Acts 9:10-19

So grateful for another opportunity to stand before you with God’s word, especially so good to see, including our pastor, uh, some who are missing for the last few weeks back at church. We welcome any guests that are here to our church. We are really grateful that you are here. So thankful for the time of worship the Lord has already given in our lives and I pray that the holy spirit will continue to minister into our hearts through the preaching of God’s word and continue to worship at the end of our service. Let’s turn our Bibles as we continue with our series Church in the rise to Acts 9:9-19. I’ll read for you verses 9-19. 

Acts 9:19-9:9: For three days he was blind and did not eat or drink anything. In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias.” “Yes, Lord,” he answered. 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. In a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.” “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I’ve heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and he has come here with authority from the chief priest to arrest all who call on your name.” 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. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” 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.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Last week, we saw the dramatic account of the conversion of the soul of Tarsus, who would become known more familiarly to us as the Apostle Paul. As I mentioned to you last week, other than the Resurrection, the death, and the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, the conversion of Saul to Paul is definitely the most important event in our Christian faith, and that is recounted to us so vividly and so clearly through the pen of Luke, inspired by the holy spirit, in Acts 9:1-9. We entered last week by talking about how this man had to be held by his hand as he was taken to Damascus because he was blind. What a dramatic change of the scenery and appearance from Acts 9:1. In Acts 9:1, he, all confident, is set to destroy the church, probably accompanied by about 50 to 100 maybe of the Temple Police. He is making his way to Damascus, a man bent on destruction, with absolutely no fear in his eyes, knowing, thinking that he’s doing the work of God and doing everything with great vigor. Absolutely no one to hold him back, he has the authority and the letter in his hand from the high priest and from the Sanhedrin. He can do anything that he wants, and here he is, making his way into Damascus. By the time you come to verse 9, held with the help of another man, holding on to his hand, making his way into this man’s home. He goes out of Jerusalem storming, but he comes stumbling into Damascus. He went to arrest Christians in Damascus; on the way, as he himself would say later on, he was arrested by the Lord Jesus Christ. He began the trip determined to wipe out Christianity in its roots; he would end the trip, in the end of chapter nine, having determined to take the same message to the ends of the Earth.

In Acts 9:1, he was the one who was doing the persecuting; by the time you come to Acts 9:2, he becomes the one who is being persecuted. What a dramatic difference a few verses and a few hours and here in history, a few days would make in his Christian history and most importantly in the life of this man. Verse 9 tells us, 3 days he was blind and did not eat or drink anything. Very remarkable that three days and we find the importance of three days throughout the scriptures as well. Noah, Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days, our Lord was in the belly of the Earth for three days, and here is the Apostle Paul living in darkness and blind and not eating or drinking for 3 days. And we know from the passage of scripture that this was not a time when he was sitting idly; in fact, when you fast forward in the book of Acts and you come to Acts 26, as he himself stands before King Agrippa, he actually recounts what happened to him during those three days, even before Ananias would show up. He would say the Lord was revealing to me what the Ministry was going to be. And by the way, this is not eating or drinking because he didn’t have anything to eat or drink; this was very clearly, as we would see later on in the passage, an intentional fast by the man of God. Look at the dramatic difference in his life; here he was just a few hours maybe two, three hours before, about to kill Christians, and that experience of the Lord appearing to him on the way to Damascus was so dramatic and was so, for so, uh, life upside down turning in a way in which four few hours later this man is praying and fasting before the Lord, and not only that the Lord is conversing with him.

Later on in this book, we will read that Ananias would be told by the Lord that He’s already given a vision to Paul, so these three days are very, very important. He’s receiving from the Lord, he’s hearing about his ministry that is about to come, he’s also being told by the Lord that there’s a man that he has never seen before, Ananias, who is going to come and pray over him. So these three days become very, very important in the life of the Apostle Paul. Oftentimes, in order to enhance our concentration, what do we do? We keep our eyes closed. God would make this man blind because God wanted him to clearly hear everything He had to say to him for 72 hours, so he will never forget it for the rest of his life. Now, having all of his senses just fixed upon what he’s hearing from the Lord, praying, he is sitting there in a stranger’s house for 3 days.

Acts 9:10 tells us about a man who would now make a difference in his life. The Bible says, “In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias.” As I mentioned last week, this is the most common terminology by which believers are known in the book of Acts, disciples. And the Bible, the only thing that it says about him, is that he was a disciple, and his name is given to us, Ananias. The meaning of that word is “Jehovah is gracious,” and the Apostle Paul is about to experience the tremendous grace of God in the midst of his blindness, so He would summon a man whose name himself means “Jehovah is gracious.” The Lord called to him in a vision, whether it be the night or day, we don’t know. In a vision, the Lord would appear to him in the middle of the night, probably. The Lord woke him up, and suddenly he heard an audible voice, maybe it was a vision that he saw, maybe it was a dream. The Bible doesn’t say, but the voice was very clear, “Ananias,” and he knew the voice as well. This tells us very clearly that Ananias was a man who probably had received the visions of the Lord before as well, because look at his response to his name being called, “Yes, Lord,” he answered. There was a willingness in his spirit to do whatever the Lord wants him to do, but there is also a familiarity between Ananias and the Lord, so that when he heard his own name being called, his response is, “Yes, Lord,” basically is saying, “What would you have me to do?”

Who is this man Ananias? Even though the Bible just tells us, “In Damascus, the disciple named Ananias,” in Acts 22:12, Paul himself gives us more detail about Ananias when in his own testimony about his conversion, he says this about Ananias, “In Acts 22:12, a man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by the Jews who were living there.” So here’s a man, a good devout Jew, who obviously has found the Lord Jesus Christ, but he was a man of such high regard that even though he had converted to the Christian faith, the Jews around him respected him because of his integrity, his honor, and the way he was living his life as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Damascus, the Lord knows what He’s doing in choosing the people that He wants to use. But this is so beautiful to me, that the Lord would choose a man named Ananias. See, if you and I were planning the conversion of Paul, you would already send Peter to Damascus, because here is a man who’s about to become the Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. You don’t want a junior pastor praying for him, do you? Yeah, you at least want, no, not a district pastor, you want an apostle to be praying for him. And so, in our thinking, the apostle would already be ready, waiting to pray for him, but the only thing the Bible says about him is that there was a disciple named Ananias. Not an elder, not a preacher, not a pastor, no other title, a disciple. There were many disciples in Damascus. Here is Ananias, one among the disciples, maybe someone who was sitting in the pew, maybe someone who has never preached before, maybe somebody who had never been known, other than for the fact that he loved God’s law and he had a good character. No one knew anything about him, but God would choose this man to pray over the Apostle Paul. See, God’s thinking is so different than our thinking. God’s ways in which He orchestrates things is so different than our own ways of thinking. God would do this throughout history as well, wouldn’t He?

When you study church history, you see this all the time. In fact, I mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago about a man by the name of John Egan, who was a deacon, who would brave the storm and the snow and would go to church. Only six would show up, and the seventh person would be a young teenager who happened to stumble into the church that day, but he would preach God’s word that day, and Charles Spurgeon would be converted by that sermon. God would use an unknown preacher by the name of John Egan. There was another man by the name of John Stoppit that no one knew about, who was instrumental in the conversion of Martin Luther, who would become the key person behind the Reformation, and even the faith that we have today, and the reason why we have Protestant churches.

We know about Edward Kimble; you’ve heard about him many times. He was a Sunday school teacher who would never let go of a young D.L. Moody, who would look for him when he would not show for his Sunday school class. When looking for him in the back of the shoe store where he was working, where he was stocking, and he hid at first when he saw Kimble coming because he knew he was going to come and ask him why didn’t you make it to church on Sunday. But the man went behind the counter, started talking to D.L. Moody, started sharing the gospel again with him, and in the back of that shoe store, D.L. Moody gave his life to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the rest is history.

You know who was instrumental in converting Billy Graham? It was an unknown evangelist by the name of Mordecai Ham. No one knew about him, and no one has heard about him ever since then, but it was a sermon by him that converted the great Billy Graham, who would go to the ends of the Earth with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My point here is that God can use any one of us. God is only looking for someone who would say, “Yes, Lord, what would you have me do today?” God is not impressed with your title. God doesn’t care about which Bible college you went to. God doesn’t care about how many PhD’s you have. God doesn’t care about how many churches are under you. God doesn’t even care about how many churches you’ve already planted. All these things are things that matter in the mind of man. The only thing that God really is looking for, even today, is someone that says, when your name is called, when my name is called, I would say, “Yes, Lord, what would you have me to do today?”

The Spirit of God is calling each one of you by name who is sitting here today, and He’s asking you to do something for the Lord. Maybe it is little, maybe it is sharing the gospel with someone that you know, maybe it is sharing the gospel with your neighbor. See, you and I have no idea what God can do with one man or one woman who is converted to the faith when we share the gospel with them. All that we see is that person standing before us, but just like we saw in the story of Philip and the eunuch, when God would send Philip into the wilderness, oh God had the entire continent of Africa in his mind as He converted the eunuch. God can do great things through individual people. It doesn’t matter to Him what your title or credentials are. That’s exactly what we see in Him choosing Ananias to pray for the Apostle Paul.

Verse 11: The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas.” By the way, we don’t know who this Judas is either. Isn’t it kind of interesting that these two people who are instrumental in Paul becoming who he is, one is named Ananias — you already know Ananias, right? Ananias and Sapphira. And look at the name of the man who is staying with Judas. I think this God has a really funny way of changing addresses and labels and stuff like that. I don’t think there are any children here named Judas, and you can thank Judas Iscariot for that, and rightfully so. Don’t name your kids Judas or anything like that. But my point here is that there are other Judases in the Bible who were used by the Lord, and here’s a man just like that. “He went to go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.” Very interesting here as to who this Judas is. We don’t know. Some theologians say that he was a Jew, there was a devout Jew, and this was the original home that the Apostle Paul was supposed to go to begin with, and he just happened to be there, and now he is instructed as to go there. Others say that he is a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever the case might be, he has a house.

At that time, they didn’t have Google Maps or address like we do today, so the Lord is very clear. He wants Ananias to go to the house of a man named Judas and then tells him where to go, on Straight Street. Wait a minute, what is Straight Street? What is Straight Street in comparison to Crooked Street? It is actually, see, in the olden days, and even today in Damascus, most of the streets over there are crooked; they’re not straight. There are only two streets, even today in Damascus, that are straight, and one of them is known as Straight Street. In fact, this is a picture of the Straight Street that you can still go visit today in Damascus. That is from the early 1900s. I pulled this picture because it kind of shows you what maybe it looked like during the time of the Apostle Paul. If you were to look up the picture of the Straight Street today, it is a modern place with shops and all kinds of people, and it doesn’t look like anything of the first-century Straight Street. But this is the only street, one of two streets in Damascus, that goes from the eastern side of the town to the western side of the town, while all the other streets are crooked, this one is straight, and that’s why it is known as Straight Street. 

So, the Lord gives the address, the Lord tells him the street, the Lord tells him the name of the place, and then He drops a bombshell there. “Go and ask for a man named Saul who is from Tarsus.” I almost kind of think that it was probably better for the Lord to kind of say, “Go to the House of Judas on Straight Street, there’s a man there that needs prayer, go pray for him.” But the Lord did something; He told him who this person was. And guess what? Ananias had been living in fear of this man. In fact, it is very easy for us to assume that many people, believers, maybe even some relatives of Ananias, have already been killed by this man. It’s one of those things where you go, “Come again? What? Saul of Tarsus? Are you serious?” This is when one of those times when you really check your connection with the Lord, making sure that it’s not some other spirit that is speaking to you. “Go to a house and see a man, Saul of Tarsus.” And then the Lord continues, verse 12: “In a vision, guess what, he’s already seen you, and he’s waiting. Come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”

Verse 13: “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem.” And verse 14: “He has come here with authority from the chief priest to arrest all who call on your name. Just in case you were not aware, Lord, I mean, just in case, let me tell you about this man. He has killed so many, and he’s coming here to destroy us as well. Are you sure that you want me to go?”

Second thing, the Lord said about him, was not only was he in this home. In fact, the original language is so beautiful. “Behold,” the Bible says, “he is praying.” And suddenly, Ananias is thinking, “He has come to destroy us, and he is sitting in a home, praying. Praying to which God? Praying to who?” But there’s also a great picture here of how immediately the Apostle Paul has become a man of fasting and prayer, immediately after his conversion. All of his focus has totally changed.

Look at verse 15, one of the most instrumental verses in the ministry of the Apostle Paul. The Lord said to Ananias, “Go.” There’s a great sense of urgency in that statement. It says, “Immediately go. I am sending you. Here’s the reason why: This man is my chosen instrument.” And I love that word, instrument. There are a lot of instruments on this stage, you know. The sound that comes out of the instruments is dependent upon the person who is holding it. For example, you don’t want me playing any of these instruments; the sound won’t be good. You want people who know what they’re doing to be playing these instruments. But that’s a great picture of what God is about to do with the Apostle Paul. He is just an instrument in the hands of the Living God. The Living God is going to start playing with his life, playing through his life, and the music, the sound that emanates from the life of the Apostle Paul, is not the sound of the Apostle Paul, but the one who is controlling the strings of his life.

The question to myself and to you this afternoon is this: How good of an instrument are you in the hands of the God who has saved you? We need to be people, people who are willing to listen to the master, do what He wants us to do, and not rebel against His ways and His thoughts for us. We need to surrender our life to Him, say, “Lord, I want to be an instrument used for the glory of your holy name.”

And look at the commission for him, “I’ve chosen him to proclaim my name,” and look at the order in God’s word, oh, how beautiful, “Proclaim my name to who first? Gentiles.” Here’s a man, as I mentioned in Sunday school this morning, who had prayed all of his life, “Lord, I thank you that you did not make me a gentile or a woman.” Every day he had prayed that prayer, and now the commission to him is, “I want you to proclaim my name to the Gentiles,” then only comes Kings, and lastly comes the people of Israel. What a change in approach to the way God is going to use this man. In the original commission that He gave to the apostles, it was this, “You’ll be my witnesses first of all in Jerusalem, then in Judea, then in Samaria, to the ends of the Earth.” By the time you come to the life of the Apostle Paul, the order is reversed. Gentiles come first, then come Kings, then come the people of Israel, because God’s plan is now about to unfold to the ends of the Earth, with no regard to racial or ethnic backgrounds. God is changing everything.

And then he tells him in verse 16, everything until this time is really good, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Oh my goodness, go and preach to the Gentiles, to the Kings, and the people of Israel. I will make him a great Pastor, all the world will know about him, I will give him all the money in the world, he will have a great ministry, TV shows, all kinds of things, no, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” The first badge of honor that is given to the Apostle Paul is not prosperity, it is suffering. And you know what that word really means? How much. In the original language, it is what it reads, “I will show him how much he must continuously and consistently suffer for my name, all the days of his life, with absolutely no break.” And he himself would testify of that in 2 Timothy 2:8-9, towards the end of his life, as a summary of the commission and the testimony that came out of it, the Apostle Paul would write to Timothy and said to him, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David, this is my gospel, look at the next sentence, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal, but God’s word is not chained.” For the gospel, “I am suffering!” Why? 

We are living in a world today that only wants prosperity, and we are living in churches today that only want to preach and teach prosperity. But the Bible, that’s not God’s word, “how much he must suffer for my name.” Look at 2 Timothy 3:2, this is what God has planned for all of you. In fact, he says, “Everyone, that’s all of us, who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, will be persecuted.” So here is the answer to all of us today, the amount of persecution that you have, mental, physical, spiritual, is directly proportional to the desire that you have to live a godly life. The Bible doesn’t exclude anyone; it says, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life will be persecuted.” Is there persecution at your work? Probably not now, but take a stand for the Lord, take a stand for matters in which you won’t compromise God’s word, is there persecution in your schools? Take a stand for the Lord, you will find out if there’s persecution or not. See, anyone who wants to live a godly life will be persecuted, the Bible says, and it doesn’t come always in physical persecution. Isolation, loneliness, being misunderstood, being ridiculed, being spread rumors about, all of these things happen to people who want to do the right thing according to God’s word. If you flow with the world, if you compromise on every end, your life will be easy, but you will not be fulfilling God’s purpose for your life. God’s call for all of us is to suffer one way or the other, but we do it with great delight in our lives, because we know that God has called us to suffer not for empty reasons, but for the glory of His holy name. Look at Philippians 1:29, “It has been granted to you, all of us, on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for Him.”

Suffering is a gift that God has given to every believer along with belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is said that in the old Soviet Union before the fall of the Iron Curtain when new Believers would come into the church, this is the verse that they would quote to them first in their life. What about today? God will make you rich, God will make you the head and not the tail, all of this can be true, but that is not the emphasis of God’s word. They would tell them, “Are you sure you want to become a Believer?” and they would quote this verse to them and tell them, “It has been given to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him,” because they knew that believing in Christ meant suffering in this world. The Lord said, “If the world hates you, don’t be surprised by that, they hated me first. You will have troubles in this world, but do not worry, I have overcome the world. This world is not our home, this world is hostile to us, the Christian is never comfortable in this world, this world is one of suffering and pain for him, but in the midst of it, God does beautiful things.”

As Simon Wiesenthal the philosopher beautifully said, “The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.” Let me repeat that again, you know what the greatness of Christianity is? It does not seek a remedy for the suffering of life; it seeks a supernatural use for the suffering of life. God still uses the sufferings of believers around the world for the expansion of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the life of Adoniram Judson, who went to Burma, you know his story, he suffered a lot for the Lord. For seven years he had to suffer hunger and poverty in his life, during that time period he lost his wife and had to bury his children, all in the land of Burma. Then he was thrown into a prison for 17 months, you should go and read it. He was forced to stand on sharp objects for several hours in a day; they would hang him from the ceiling for several hours in a day trying to break him. 17 months he had no contact with the outside world, in solitary confinement. As a result of his imprisonment for all of his life, you look at him, you would see ugly marks of chains on his body because he was left shackled in prison for many, many years. When he was finally released from prison, he bent before the authorities and they said, “You have to leave,” and you know what he asked? You and I would be trying to catch the next flight to come back home. He said, “If I can’t preach here, can I go to the next Province and preach?” And you know what the ruler said? “My people are not fools enough to listen to anything a missionary might say, but I fear they might be impressed by your scars and turn to your religion.” He says, “I don’t want to send you to the other Province, you know why? They won’t listen to you, but I don’t want them to see the marks on your body because they might be impressed by your faith and turn to your religion.”

In the life of the Apostle Paul, every beating, every suffering became a badge of honor by which he would tell people, “I do this because Christ captured me on the way to Damascus.” The pains in our life become places where God’s glory can be shown. I know there are a lot of people sitting here wondering why they’re called to bear the cross that you’re bearing in your life, whether it be your marriage, whether it be your children, whether it be sickness, whether it be other things that you’re going through as a believer of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to remind you, every opportunity of pain and suffering in the life of the believer is another opportunity to display to a broken world what a Christian looks like in the midst of pain and suffering and to show the grace and glory of God that outshines anything that is dark and lonesome and suffering in this world. The world will listen when you sing in the midst of your captivity, the world will listen when you sing praises to Him even when everything is going wrong in your life. The world is looking for Christians who shine in the midst of the darkest moments of their life, and the Bible says, “I have called you to suffer for my name.”

Continuing on very quickly, verse 17, Ananias went to the house and entered it. I’m just imagining Ananias here. Yes, he heard from the Lord, but can you imagine? Here’s a man who was about to kill him, probably with hands and feet shaking. He enters into the house, placing his hands on Saul, he said, oh what beautiful words, “brother Saul.” The one who had been sent to kill him had become his brother. Oh, the love of Christ and the transforming work of the Gospel. “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.” Two reasons why I came, both, and one more important than the other. Along with your physical sight, God wants to also grant you a greater measure, a filling of the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon you because there’s a great work that is ahead of you. Paul received the Spirit of God as he was converted on the way to Damascus. Ananias prayed for him later on to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit because that is a desire for God for every believer, that those who receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit be empowered with power from on high by the filling of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible doesn’t say what happened to Paul at that time, but the Bible says, “I came here to receive physical sight and for you to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.” I’m sure this is such a hard thing for Ananias to do. The story comes out of New Zealand very quickly about a man who went to the friend on an altar while the Lord’s table was being handed out, and they have this custom where you would come and kneel at the altar to receive the Lord’s table. He went to the front, and suddenly he went back to the Pew, and after a little bit, he came back up again. His friend said, “I saw you going up to the front, I saw you coming back. Why did you go back again? What was going on?” He said, “When I went to the altar and knelt, immediately to the left of me was kneeling the man who had killed my father. I had vowed in my life that if I ever see him again, I would take his life. I went back because I could not take the Lord’s table with the man who had murdered my own father. But as I sat back in the Pew, the Spirit of God convicted me. I went back into the altar, knelt by him, and took the Lord’s table because the love of Jesus constrains me to forgive him.” Ananias had done just that, the one who had probably killed his own people, the one who came to kill him, he lays his hands on him so he can receive his sight and be filled with the spirit of God. Such is the effect of the love of God.

Paul, Luke the physician would write to us in verse 18 and 19, “Immediately something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up, because he believed in the Lord. He was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” What a beautiful picture of God’s forgiveness, God’s work in the life of the Apostle Paul. I’m going to stand in the presence of God and worship Him. In our life today, who we are today is only because we are in the Lord. The Apostle Paul became who he was because he met Christ on the way to Damascus. We are living in a world with so much shifting sand and unstable foundations. In the midst of it, the song says, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all of the ground is sinking sand.” We’re about to sing the modern song “Cornerstone” that came out of the hymn “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less.” You know the man who wrote it, Edward Mote? He was born into a family that owned pubs, you know what a pub is, like a bar, they would sell alcohol and make others drunk and make money off of it. But as a young man, he gave his life to the Lord, and he would write, “I am who I am not because I can trust in any sweet frame out there, only because the grace of God has found me and made me to be a child of God. When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.” How many of you have confidence, even this afternoon, that no matter what storms I’m facing in my life today, I have a solid rock, I have a sure foundation, I have a Lord who died for me and has told me, He’ll be with me till the end of time. He is there to give me the anchor and the sure foundation that I need in my life. I pray that our confidence in the Lord will be raised more than ever before as we sing unto the Lord who is the rock and the cornerstone of our life.

At this time, if anyone of you need prayer for any matter, we encourage you to come forward, and the servants of God will pray for you.