Which Path Are You Walking?

Acts, chapter 9. So many months ago, for various reasons, we postponed our study of the book of Acts, but I told you that we were not going to close it, but rather that God has been doing many different things; topics have come up in the interim, weeks of prayer and fasting, and guest preachers—many things—but we want to continue. We have always intended to continue this in-depth examination of the book of Acts.

Why? Because it is a tremendously foundational book. It is the book that teaches us about the acts of the Holy Spirit in that key period in the life of the church of Jesus Christ. It is the book that inspires us to believe that what God did in those days, He can also do in our time, because we have the same Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is the book that helps us develop a supernatural mindset, as we have said—that mindset we want to instill in our congregation. A mindset that views life in an eternal, spiritual, supernatural way, that believes God still performs miracles.

As we were declaring through that chorus and those choruses we sang. When we were there saying, “Holy Spirit, come and visit us, and bless me, and pour Yourself out upon my life,” I said, well, we have to believe that. We cannot simply leave it as an aesthetic experience—a very beautiful song—we applaud, and then move on to the next chorus. I believe that if we ask God for something like that, He wants us to say to Him, “Okay, Lord, we are asking You for this; make it real in our lives, make it real in my life, make it real in this service,” and to dare to put the Lord on the spot, so to speak, because He is never in a tight spot, but sometimes He likes us to press Him so that He will then respond and do what He desires to do, which is to bless us.

And then we see that God touches us, God blesses us, when we take action and make ourselves vulnerable and believe what we are declaring, and give feet and hands and action to our declarations. That is what it is about: that our lives respond to it, that we take supernatural actions, that we do not merely wait there in the flesh to see whether God does something, but that we step forward and, like Esther, say, “I want to enter the king’s chamber, and I know that he will extend his scepter to me; and if it does not go well for me, amen, but I know that he will do it.”

And then we do it, and God is there, willing and waiting. So we want to instill in our church and in our lives that attitude of expectation, that supernatural attitude, that attitude which believes that God is always speaking to us, that God is always inviting us in different ways, that He wants to respond, and that He wants to do what His Word says He is willing to do.

And the book of Acts is that book which shows us the Holy Spirit working in miraculous ways, in extraordinary ways, in totally surprising ways. And we are going to see that now, here in chapter 9. We have already seen Him working in the preceding chapters: the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We have seen the miracles God performs—opening the prison door for Peter and John, a lame man being healed, Peter’s address prompting a decision of faith in the hearts of thousands of people, Ananias and Sapphira being judged by God for telling a lie before the Holy Spirit and, sadly, losing their lives.

We have seen the God who responds when believers ask for courage and blessing: the Holy Spirit descends, the place shakes, and they are filled with the Holy Spirit again. We continually see the movement of the Spirit directing and guiding His children. We have seen the growing institutionalization of this church that is taking shape. The seven deacons who are chosen in response to an organizational need in the church regarding the distribution of food to the widows of the Greeks and the Hebrews.

But not everything is triumph; not everything is smooth sailing; there is also danger. The Jews are upset because they feel that their faith is being threatened by this supposedly false sect, which threatens to destabilize the control the Pharisees and Sadducees have over Israel’s religious industry, so to speak. And so we see that there are threats; there is ongoing persecution. Stephen is martyred and stoned, and yet, in the midst of it, God is doing things, because we see that the disciples who are scattered throughout the region continue preaching the Gospel, continue sharing the Word of God.

In Samaria there is a great revival, and hundreds and hundreds of Samaritans—a group completely outcast and rejected by the Jews—receive the Word of Jesus Christ, and there is a great revival there. We see the evangelistic ministry of Philip, a man greatly anointed by God. God performs great miracles through Philip’s life. And at one point we see that the Holy Spirit, who gives strategy and directs His people, speaks to Philip and takes him to a place, supernaturally transporting him to where there is a eunuch, an official from a distant, foreign court, a high-ranking public official. And this man is already being prepared by the Holy Spirit; he fears God, but he does not know—he has no answer. There are so many people like that, aren’t there?

And he is reading the book of Isaiah, which speaks about a strange figure whose identity he cannot decipher. Philip approaches him and asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he says to him, “How can I understand if I have no one to teach me?” Philip opens up the Gospel to him and preaches Jesus Christ to him; this man believes in Jesus, is baptized, and happily continues on to his destination.

And so we see all these things: God moving amid persecution, preaching, and miracles. Even amid the struggles and needs of this fledgling church, the Spirit is providing in all things. In the same way, I believe that God is also providing in this congregation; God is moving among us; God is working through everything that is happening in our church, through all the efforts we are undertaking, through your struggles and needs, through your tribulations and difficulties. God is moving there too.

The Holy Spirit is doing His work, and you must believe that and trust that the same Jesus who moved in that way is also moving in your life. Because, you know what? I imagine that if the first Christians, after experiencing all those things, read in this book of Acts about what they had experienced—if they read the book of Acts—they would say, “Wow, did it really happen like that? I don’t remember it being so dramatic.” Because what we have in the book of Acts is a summary, a tightly compressed summary and condensation of things that took months and perhaps years to happen. And perhaps God’s miraculous movement was not so obvious, except for something happening over there and something else over here; at least people did not hear that a lame man had been healed in Jerusalem. There were no newspapers, there was no Internet, there was no television, no CNN to report the healing of this paralyzed man.

But the Lord was moving through all those things. Suddenly, people hear that the disciples are being scattered, persecuted, and martyred, and they say, “Oh, my God, the Gospel is being neutralized.” But they do not know that over there is a Philip preaching in a Samaritan town, and people are being converted. And at that moment only the eunuch and Philip know that God has moved in an incredible way to bring this man to salvation. And many people died without knowing that all these miracles had taken place. But God was moving all the same.

We have the great blessing that Luke condensed all those things, scattered across many months, and placed them here in this tightly packed book so that we would know about them. And the Lord is telling me right now that perhaps in your life, in our lives, in our church, God is moving in incredible ways and preparing something extraordinary. He is already touching lives, and He is preparing something special in your life, and He is bringing you exactly where He wants to bring you. But perhaps you do not see it, do not feel it, are not aware of it, because you are living through it right now. But perhaps when you look back five or ten years from now and examine the circumstances you are experiencing right now, you may realize that this was the most glorious time of your entire life, that it was God’s time of preparation for you, that God was sowing wonderful things to make you a better man, a better woman of God.

How many can say amen to what I am saying? Even though we do not see God in a completely obvious way, we have to believe that God is indeed at work in my life. And God is using every circumstance, even the adverse and difficult ones, to bring my life exactly where He needs to bring it.

Now, one of the figures we saw very briefly some time ago was Saul. And forgive me, because I am a little hoarse, because I was sharing with the brothers and sisters, with a group of pastors and lay leaders, at the IEP retreat—the Institute for Pastoral Excellence—which was held this weekend in …… and I spoke quite a few times, so that is why my voice is a little hoarse. Besides, the wonderful worship we had did not help me very much either.

But then, in chapter 7, we saw that there was a man in his thirties, a Pharisee and possibly a member of the Sanhedrin, who, when Stephen was being martyred, stoned, and murdered by a Jewish mob, was a young man standing there holding the stone throwers’ clothes so that they could throw the stones harder and more comfortably, approving of and celebrating what was happening. And that young Pharisee, a zealot, zealous for his Jewish religion and utterly hostile to the movement of the Gospel, was named Saul, and he was there looking with satisfaction upon that grim scene of Stephen’s murder.

And that note is left there, as though the camera simply passes by for a moment and perhaps shows us this man’s back as he holds their clothes, then moves on to other things. But now, in chapter 9, we are given a close-up and introduced to this figure so that we may learn who he is. This figure, this man, is going to play a decisive role in the history of the church. This man is going to write two-thirds of the New Testament. History tells us that this man is going to give his life for the very Jesus he is trying to suppress and whose believers he is trying to stone, kill, and put in prison. This man is going to display zeal—the same zeal he displayed in persecuting believers, he will now display in becoming one of them, furthering the Gospel, and spreading the preaching of the Gospel to the four winds. This man is going to change the history of humanity. This man is even going to change the course of the church itself—to that extent. That man’s name is Saul.

And so, in chapter 9, we have this scene in which Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, goes to the high priest and asks him for letters of authority; he asks him for certification, legal permission so that wherever he finds people preaching the Gospel, he will have the power to take them away and imprison them, and perhaps even kill them. Saul is completely convinced that what he is doing is good and legitimate. His heart is sincere.

How many people resist the Gospel and criticize Christians because they actually have sincere hearts and the devil has blinded them. And that word “blinded” is very important, because later we will see scales miraculously fall from Paul’s eyes when the Lord visits him for the second time on Straight Street.

So what we have here is the miraculous conversion. We see Paul on camera; suddenly, it focuses on Paul riding a horse at full speed with several companions along a road toward Damascus, and he is looking for people to seize, arrest, and imprison. Then verse 3 says:

“…But as he traveled, it happened that when he came near Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven shone around him, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’”

The Lord clearly had a purpose for this man, who was sincere but misguided. The Lord had purposes for Saul from before the foundation of the world, and the Lord brought Saul into the world because He had something to do in his life. The Lord knew that Saul was simply a very sincere man, but he was confused.

I have sometimes wondered, what was it that moved the Lord to choose Saul out of all the people He could have chosen? There were other disciples who were surely already convinced of Christ’s lordship. There were probably very capable people whom God could have used, who had not persecuted Jesus and had not approved of a man’s death.

Listen, there are times in our lives when we are haunted by guilt, even while walking in God’s ways. And sometimes, after having walked in God’s ways, we have sinned against the Lord; we have done something that we believe has offended—and we know has offended—the Lord in a tremendous way. And the devil has planted this lie in our minds that, although God may have forgiven us so that we may enter eternal life, and although God in His mercy may not have consigned us to the fires of hell, He cannot use us. It is as though He might use us, but perhaps for lesser things; for greater things, however, He cannot use us because we have already played the only card we had.

You know what? Saul’s life reminds us that we have a very, very merciful God. A compassionate God, a God who, even when we have failed him in extraordinary ways, is not as finicky as we think he is, you know? He is willing to forgive us, to wash our clothes and clean our dirty knees, and tell us, get back on your feet because I have a purpose for your life. Do not let the devil overwhelm you with guilt. Do not let the devil rob you of the blessing God has for your life.

Saul, Paul, would always say, I am the greatest of sinners; I should not be the apostle God is using for such great things, because I persecuted Christ. And yet the Lord had a purpose for Paul, Saul, and wanted to use him. Because despite all that, I believe God saw Saul’s sincere heart; God saw a man who, when he devoted himself to a cause, had integrity and defended it to the death. God also saw a man—and those are the people God can use—who was diligent. In this case he was diligent in doing evil, but he did it out of sincerity. But he was a diligent man; there it is.

I have to do something; I cannot allow this false sect to harm my religion, so he goes and tries to obtain letters, and he is doing everything possible to defend his faith. And God knew that this very same engine, altered a little and realigned, could be used powerfully by God for what lay ahead of him in spreading his Gospel. God knew he needed a man of great physical courage because this man was going to suffer great persecution, because the way God was going to use him would provoke great persecution from his enemies, and he needed a man who would not easily back down. And we see that Saul, Paul, was that kind of man.

God is looking for strong and courageous people. God is looking for people with a heart he can use. God can fix the other things, brothers and sisters, but God wants your heart; God wants a willing heart, a heart ready to say, if God calls me, I will give him everything.

So I believe Saul had those qualities. In addition, he was a man who was already theologically trained; he had a mind capable of thinking in theological terms. He had been educated at the feet of one of the greatest teachers of his time, Gamaliel, a very special Pharisee. We see him briefly on the page in the Book of Acts, and his intervention speaks to us of a man who had a very discerning heart and a certain wisdom.

And so Saul had already been prepared intellectually, and he was going to need a mind that could argue and write in order to prepare the church that was to come in the future. That is why Paul writes two-thirds—the Letter to the Romans, for example, the pastoral letters, and all these kinds of things. Paul was prepared for that.

So the Lord knew, here I have a man. It is like when you see a car that is a little dented here and there, and it has a door painted a different color from the rest of the car, but you say, but you know what? You lift the hood and, wow, this engine is clean, it is good, the transmission sounds perfect. The seats, yes, are a little torn here and there, but I can find a lady from church to fix them and sew them up, and it can run well, and this car can last me a long time. And they are selling it to you for a good price—just imagine. And with trembling hands you offer the person the money before they change their mind, and you leave happy that you have made a great purchase.

I believe Saul represented that: a person who had a good engine, had a good heart, had some interesting qualities, but had a few dents here and there; some rough edges needed work. And the Lord always looks at the heart.

And so God calls Saul for that reason, because he was the person he needed. Something very interesting here struck me, something I had never noticed. In verses 2 and 3 there is a play on words that I had not noticed before. Saul is headed in one direction—how interesting—verse 2 says:

“…He asked the high priest for letters so that if he found any men or women who belonged to this Way…”—meaning, because it is an unusual word, people of this Way. It did not say of this religion; no, of this Way.

First, because the Christian life is a way; the Christian life is a way of life; the Christian life is a journey, a destination, a process that you live out. The Christian life is not a religion; it is something you embrace, something that fills you, and something that will direct your entire journey on earth. But it also says here in verse 3:

“…that as he went along the road (with a lowercase ‘r’), it happened that as he drew near Damascus, suddenly a brilliant light surrounded him…”

Does that not seem a little intriguing to you? There are people who know Jesus and are traveling along the Way; they belong to a Way. Saul is pursuing Jesus; he does not know Jesus, and he is traveling along a road that he believes is the right road, but it is a road to perdition; ultimately, it is a road to death.

So that struck me. I say here that verses 2 and 3 show us two ways: the Way of Jesus and the road Saul is traveling. And that led me to remember a verse found in Proverbs, chapter 14, verse 12. It says here:

“…There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death…”

There is a way that seems right to a man, to a woman, but its end is the way of death.

“…Even in laughter the heart will ache, and the end of joy will be sorrow. The fool in heart will be filled with the fruit of his ways, but the good man, the good woman, will be content with theirs…”

What a beautiful passage, isn’t it? How many people there are in this world—and really, the question I wanted to ask you and myself is: Which way are you walking? If you examine your life right now, which of those two ways are you walking? The Way, which is the way of Jesus Christ, the way of truth, the way of life, the way of salvation, the way of inner peace, of knowing that you are where God wants and needs you to be? Or are you walking along a road that seems right to you? You are convinced that you are right, and perhaps you came here this morning almost to investigate, perhaps to see whether you can glimpse any light in what is taking place here, but you are not convinced yet. And perhaps God is speaking to your life.

Because when I began to develop this, I did not expect to come across that little piece of truth there, despite having read this passage so many times, right? Which way are we walking at this moment? Are you content, comfortable, with your lifestyle? Because this is what I believe: I believe God is speaking to someone, or possibly to some people, here in this place this morning. Frankly, I do not know everyone who is here. But it seems that God wants you to hear this, this challenge and this question: Which way are you walking? Are you on the Way where Jesus Christ is, where you know that if you were to die at this moment, you would go to be with God? It is the Way of eternal life. And right now you do not understand that Way, and it perplexes you; perhaps you even feel a little hostility toward it. Perhaps you come from an intellectual or academic background, or perhaps from a past of pleasure or worldliness, and you do not properly understand this way, but it is the right way, the straight way. And perhaps you think your road is perfectly fine, but it is the wrong road, and it leads to death; it leads to perdition.

And like Saul, you think that you are doing very well, but God has other purposes for your life. God has another calling for you. And you have to exercise faith, and you have to awaken from your lethargy and your sleep, and you have to listen to the voice of Christ telling you, “Awake, you who sleep, and Christ will shine on you.” Wake up in your mind, recognize that you are traveling the wrong road, and surrender your life to the Lord Jesus.

Because I see as never before that this is a passage about the process of conversion. To convert, to repent, means to change roads, to change routes, to turn. If you were going in one direction, if you were traveling along one road, now you switch to another road, or you turn 180 degrees and go in a different direction, along a different road—in one sense, because you are going in the opposite direction.

And that is conversion. Here, in Saul, I see as never before a completely graphic, dramatic, exemplary conversion, where Saul is the self-assured man, convinced that his path in life is right, but he is exceedingly mistaken. Yet God has a purpose for him; God loves him; God is willing to cancel all his debts, forgive him, use him for his glory, and give him an incredibly wonderful and sublime destiny—but something has to happen.

And what happens to Saul is that as he travels along that road, he sees a light, a blinding radiance, and something like a clap of thunder bursts forth and knocks him off his horse. What a beautiful picture of what God has to do in your life and mine for us truly to be saved and enter the true Way.

You know what? The first thing that has to happen is that God has to knock you off your horse. Either you let yourself fall off the horse, or you throw yourself off the horse, or you dismount from the horse, but you have to get off the horse. To get off the horse, to me, means to humble yourself; it means taking all that manliness that Paul, Saul, had and laying it at Christ’s feet.

You know, God has to knock us off the horse so that we can truly have eternal life. Until a man or a woman humbles themselves—humbles their manliness, their intellect, their sense of security, their self-confidence—they cannot know the true God.

The Word says that unless you become like children, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. And that is what is difficult for many of us: humbling ourselves, believing by faith that Christ is who he says he is, and changing roads. Getting off the horse, lowering our guard, and allowing Christ Jesus to take us by the hand.

The Word says here that the Lord speaks to him, knocks him off the horse, humbles him, stops him in his tracks; but how beautiful and tender the Lord’s voice is. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Wow, if it had been me, I would have driven him twenty feet into the ground; I would have planted him deep down. But no: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Notice the contrast. What I love is Christ’s power and also his tenderness, because, you know, Christ is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. He is tender, loving, patient, but he is the Lord of lords. You had better humble yourself before him, because he can knock you off the horse if he wants to, and sometimes some people have to be violently knocked off the horse. Some people have to undergo terrible suffering, and God is telling them, change roads.

I believe that is what is happening to humanity in our time. I am not going to get into questions of whether the Japanese are sinners and that is why what happened to them happened, or whether the United States is sinful and that is why we had 9/11. No.

I do believe, however, brothers and sisters, that we are living at a time in human history when the word that God gave from eternity is being fulfilled. And when man turns away from God, when humanity—when any society whatsoever—turns away from God’s way, consequences come without God having to lift a finger.

There is a passage that says that it is not God who will judge us, but the word of God; it is right there in the Book of Acts. I do not believe that God is up there, moving his finger for every single thing that happens so that lightning will strike a city, a person, an animal, or whatever it may be. No, it is much more economical than that. He gave his word eternally, and when man turns away from God, what happens is that an enemy, a devil, an infernal army, then has more power to do what it truly wants. The only thing restraining the evil power of humanity’s enemy is the active presence of God in a society, in a culture, in nature.

When we move away from that divine protection, the power of evil—which knows only how to kill, steal, and destroy—fills that vacuum. And that is why tsunamis come, why earthquakes come, why terrorist acts come, why wars come, why famines come, why diseases and plagues come. Because God is not there to protect and preserve and say to Satan, stop!

The Lord Jesus Christ said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I wanted to cover you as a hen covers her chicks, but you were unwilling; therefore your city today is left to destruction.

God wants to protect; God does not want tsunamis; God does not want terrorist acts; God does not want plague; God does not want hunger. But when man chooses a road, then that is the road of death. Some people believe that the road of technology, philosophy, pluralism, and misguided multiculturalism—because there is a good multiculturalism, but there is also a misguided one—is the right road, and they are certain of it. And when they hear people preaching that Jesus Christ is the Way, the truth, and the life, they take offense. But he is the only one who can stop the devil’s attacks on humanity. And we cannot apologize for telling people: that is the Way of salvation; that is the Way of truth. Follow that Way and live. Follow that Way, and the Lord can wrap you in his protection and his grace. Because he has come so that you may have life, and life abundantly.

But to arrive at that moment of grace, we have to recognize that we are on the wrong road. And we must not wait, because what I believe is happening—these are not the terrors and cataclysms that are going to happen; these are warnings of cataclysms, warnings of disasters. These disasters have a solution, and it seems that this latest atomic crisis will probably have a solution that is not as terrible as it could be. But I believe God is saying, My people, My child, My creation, I do not want worse things to come; I do not want to knock you off your horse. I do not want you to crack your head open when you fall off the horse.

Because I believe much worse things are going to come. What we have are the beginnings of sorrows. What we have are the beginnings of judgments, and God is saying to this twenty-first-century Saul, Why are you persecuting Me? What do you have against Me? Why are you instituting laws that run contrary to what I have declared? Why do you reject Me? Why do you believe that your intellect is more powerful than the revelation I have left in My Word? Why do you persecute My Son? Why do you persecute those who proclaim the truth and tell you, “Come to the true Way, which is Christ Jesus”? Why are you persecuting Me? I have purposes for you; I want to do good things in your life.

And then you are required to make a decision when you are there on the ground—and hopefully you will not end up on the ground; hopefully humanity will repent in time; hopefully you will not let yourself reach a moment of tragedy in your life when you find yourself in a hospital bed, or suffering from an overdose, or with a virus, an illness you contracted through bad behavior, or struck by a stray bullet in a nightclub, or whatever it may be—and only then cry out to God, when you will already have consequences to face.

And the Lord is saying to that person or those people, Hey, why don’t you listen to My voice? Why don’t you change roads? Saul had that virtue, because he had a good heart: when the Lord knocks him off his horse and says to him, “Why are you persecuting Me?” Saul’s answer is the answer that each one of us ought to give when God confronts us: “Lord, who are You? Who are You?”

I say that this is the question we must ask the Lord who is calling us: I want to know You. Who are You? Speak to me. I am willing. If You tell me who You are, I will go wherever You tell me to go. I thought I knew You, but now I understand who You are. “I had heard of You only by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see You,” Job said.

Many times we believe that we know God, but we know only an infinitesimally small part of God. I said to the Lord, Lord, I want to know You; every day I want to know You more. Show me Your face.

I believe that every person, when faced with Christ’s call, has to say, “Lord, who are You?” Because if You tell me who You are, I will accept You. There are people, I believe, whose hearts are so hardened that even if Christ tells them who He is, they will not accept Him. Why? Because it represents an abyss that is too deep for them to throw themselves into; it represents a radical change in their lives, a change in their destiny, a change in their habits, a change in their lifestyle, a change in the things they believe are good and true—and they have to die and be born again. And they have to throw away 90% of what they thought was true, and that is painful. You have to die in order to live.

And so Saul is sincere; he says to Him, “Lord, who are You?” And He said to him, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” The tone changes there, you see?

He still maintains a certain degree of tenderness. The Lord identifies Himself. Wow, I imagine Saul’s blood ran cold. The one I am persecuting, that fraud, the one whose followers I must kill. And the Lord says, Yes, I am that Jesus, the one you are riding that horse right now to persecute—that is Me. And do you know what, Saul? It is hard for you to kick against a large steel spike, because what you are going to do is drive its point into your foot.

That is the idea: a goad. It was like a giant iron nail. Just imagine it—what a picture—kicking that nail at its pointed end. Which one gets hurt, the nail or the flesh that is driven into the nail? It is a very powerful image. Man cannot do anything to Jesus Christ. The Lord is not worried about anything right now; we evangelicals are the ones who worry about the state of society. Oh, the world is going this way and that, and we put on makeup and change our hairstyle and remove the cross from the front and change the church’s name to see whether people will come and bless us with their presence.

The world is the one that needs the world, not Christ who needs the world. He is a goad; He is there. He is a stone that can be a cornerstone supporting a building, or He can be a stone that makes you stumble if you do not accept and receive Him. But He is not worried about anything. Humanity needs Christ at this time so that Christ may save it, heal it, and deliver it from everything the devil wants to cast upon it in order to wound the heart of God, who loves it.

The Lord says, Look, Saul, the truth is that it is hard to do what you are doing; it is hard for you to resist the Christ who is calling you. It is hard for you to live contrary to the will of God. It is hard for you to imagine that you can continue on your present road, rejecting Christ, and that nothing terrible will happen to you and that you do not have a horrible destiny at the end of the day. It is hard for humanity to reject, renounce, and deny the truth of God, because the only one it harms is itself. The living, powerful, immutable, inaccessible, eternal God remains wholly undefiled. He looks down sorrowfully upon this humanity and says, My children, why won’t you let Me cover you? How hard it is for man to pursue his own ways instead of pursuing the Way that can lead him to salvation.

Saul’s heart was, all things considered, a noble heart. Look at the phrase, “trembling and afraid.” He understands. At that moment, I believe he underwent a terrible psychological crisis. He was in shock; you tremble when you are in shock. He is terrified, shaken, humiliated; he is experiencing what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. Everything he believed, everything he thought was true, the directions as he understood them—this is north, this is south—now north is south and south is north, east is west and west is east. Good is evil and evil is good, and this man is in complete shock.

And I believe there has to be a crisis in people’s lives before they come to Christ Jesus. I believe that the problem with so many evangelicals and so many churches, with what is happening in the United States and in other countries around the world, is that in many cases we have tried to move the goalposts to make it easier for people to enter into the Gospel. We have tried to remove everything that causes people offense, confrontation, and confusion; we have tried to remove everything in the Gospel that challenges them so that people will finally accept Christ. And do you know what? What we are doing is killing them and running away from what truly makes us distinctive, which is Christ, the stone of stumbling.

And what must be done with people is to confront them with the claims of Christ and thrust them into a crisis, telling them, Look, what you believe is not the truth. This is the truth, and if you want to, accept it; if not, it is hard to kick against the goad. But we cannot move the goalposts.

I am radical. In this respect, I become more radical every day; I am not going to move a single goalpost. I am not going to try to make the Gospel more comfortable for people, because I need to make it more uncomfortable for them so that they may enter and be saved. That is the paradox of the Gospel. That does not mean we should fill it with rules and legalism and all that sort of thing either. No. But what is genuine and true in the Gospel cannot be moved, and what is genuine and true will always confront the carnal man and woman.

So, brothers and sisters, I believe this passage is tremendously graphic, and I believe that God is speaking to me and speaking to us through it. But when I began meditating on it this morning, this was not what I had in mind. Yet the Lord is speaking to someone here; He is speaking to humanity; He is doing something. And it is this idea that there are confrontations that must take place; there are changes that definitely must be made. And God is doing things that require transformation. There is a cost.

Then Paul says to Him, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Again, this is the second question one must ask when God speaks to us, when God calls us, and when He confronts us. The first is, “Who are You? I want to know You—Your attributes, Your claims, Your nature.” And the second is, “In light of that, Lord, what must I do? How must I walk? How must I conduct myself?”

And thank God that Saul had the understanding to say, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” He was a man of action. Saul knew that what he had just heard had consequences. He humbled himself; he lowered his guard. Instead of saying, Okay, Lord, I am going to study and consult the latest studies that have been done in Judaism about the Messiah or whatever—no, he says, Okay, fine, I am lowering my guard; tell me what I have to do. Which way should I go?

Are you willing to follow the destiny God has for you? Are you willing to give the Lord carte blanche and say, Lord, I do not know what awaits me now that I have received You, but whatever You tell me, I will do. And I will live the life You want me to live. And I will not keep questioning You or needlessly looking for problems. Wherever You lead me, that is where I will go.

And then the Lord says to him, “Arise, enter the city, and you will be told what you must do.” That is the Christian life: rising from our fall, rising from the low place where we truly are without Christ, and then entering the city, entering life again, rejoining it, continuing, in a sense, with what we were doing before. Except that now, notice, he is going to enter the city; he is going to enter the same city he was already going to, but he is a changed man. He is a very different person, with a different purpose, on a different Way.

And that happens, doesn’t it? When Christ calls you and Christ confronts you, He says to you, Do you know what? Now rejoin life. If you were a professional, continue being a professional. If you were a homemaker, a wife, continue being a wife and homemaker. If you were a student, continue pursuing your studies. But now there is something new inside you. You are on a different Way. You have a different heart. You have a different destiny; you have a different calling, and different things await you.

That is why He says to him, “And you will be told what you must do.” When you are walking in the Lord’s Ways, you no longer govern yourself. The Lord Jesus Christ said to Peter, “Peter, when you were young, you would get up, dress yourself, put on a belt, and go wherever you pleased. But when you are older, you will rise, another will gird you, and he will take you where you do not want to go.” The Christian life is like that. Many times God puts us in places where we do not want to be.

But the son of God, the daughter of God, has to say to the Lord, Lord, You tell me where I have to go, and I will go that way. You know, when you enter the Lord’s Ways, you have to say, Let us wipe the slate clean. Before, I governed myself; now I am going to ask the Lord, Where do You want me to go? What do You want me to do? What do You want me to be? Where do You want me to move? What are the priorities and prerogatives of my life? What are my privileges, and what are my responsibilities?

Do you know where you are told what you must do? First, the Word of God; second, the Holy Spirit who is within you. Those two things will guide you through life. Know the Word of God; study the Word of God. Know the principles of the Gospel. Be well versed in Scripture, because this is your constitution. Here are your rights, and here are your responsibilities. This is your manual for life. That is the general word; that is the legal code by which you must live, which also assigns you tremendous and great privileges, prerogatives, and rights. And God also gives you His Spirit, who dwells within you, to bring that Word into the present and keep it current, to make it come alive in light of your daily existence.

The Holy Spirit will speak to you, confront you, instruct you, and teach you which way you should walk. At certain moments, God will bring words of revelation into your life; they will change your destiny and lead you down a road different from the one you thought you should take. But the Lord tells you, Now, when you rise from there, you have to walk in a different way. You will be told what you must do.

We have to live each day saying to the Lord, Lord, what do You want me to do today? Which way do You want me to walk? What do You want me to preach? What do You want us to do?

We arrive here, we sit there in those seats, the musicians are ready, the program is ready, the worshipers are ready, but Lord, what do You want us to do? You tell us, because we want to do what You want, not what we want to do. Arise, and you will be told what you must do.

The men who were traveling with Saul stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Why? Because there is something that God has only with you, and other people cannot fully understand it. They may hear something, but they do not understand everything that is happening. And you must not let the voices of others and the experiences of others ruin the purpose God has specifically for your life.

Your family members may not understand, because perhaps God has not reached them yet. You are going to be used to reach them. But at that moment, God is speaking to you. You have to have the courage to listen to him and to do what he tells you.

And finally, Saul is led by the others. It says, “…for three days he could not see, and he neither ate nor drank…”

He is a child; he is a baby. He is completely helpless and needs to be led by the hand, because that is how we have to be. Saul was completely helpless. And there I also see a picture, brothers and sisters, of what life in Christ Jesus is like. We have to become like children; we have to make ourselves vulnerable.

When we begin the new life in Christ, we have to understand that we are relearning everything we knew before. And we have to let the Lord begin to direct us and speak to us. And we have to set aside everything we used to believe, our self-sufficiency, our maturity—everything—and begin again from scratch.

I imagine that proud Pharisee being taken by the hand, blind, his world having come crashing down. Now he has to rebuild his world, his faith, his intellectual beliefs, his profession, his family relationships; he knows that they are going to reject him when he embraces what is anathema to them. His entire world has come crashing down, and he is blind; he cannot see; he has scales over his eyes. Now he needs to be restored by God. Before the woman or man who receives Christ, a vast, unexplored territory opens up—wonderful and also frightening in a sense. But the question is: Are you willing to launch out onto that Way? Are you willing to listen to the one who says to you, “Why are you persecuting me? I have a blessing for your life. Get up and listen, and walk where I am going to send you”?

Let us bow our heads for a moment, and I would like to ask you whether God is speaking to you this morning, and whether you are like Saul, and you feel that God is calling you to go down a new Way. I want you to know that this message is for you; God has fashioned it, he has crafted it for your life, and God invites himself into your life. Almighty God says to you, “I have a purpose for your life. Why don’t you join that purpose? Why don’t you change paths, change direction, and let me guide you, let me lead you down the Straight Way?”

Interestingly, Saul goes to a street called Straight Street. He had been walking down a crooked path, and now he goes to Straight Street, where he is going to be initiated into a new life.

I want to ask whether there is anyone here this morning who wants to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior and say to him, “Lord, I want to walk down the right Way.” If you have heard the voice of Christ this morning, I want to ask you to raise your hand right where you are, and I would like to pray for you, set you on the right path, bless your life, and guide you down the right path.

Is there anyone who will say to the Lord Jesus, “Lord, I want to walk down the right Way; I want to walk down the Straight Way where you want me to be. I humble myself and receive you as my Lord and Savior”? If that person is here, would you raise your hand? I invite you to raise your hand; I want to pray for you. Is there anyone?

Let us remain like this for just a moment, waiting. If God speaks to you—if he is speaking to you—do not resist the voice of God, and walk in the Way of the Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus. We worship you and bless you. We exalt you, Lord. We bless you.