THE KING’S BUSINESS
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ment for many now living when they, see Jesus in His glory and realize that it is indeed He whom they have rejected, spurned and persecuted. Saul at first was not absolutely sure that the One Who now appeared to him was Jesus, but he was sure that whoever it might be, He was the, “Lord,” and this One Who was the “Lord” accepted the title that Saul gave Him, and furthermore said, “ I am Jesus.” So it-is clear that Jesus, according to Jesus’ own statement, made after His ascension into glory, is our Divine Lord. Tuesday, December 5 . Acts 9 : 6 - 9 . The Lord led Saul a step at a time. He did not tell Saul what he was to do further than that he was to arise and go into the city, and there it should be told him, what he must do. What he was to do was a matter o f imperative necessity,.something he “must do.” It was not to be told him directly,by the Lord; it was to be told him through a man. If there was ever a miracu lous conversion, it was that o f Saul of Tarsus, but even that conversion was con summated through human instrumentality. In every conversion recorded in the New Testament human instrumentality is brought in. As far as the New Testament teaches, the Holy Spirit has no way o f get ting at the unsaved except through the channel o f those who are already saved. This is very solemn. If we realized it as we ought, how much more careful we would be to present to the Holy Spirit an unobstructed channel through which He might reach and save our unsaved friends. That the light which Saul saw was no mere subjective vision, or effect o f sunstroke, as some, who wish to discredit the story, con tend, that it was an actual objective fact, is clear from the fact that others saw the light too (cf. ch. 22:9; 26:14), and heard the voice. In verse 7 we are told that those who were with Saul heard the voice, but in Chapter 22:9 it is said that they “heard not the voice.” This certainly looks like a flat contradiction, and infidels and deniers o f the verbal inspiration o f the Scriptures have
made very merry over it. But their argu ment is built upon ignorance and not bn knowledge. The apparent contradiction entirely disappears when we look at the Greek. The Greek word translated “hear ing” in verse 7, and translated “heard” in ch. 22:9, governs two cases, the genitive and the accusative. When it is followed by the genitive it indicates the person or thing heard speaking the message, when followed by the accusative, it indicates the message itself which is heard. In verse 7 the words translated “the voice” are in the genitive case; therefore the meanirig is, that those with Saul heard the voice speak ing, but in Chapter 22 :9 the words trans lated “the voice” are in the accusative case; therefore the meaning is that those with Saul did not hear what was the message that the voice which they heard speaking uttered. In other words, those with Saul did hear the voice speaking, that is they heard the sound o f the,voice; but they did not hear the message, that is they did not hear what the voice said (that was for Saul alone). Here we have another illus tration o f the absolute exactness, the verbal accuracy, o f the Bible down to a word or part o f a rôord, and thus what was imagined to be an argument against “verbal inspira tion” is found upon careful examination to be really a proof o f it. The glory o f the risen Lord blinded Saul’s eyes. When he opened his eyes after having beheld that wonderful sight o f the Lord Jesus in the glory, he could see nothing at all, and was led helpless as a child into (he city which he had expected to enter as a conqueror. He remained blind three days, but his inability to .see other things caused him to be taken up even more with the Lord Jesus. He was so overwhelmed with a sense'of his awful guilt in having persecuted One Whom he now knew to be the Lord and Christ (cf. ch. 2:36, 37) that he neither ate
nor drank for three days. Wednesday, December 6 . Acts 9 : 10 - 16 .
Ananias was not an official in the church, simply “a certain disciple.” This' fact,
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