Lord tells Paul that the truths of the mystery he was to proclaim were to be further made known to him through a series of revelations in which the Lord would appear to him.

It is interesting to note also here as a dispensational distinctive that the Lord waited until Paul was on Gentile territory to appear to him and for Paul to be saved. This is not without significance, for Paul was to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Verse 18 speaks to the gospel ministry to which Paul was called. The unbelieving have their spiritual eyes closed and blind, they are in darkness, they are under the power of Satan, they are in their sins, and they have no inheritance in heaven.

Through the proclamation of the gospel of grace, Paul’s ministry was about opening people’s eyes spiritually, bringing people out of darkness into the light of Christ, out from under the authority of Satan to under the authority of God, from being in their sins to having the forgiveness of all their sins, and having a heavenly inheritance and hope.

But one must trust Christ to have all this, as the Lord says: “by faith that is in Me.” By faith alone in Christ, we are free from our sins and we have a home in heaven.

Acts 26:24-29: “And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.

“For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.

“Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”

The recounting of Paul’s conversion causes Governor Festus to cry out: “Paul you’re crazy, you’re beside yourself, you’re insane and mad!”

Festus gives evidence of the conviction upon his heart. And he barks and yells out in an awkward attempt to bring a halt to all this. He acts embarrassed before the king and the crowd. He accuses Paul of being a maniac.

But Paul is not dissuaded here and he does not waver. It was the truth that Christ was risen. It’s truly what had happened on the Damascus Road and what Christ had done for him and in his life.

No one can take away your testimony. No one can take away what Christ has done for you. It’s the truth, and He doesn’t want us to keep it to ourselves. God can use your personal testimony in a powerful way as we share it with others.

What Christ did for Paul and his remarkable transformation was evident, from being a fierce, vicious persecutor, to a passionate, tender-hearted follower of Christ and standing there in chains for Him. It convicted Festus here, so he resorts to insults, and shouts that Paul’s tremendous learning had driven him insane.

But in being called crazy or “mad” and “beside himself,” Paul was only following in the footsteps of His Lord. John 10:20 says, “And many of them said [of Christ], He hath a devil, and is mad.”

Paul turns his attention to Agrippa and says how all this was not done “in a corner.” In Agrippa’s position, Christ’s earthly ministry, Paul’s conversion to Christ and changed life and his widespread ministry would not have been unknown to him.

Agrippa knew all this was true in his personal experience, and Agrippa also knew that what Paul had said was true about the Messiah’s death and resurrection as it was plainly written in the Word and foretold by the prophets.

Paul comes right at Agrippa here and challenges his heart, challenging him with the fact that Agrippa knew all that he had said about his life was true and that all of what he said about the Messiah was in the Word of God and that Paul knew he believed the prophets.

And so Paul’s moving address, his appeal to the Scripture, the stirring account of his conversion and what Christ did for him, the power of his transformed life, Festus’ emotional outburst, all leads I believe to Agrippa experiencing the conviction of the Holy Spirit and to say to Paul: “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”

And these eight little words have to be among the saddest within the pages of Scripture. “Almost” is lost. “Almost” is not heaven. “Almost” is not saved. And there have been many who have followed Agrippa in “almost” being persuaded to trust Christ.

But we don’t want that for you. We don’t want you to say “almost.” We don’t want you to say “I’ll do it later” and bypass the opportunity when you may never have another, because we are not promised another day in this world. God wants you to make that decision now.

Paul longed for Agrippa to believe. And he desired for all those that were present that day to be saved. He says he wished they could be as he was, which was saved from his sins, having the peace, joy, and assurance of salvation in belonging to Christ and the sure hope of heaven.

And so we say to you also, “I would to God that all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am.” We want you to trust in Christ, we want you to be saved and heaven-bound.

“Almost” is not enough, Paul says, it must be “altogether.” You must place your faith, and your soul and your eternal destiny altogether in Christ, to place it all in His hands, to rest completely in Him and what He has done for you, and believe that He has done it all, that He paid the price for all of your sins, that all of your hope rests in Him alone.

By just trusting that Christ died for your sins and rose again the third day, you are saved from your sins by grace through faith and you receive the free gift of salvation.

It’s been rightly said, “The work has been done on the Cross. The blood has been shed. The price has been paid. The only thing left is for the forgiveness to be received by you. I could offer to give you a hundred dollar bill by holding it out with my hand.

“But until you reach out and take it from me, it will never be yours. The same is true with God’s salvation. You must receive it. Until you receive it, it’s not yours.” Please receive it and trust Christ right now.