SAUL.
I have been speaking on the Prodigal Son, but now I want to take up another man—a much harder case than the prodigal, because he did not believe he needed a Savior.
You need not have talked a great while to that prodigal before you could have convinced him that he needed a Savior. It is easy to reach a prodigal’s heart when he reaches the end of his rope.
The man of whom I shall now speak stood high in the estimation of the people. He stood, as it were, at the top of the ladder, while the prodigal was at the bottom. This man was full of self-righteousness, and if you had tried to pick out a man in Jerusalem as a hopeless case, so far as accepting Jesus of Nazareth as a Savior, you would have picked out Saul. He was the most utterly hopeless case you could have found.
I would sooner have thought of the conversion of Pilate than of this man. When they were putting to death the martyrs to the cross he had cheered on the murderers; but, in spite of all this, we find the Son of God coming and knocking at his heart, and it was not long before he received Him as his Savior.
You can see Saul as he goes to the chief priests of Jerusalem, getting the necessary documents that he might go to Damascus—that he might go to the synagogue there and get all who were calling upon the Lord Jesus Christ cast into prison. He was going to stamp out the teachers of the New Gospel.
One thing that made him so mad, probably, was that when the disciples were turned out of Jerusalem, instead of stopping they went all around and preached.
Philip went down to Samaria, and probably there was a great revival there, and the news had come from Damascus that the preachers had actually reached that place.
This man Saul was full of zeal and full of religion. He was a religious man, and no doubt he could say a prayer as long as any one in Jerusalem. He had kept the laws faithfully, and been an honest and upright man. The people then would never have dreamed of him being in need of a Savior. Many persons today would say of Saul: “He is good enough. To be sure, he does not believe in Jesus Christ; but he is a good man.”
And there are many people today who do not believe in Him. They feel if they pay their debts and live a moral life they do not need to be converted. They do not want to call upon Him; they want to get Jesus and all His teachings out of the way, as Saul wanted to do. That is what they have been trying to do for eighteen centuries. Saul just wanted to stamp them out at one swoop. So he got the necessary papers, and away he went down to Damascus.
Suppose, as he rode out of the gate of Jerusalem on his mission, any one had said to Saul: “You are going down to Damascus to prosecute the preachers of Christ, but you will come back a preacher yourself.” If any man had said this, his head would not have remained on his shoulders five minutes. Saul would have protested: “I hate Him—I abhor Him. That is how I feel.”
Yes, Saul wanted to get Christ and His disciples out of the way. He was no stranger to Christ. He knew His working, for, as Paul said to Agrippa: “This thing was not done in a corner.” He knew all about Christ’s death. Probably he was acquainted with Nicodemus and the members of the Sanhedrim who were against Christ. Perhaps he was acquainted with Christ’s disciples, and with all their good deeds. Yet he entertained a malignant hatred for the Gospel and its propagandists, and he was going down to Damascus to put all those Christians in prison.
You see Saul as he rides out of Jerusalem with that brilliant escort, and away he goes through Samaria, where Philip was. He would not speak to a Samaritan, however. The Jews detested the Samaritans. The idea of speaking to an adulterous Samaritan would have been repulsive to Saul. So he rode on, proudly, through the nation, with his head raised, breathing slaughter to the children of God.
Damascus was about 138 miles from Jerusalem, but we are not told how long he took for that journey.
Little did Saul think that, nineteen hundred years after, in this country, then wild, there would be thousands of people gathered just to hear the story of his journey down to Damascus.
He has arrived at the gates of the city, and is not yet cooled off, as we say. He is still breathing revenge. See him as he stands before that beautiful city.
Some one has said Damascus is the most beautiful city in the world, and we are told that when Mohammed came to it he turned his head away from it, lest the very beauty of it would take him from his God.
So this young man comes to Damascus, and he tells the hour of his arrival. He never forgets the hour, for it was then that Christ met him. He says: “I saw in the way a light from Heaven above the brightness of the sun.” He saw the light of Heaven, and a glimpse of that light struck him to the ground. From that light a voice called: “Saul! Saul!” Yes, the Son of God knows his name. Sinner, God knows your name. He knows all about you. He knows the street you live in and the number of your house, because He told where Ananias lived when Paul went there.
“Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou Me?”
How these words must have gone down into his soul! He stopped. The words were to him. Could Saul give any reason when the question was put to him: “Why persecutest thou Me?” Can any sinner give a reason for persecuting Christ?
I can imagine some of you saying: “I never persecute Christ. I have a great many sins. I swear often—sometimes drink; but I always speak respectfully of Christ.” Do you? Do you never speak disrespectfully of His disciples and God’s children?
When Christ asked Saul that question He might have added: “I lived on Earth thirty years, and I never did you any hurt or injury; I never even injured your friends. I came into the world to bless you. Why persecutest thou Me?”
When this question was put to Saul He supplemented it by saying: “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” You and I would not have had any compassion upon Saul if we had been in Christ’s place. We would have said the hardship is upon the poor Christians in Damascus. But the Lord saw differently.
In those days, when people did not drive their camels with whips, they had a stick with a sharp piece of steel at the end, called a prick, and with this the animal was goaded. Hence the point of the saying is obvious.