Acts 9:20-31

`So thankful for the powerful time of worship that the Lord has given in our lives this afternoon. So wonderful to see all of you during this week that we’ve been celebrating and rejoicing in the presence of God in Thanksgiving with our friends and family and last night as a church. So thankful for God’s continued favor in each one of your lives. We’ll be paying our attention to Acts 9:20-31 this afternoon as we continue with our series “Church on the Rise.” In order to save time, I’m not going to read the entire passage, but verse by verse, we will go through this passage from Acts chapter 9, verse 20-31.

By the way, a very warm welcome to those who are attending with us who are not here on a week-to-week basis, mainly family members. You are part of our family, but we are so delighted that you are here with us this afternoon, worshiping the Lord.

In Acts chapter 9, verse 20, and in the context of it, we saw last week as Ananias came and prayed for Paul, how scales, looking like scales, fell from his eye. He regained his eyesight after three days of fasting and praying came to an end. He eats the food and has regained strength. Then God’s word reads to us like this in Acts chapter 9, verse 20-31.

Saul, or Paul, spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once, he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. Quite a big difference from earlier verses in Acts chapter nine, isn’t it? The man who had come to abhor Christianity, to kill anyone, or to drag at least to trial anyone who stood against the Lord Jesus Christ is now standing in the synagogues and preaching that Jesus is the Son of God.

The Bible says to us also that immediately after his conversion, he spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. Early on in his life as a Christian, he is now for the first time ever enjoying the sweet fellowship of believers together. We don’t know how many days this is, maybe a few weeks, few months he is spending in Damascus, but immediately prompted by the Spirit of God, what he is doing is preaching in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.

As I told you a couple of weeks ago, it’s probably estimated that the number of synagogues, even in Damascus, was numbering around 30 at that time. And I want you to picture this for a second. Not everyone in the synagogues, especially the leaders of the synagogue, does not know about the conversion of Paul. As Paul is walking into a synagogue, probably the welcome that he’s getting is a warm one. It may actually be one of a very distinguished guest that is coming from Jerusalem. Not many people have the clearance from the Sanhedrin that he does. He has with him the letter from the high priest. All the synagogues know about it. And as he walks in there, they’re expecting a certain kind of message from him. So, warm welcome, and they probably give him the prominent place in the synagogue.

I am just imagining Paul sitting in the front, opening the scriptures, and they’re really ready to hear how the new way, the Christian way, is so against God’s word. But what they hear is a message to the opposite. It’s kind of like somebody in the back who’s controlling the mic is wanting to cut the mic off, but he cannot because there’s no mic at that time. And he keeps on preaching, and the message is just the opposite of what they wanted to hear. They gave him a red carpet welcome into the church, and they are listening to him what he’s about to say. And look at the message that he’s preaching. Rather than saying that Jesus of Nazareth is a fraud, rather than saying that Jesus of Nazareth and the words is a false teacher, a charlatan, one who has deceived people, and the people who are following him are from the pit of hell and they’re demonic. He goes even further. He doesn’t just stop at saying that Jesus is the Messiah. The Bible says he starts telling them Jesus is the Son of God. Quite a wrong message and the opposite of what they were expecting to hear.

Verse 21: All those who heard him were astonished. The word “astonish” literally means they’re amazed but also filled with anxiety, unable to explain what they’re hearing. That’s exactly what it means, the word “astonish.” Not just an amazement at what they’re hearing, it is also one in which they’re now completely unable to make sense of what they are hearing. If you put yourself in the shoes of them, you understand why the Bible uses this word because what they’re hearing, what they’re seeing does not make any sense to them. And explain that in the next sentence. Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on his name? He just said that Jesus is the Son of God, and they’re like, wait a minute, aren’t you the one who raised havoc in Jerusalem in the name of anyone who was actually calling on the name of Jesus? And moreover, hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priest?

So, verse 22, God’s word says, yet Saul grew more and more powerful. Some of your translations say Paul grew more and more strengthened. Not talking about physical strength, talking about spiritual strength here that comes from the power of the Holy Spirit, and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah. By the time you come to verse 22, they have absolutely no argument against him. But if you think that this happened overnight, you are mistaken because you have to read the whole scripture to understand there’s a big gap between verse 21 and verse 22.

How do we know that? Look at Galatians 1:1, 15-16 in the words of the Apostle Paul himself when God, he’s talking about his own testimony, “who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace.” Look at that verse, that’s so beautiful, “God who called me from my mother’s womb and set apart by his grace.” By the way, every single person sitting here was set apart from your mother’s womb by the grace of God. And in fact, the Bible goes further and says, even before the foundations of the earth were laid, God has set you apart. What a great thing to think about and ponder about and give thanks to God about on this Thanksgiving Sunday. And he says, “God who set me apart from mother’s womb and called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles. My immediate response was not to consult any human being.”

See, logically thinking, Paul would have been tried to educate himself by going to the apostles in Jerusalem, trying to somehow find some kind of a seminary out there, even though there was no seminary out there, some kind of institution who could tell him more about what he encountered on the way to Damascus because remember all the theology of the last 30 plus years is now found to be a fraud. He has to start learning again. But the Bible says, and he himself says he did not consult any human being in trying to understand more about the Jesus that he encountered on the way to Damascus. What did he do?

Verse 17: “I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went to Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.” In Arabia, there are no apostles, there is no Bible College. In Arabia, it’s a wilderness, it’s a desert place, there’s nothing much going on there. Why did he go to Arabia? The reason why is because in the quietness of waiting upon the Lord, this man of God wanted to learn from God directly about what he had encountered on the way to Damascus. The best university, the best seat of learning, is often not in Bible College or learned men; it’s on your knees as you wait upon the Lord to reveal the unchanging truths of God’s word.

“I’ve been to Bible school, I’m not against Bible school, you should go to Bible school. But my point here is that there are certain things that God teaches to his people in the quietness of your soul as you wait upon the Lord that you can never learn in any kind of established institutions.” This man, prompted by the Spirit of God, went to Arabia. And then it says to us in verse 18, “After three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas, who is Cephas Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days.”

So, for three years, Paul spent in Arabia. No detail of that is given to us in God’s word. By the time you come to verse 22 and he is arguing with the Jews in the synagogues, proving that Jesus is the Messiah, where did he get that knowledge from? The last three years in Arabia, waiting in the presence of God. What I believe, the book of Ephesians, the book of Colossians, the book of Philippians, all these Epistles that we read about, were revealed to the mind of the Apostle Paul. That’s why he often writes and says, “The mystery that was hidden, God in his grace has revealed to me, now I write to you.” That’s why, through his pen, through his writing, we get more understanding about the church, we get more understanding about salvation, we get more understanding about baptism, we get more understanding about the Lord’s table, we get more understanding about everything that has to do with the Christian faith through the writing of the Apostle Paul. Not even Peter, not even John, no one wrote like he did the foundational truths of God’s word. Where did all that come from? Learning in the presence of God for three long years.

I have a chart here that kind of shows to you probably what happened in the life of Saul. It’s not very clear. You have the conversion of Saul, Acts 9:23, many days of communion with the disciples in Damascus. Then you come to Galatians 1:1-17, went away to Arabia, three years of studying there in the presence of God, returning once more to Damascus in verse 17. And then we come to verse 23 and verse 24, after many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him. So he goes away for three years, he comes back, and he’s winning every argument in the synagogues.

By the way, if you know if your ministry is being effective is by people rising up against you. As is often said, a wolf would not go after a painted sheep. Let me repeat that again: a wolf will not go after a painted sheep. Why? Because a painted sheep is not a real sheep. That is why a wolf will never go after a painted sheep.

Just like that, every time you do the work of the Lord, Satan doesn’t like it. So what he uses, he uses men and women to rise up against people of God. But look at God’s word, Saul learned of their plan. Now, this is something you need to pay attention to as you go through the book of Acts: every time they try to kill Paul, someone in his inner circle, or he himself, is learning about the plan to kill him. Now, the question comes, how did he learn of the plan? It is surely revealed to him by the Lord himself. Why? Because God has many more years and many more cities and many more plans for the Apostle Paul. He cannot be killed when man wants to kill him because his hands, his life, and his ministry are in the hands of the Lord. And when God says it is done, it is only when it’s done.

So, the Bible says, Saul learned of their plan. Day and night, they kept a close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. So day and night, they’re watching him. They know that he’s in the city of Damascus. They’re saying, at some point, he will come out of the confines of the disciples, and he will try to make his way out of the city gates. At that time, we will capture and kill him. So, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they have spies on the city gates, waiting for Paul to come out of Damascus.

One other thing I should explain here is why there is an opening in the wall. In those days, usually, there were two walls that surrounded every major city. Even today, if you look at the ruins of ancient Damascus, you see some of the ruins of these two walls. Many of the houses, like Rahab’s home, would be built on top of the wall. The wall would be big enough for houses to be built. The thinking here is that through a window in an apartment, he was lowered out. They’re watching the main gate right there, waiting for him to come out. And look what they did, he sneaks into an apartment, and probably in a basket. The Bible says a basket big enough to carry him. He was lowered through a window outside the city wall. And thus, he escaped. The man who walked into Damascus blind is now leaving Damascus in a basket. As some have said, Paul has become a basket case. Exactly what happened here. He is in a basket, and he is now escaping.

Now, what is happening in this process? Also, you can see the hand of God, the grace of God working in the life of the Apostle Paul. Any kind of pride or any kind of a sense of superiority that you have in your heart is suddenly starting to melt away as you are being lowered down in a basket from a city wall. I don’t know how many of you have ever traveled in a basket before, but that is not really what is reserved for nobility or people of high stature. So when you are being lowered in the middle of the night from a city wall in a basket, suddenly, any kind of pride that you have or any kind of thought that you have in your heart that you are in control of your own life and you can protect yourself is vanishing away. As he is lowered down, what is God doing? God is breaking him, one by one. God is molding him, one by one. As many theologians have said before, before God can use you, He has to break you. Before God can fit you into the hands of the God to be used for His glory, God has to shatter your ego. God has to take away your self-reliance. God has to take away your reliance upon your own self and your understanding that you’re a master of your own soul. Your dependency upon the Lord has to increase greatly before the Lord can use you as a fit instrument in His hands. Exactly what is happening in the life of the Apostle Paul.

As well, we come to verse 26. When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. Almost four years have gone by since his conversion. He spent three years alone in the desert of Arabia, comes back to Damascus, has to escape Damascus. When he went to Jerusalem, he probably thought, finally, I am among people who are going to accept me and invite me, and I’m going to have a platform to do what God wants me to do. But look what happens to him. None of the apostles wanted anything to do with him. Rejection, loneliness, isolation all into the heart and ministry of the Apostle Paul. The Bible doesn’t say how long this went on, but I want you to understand one thing: he was all alone at this time. Remember, he’s not married, so no wife, no children. His immediate family probably has already forsaken him because he has become a believer. And not only that, his Jewish community has turned their back on him. They want to kill him. The people that he thought were his own brothers and sisters, the Christian community, does not want anything to do with him because they do not believe in him. All alone again, I believe a way in which God is crushing the man of God, molding him to make him more dependent upon the grace of God.

The one who marched away from Jerusalem, accompanied by hundreds of people, with the authority from the high priest, makes his way back to Jerusalem and finds himself all alone in the city, rejected by everyone. God will do this sometimes in our lives as well. He will take away every crutch from our life. He will take away every man-made shelter from our life so that we will learn to run to Him and Him alone for the help that we need in our day-to-day life. God wants to prove to us, through the circumstances of life, that it is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in princes.

And here, God is teaching some very important things in the life of the Apostle Paul. But in the midst of it comes a man that we learned about in Acts chapter 9, verse 27.

But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. In fact, I’ll tell you, the ministry of Barnabas is probably, along with Ananias, one of the most important ministries that ever happened in the life of the Apostle Paul. A lot of people want to be Paul; very few want to be Barnabas. But I will tell you that the ministry of Barnabas is just as important in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ as the ministry of the Apostle Paul.

What is God calling some of you to do? Is it a ministry of Barnabas, where you see someone who is gifted, where you see someone that God is calling, and moved by the Spirit of God, you are coming alongside and saying, “This man, this woman, is chosen by God and anointed by God. You need to come forward.” The one who comes along and says, “Come, brother, come, sister, God is going to use you powerfully.”

Looking back upon my own life of 25 years, almost, of ministry, I’ve had so many Barnabases in my life, and they’ve come in all shapes and sizes and ages and cultures. Some were old, much older than me; some were much younger than me. God has always sent Barnabases into our lives to encourage us, sometimes when we’re so desperately looking for encouragement.

The word “Barnabas” itself means the son of encouragement, son of consolation. What a great ministry God gave to him. And he comes and he says, he told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord, and the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus, he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. Barnabas is giving a full summary of the ministry of the Apostle Paul, how he came to the Lord, and how when he went to Damascus, he fearlessly preached in the name of Jesus. This is exactly what God wants us to do.

Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5:11, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact, you are doing.” We all need to ask this question: Am I a person who encourages others, or am I pulling people down? Am I the one that comes alongside, that along with constructive criticism, I’m also the one that is there to say, “Good job, well done, God is going to use you”?

God wants us to be encouragers in the body of Christ. That was so pivotal and important in the ministry of the Apostle Paul. Because of that, look at verse 28 and 29, “Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, as you read in Galatians chapter 1:18, we know that 15 of those days were spent in the household of Peter. I’m sure Paul had a lot of questions for Peter. ‘Hey, tell me about you. How you came to the Lord? Tell me about this Jesus person that appeared to me. Tell me more about Him. I’ve heard about Him, I’ve learned so much about Him now, but tell me more about Him. Maybe many of the stories of the Gospel account, maybe even how the Lord’s Supper was conducted for the first time, where Paul says, ‘I heard from the Lord, I received from the Lord, now I pass it on to you.’ Maybe it came through the lips of the Apostle Peter who taught him what the Lord’s Supper was all about. Oh, those 15 days were probably great. Don’t you wish you could be a fly on the wall and just listen to Paul and Peter for 15 days in a home, discussing all things of God’s Word? And that’s exactly what they did.

But he did something else. He started speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. You cannot keep him quiet. You cannot keep him quiet. People try to kill him, and this will become kind of a badge of honor for him that wherever he goes, he speaks boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews. So interesting, now we come full circle. Who talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews before that got him killed? Stephen. Now, who is doing that? Paul is doing it, probably talking to the very same people that stoned Stephen to death. He is talking and debating with them. I’m sure they were probably asking, “Aren’t you the one that was guarding our clothes when we stoned Stephen? And now you are sounding just like him. You know what happened to him, right? You are sounding just like him.” Look what happened. They tried to kill him.

Verse 30, when the believers learned of this, again, look at that, in the plot in Damascus, Paul himself learned of the plot to kill him here in chapter 9:30 in Jerusalem, the believers learned of the plot to kill him. Again, what I’m trying to impress upon your heart is the fact of how God is sovereignly revealing all of these secrets in the mind of believers and the Apostle Paul because God is in control of the life of Paul, and God is in control of your life and my life as well. God is the one who is absolutely sovereignly in control over everything.

They took him down to Caesarea, which was a major seaport of that time, and sent him off to Tarsus. The Bible doesn’t say how he was sent off, but the only way to go from Caesarea to Tarsus is by ship. So Paul would travel by road to Caesarea and from Caesarea by ship he would be sent off to Tarsus.

What we see in Acts 9:30 onwards, all the way to Acts chapter 11, is a huge gap in the life and the ministry history of the Apostle Paul. Most theologians say that it was almost 10 years that he spent in Tarsus before he came back to full-time ministry in the city of Antioch. So I want you to think about this for a second: conversion, three years in Arabia, one year probably spent in Jerusalem, 10 years back in his home city of Tarsus—14 years of learning and waiting upon the Lord. When you read through your Bible, it almost seems like Paul was converted, immediately became a pastor, started preaching, started debating, and became a full-time missionary. What we forget is that between Acts chapter 9, verse 1, and the end of Acts chapter 9:30 is a long gap of 14 years. Again, all the way to Acts chapter 11. Why does God do that? Some of the best learning happens in these times when there is nothing else going on other than the voice of God and the people of God waiting upon Him. The God who sent Moses to the wilderness for 40 years before he became the leader who would lead God’s people out. The one who sent Joseph to prison for many years in Egypt before he would become second to Pharaoh. The one who caused many of his servants to spend many years in isolation. They are not wasted years; they are years in which God is teaching and equipping his servants to become the people that God wants them to be.

And then, in the midst of that, the Bible takes a detour and tells us about the state of the church after telling us about the life of the Apostle Paul.

Verse 31: “The church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened.” But look at how they lived their life, “…..living in the fear of the Lord, encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in number.” These were the marks of the New Testament Church: they lived in the fear of the Lord, they were encouraged by the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, every single day. And together, those two things caused their numbers to increase.

You know what one of the biggest problems in the Church today is? A lack of the fear of the Lord. A lack of the fear of the Lord. When you use the word “fear,” suddenly there is a negative connotation. But it’s not necessarily so in the New Testament or in God’s Word. Fear of the Lord doesn’t mean that you live in fear of your God. Fear of the Lord means that you never lose sight of the greatness, majesty, and wonder of who God is, and you live your life in reverence and awe towards Him. In your worship, you have fear towards Him. In your day-to-day life, you have fear towards Him. In all your ways, you acknowledge Him. You always give glory to His holy name. You fear Him. That is something that is so needed and so desperately lacking in the Church today. But I pray that we, as a church, will be people who fear the Lord, who fear the presence of the Lord, who have a reverence and awe towards it.

This morning, during Sunday school, I told this to those in my class today. There was something that our appachans, ammachis, and my parents all used to do before they came to Sunday worship. You know what that is? They would spend hours in prayer. But today, the younger generation, I don’t know how many of you do that. My point is that your heart needs to be prepared before you come into the presence of God. There needs to be an anticipation in your heart to receive from the Lord before you come to hear from God’s Word.

Follow the example of your parents, who would rise up early in the morning on Sunday, spend time in the presence of God in worship before they came to worship in God’s Word, before they came to hear God’s Word. There is tremendous blessing in that. Before you come to take part in the Lord’s table, prepare your heart even hours, days before you stretch forth your hands towards the table of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is a wonderful thing to have. It’s a blessed thing to have. It is something that is so lacking and so desperately needed in the Church of today. God is not your buddy; God is the Creator of everything. The very breath in your lungs is in His control. Fall down before Him in awe and reverence and worship. He is worthy of your worship and adoration. Two hundred and forty-five times in the Old Testament, it is said, “Fear the Lord.” Forty-five times in the New Testament, the Bible says, “Fear the Lord.” Exactly the same, almost, as saying, “Love the Lord.” A lot of people have no problem saying, “You should love the Lord.” But when we preach about fearing the Lord, they think that’s Old Testament theology. In the New Testament, fearing the Lord and loving the Lord are mentioned equally. Those who love the Lord will fear Him. Those who love the Lord will have adoration towards Him, reverence and awe towards Him. Even this morning, I told them if you’re distracted in church, pray to the Lord that the Lord will remove your distractions. If you’re falling asleep in church, pray to the Lord that the Lord will remove that sleepiness away from you. I know a lot of it has to do with us, but don’t fall asleep in church. That is a disregard for the presence of God.

A story is told of a man who was preaching in a dead church. The pastor was preaching, and half of the church was sound asleep. So he decided to wake them up. He did something a little unusual in the middle of the sermon. He had everyone get up and greet each other. A lady that was new to the church approached a man that was sleeping. In all the noise and stirring about, she woke the man up, but he had no idea what was going on. He looked up, and the lady stretched out his hand and said to him, “Hello, I am Gladys Dunne.” The befuddled man said, “Ma’am, I’m glad it’s done too.” If you want to know the difference between “Gladys Dunne” and “glad it’s done,” you have to stay awake at church. But if there’s a problem with that, it’s not usually the sermon, no matter how boring the preacher is or how boring the topic is. If you have reverence and awe towards the presence of God, no matter how tired you are, it will be very difficult for you to fall asleep. I’m not casting stones at someone who worked all night and came here and is dozing off. We see that, and we ignore it, and we keep going on. But my point here is that if you’re watching a football game, if you’re watching something entertaining, you will never fall asleep. If you’re in something in which you have a real interest and your heart is really into it, you will never fall asleep, even if the game is 35 to nothing. You will not fall asleep. Why? What is the difference? It’s the presence of God. You need to have a healthy understanding of who your God is. You need to know that even though our God is a God of grace, our God is a God of mercy, our God is a God of compassion, He is also a God of consuming fire. The Church and the people of God should never forget that.

In Revelation 14:6, God is finally having, all the believers are gone from the earth, God is summoning an angel to fly in the midair and announce the gospel for the one last time. And in 14:6, I saw another angel flying in midair. He had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people. And look at the content of the eternal gospel. Verse 7 says, he said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give Him glory.” The content of the eternal gospel is this: fear God and give Him glory. But the tragedy of the modern times is that we hardly ever hear any preaching about fearing God. No one wants to hear it because they think it’ll drive people away from the church. But God’s Word says the content of the eternal gospel is fear God and give Him glory because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship Him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water.

When you come to Revelation 19:5, all the saints are assembled before the throne of God. A voice came from the throne saying, “Praise our God, all you His servants, you who fear Him, both great and small.” Even the cry that is coming from the throne of God is, “Fear God.” You would think that message would not need to be repeated in eternity as we are in the presence of God. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is what is so needed in all of our lives. So I pray that we’ll become a church known as a church that fears the Lord, that is consoled by the Holy Spirit, and increases in number as God brings peace into the church.

I’ll end with this: there were two men in England, both brilliant lawyers, one by the name of Gilbert West, the other one by the name of George Littleton. They were known as Lord Littleton. They were both skeptics but also very honest men. They were friends and decided to research Christianity to disprove its claims. One focused on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the other focused on the conversion of the Apostle Paul. After extensive research, they both independently came to the conclusion that the evidence pointed to the truth of Christianity. Both of these brilliant lawyers became believers. Gilbert West became a preacher and apologist. Even today, you can find George Littleton’s book on the conversion of St. Paul.

In it, he wrote about all the evidence he found that explained the transformation of Saul of Tarsus, and he concluded that there was no other way to explain what happened to him other than the fact that Jesus appeared to him on the way to Damascus. Both of these lawyers became believers because the resurrection of Christ shows that our Lord is alive, and the conversion of the Apostle Paul shows that He is still alive in the heavens, transforming people into new creations by the power of the Spirit of God.

I pray that we will be people who, when God gives us seasons of waiting, will not frown upon it but will use it as a time of learning and trust in God’s divine plan. May our church be a God-fearing church, embraced by the Holy Spirit, and may we have God-ordained increase in the power and strength of the Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for hearing our prayer. In the name of the Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.