Saul to Paul: Psychotic Break,
Psychological Delusion or Divine Revelation of Grace? – Part 2
Acts 9
I truly appreciate all of you praying for my dad. Some of you have
gone through this in your life but others haven't had a spouse or parent or
someone in your life go through a long-term illness. You're faced with a
lot of difficult decisions. They're difficult because a lot of time we
don't know what the precise or best answer is. It's a problem solving
procedure because the problem that we're solving has to do with each
decision. As I pointed out when I taught problem solving
devices/spiritual skills in the past, every decision we make in life is a
problem. It's like when you're in the military, you go through various combat
drills in various field training exercises. You're presented with a
challenge, a decision that you have to make based upon the training you have
received prior to that event. Sometimes there's no right answer; there
may be a number of wrong answers but there's not one answer that hits the spot
so Scripture gives us guidance, a framework for handling these things.
I'm going through that right now with my dad. As many of you know,
he's had Alzheimer’s for thirteen years. He was diagnosed two years and
ten months ago with lung cancer which they said would probably kill him within
a year and a half. So their timing is not always that great. It's
been almost three years now. That has to be taken into consideration when
doctors start giving you dates and you're supposed to be making decisions on
timing they throw out there. You go, “Well, wait a minute. I'm not
sure you're hitting high numbers here on your averages.”
Then this last year a brain tumor was identified on his brain but we
didn't go through the process of biopsy or anything else. There are other
things going on. The cancer has been very, very slow growing but now it's
beginning to speed up. Ten days ago he broke his hip, fractured his
hip. Last week they decided the best course of action was to do a hip
replacement. He's too weak to go through the therapy to rebuild his
strength to get up and walk again.
Yesterday morning I had a meeting with the doctors. They had some
facts wrong but basically what they were saying is that they were wrestling
with how much care to give him. My directive had been to keep him
comfortable, don't take any extraordinary measures because I've already had one
great aunt die from Alzheimer’s after fourteen years. She was just a
vegetable. I would rather have my father die from lung cancer, stroke,
anything but go through another five or six years like that.
The doctors wanted clarification about my wishes from me. It was
really sort of a shock. I didn't think they were there yet. Any
kind of care is going to bring constant pain, draining fluid off the lungs, and
things of this nature or hospice care. Their timing is not even three
months. I was extremely unsettled by that yesterday.
Its not that I don't have peace about my dad. He was saved when he
was very young; he was a deacon at
I'm not at all concerned about what's going to happen when he dies but
for many of us, that's not the issue. People around us often mistake that
as an issue. I'm ready for him to go to be with the Lord because that's
going to end all his suffering and difficulty. I have no doubt whatsoever
of what's going to happen. Many of you know who've gone through
this. It's all those other decisions we have to make regarding legal
property in this world and regarding just what kind of care is right or
wrong. We don't want to make mistakes. We don't want to increase
their discomfort. We don't want to extend their life just for the sake of
extending their life, especially when they aren't real sure of who they're looking
at in the mirror.
I know some of you relate to this. When I get up in the morning, I
say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall. I am my father, after all.” He
looks in the mirror and he thinks he's me. I'm scared. Today I was
up in his room and I was sitting by the table and a couple of doctors came in
and said, “We haven't met you before.” I said, “If you don't know who I
am, you need to go back to your psychiatric care and have your head
examined.” And they did a double-take, and said, “You're absolutely
right. We know who you are.”
It's making those decisions that's difficult. As I came home
yesterday and was thinking about wrestling with it, I talked to Army.
Army is the lady who has worked for my parents since 1990. My mother had
polio before I was born. She was always in a wheelchair. Growing
up, I had two mothers: a white mother and a black mother. My mother,
being in a wheelchair, couldn't do any housework or anything so we had to hire
a maid five days a week my entire life growing up. One of my great
privileges was preaching her funeral. But when she was getting old and
had to retire, my folks hired Army. That was in 1990. That before
my mother had her strokes which eventually culminated in her death in 2002 so
she has been there through thick and thin and has truly performed above and
beyond the call of duty.
Army is an absolute treasure, a gift of grace. She's a believer,
an extremely dedicated member of our family and does a fabulous job. I
just basically turn 98% of things over to her. If she died tomorrow, I
wouldn't even know what pill to give my dad. I don't have a clue of what
goes on. She handles everything. I just sort of sit in the
background and watch.
Right now she is a little more distressed over the news than I am because
she's with him all the time. She didn't think we were near to the point
of having to make this decision. And so my prayer was [and I think this
is a prayer many of us should have] was that God would just give us clarity in
limiting the options. I rely on Proverbs 3:5 and 6 which says, “Trust in
the Lord always and lean not on our own understanding...” It's great to
get all the data from the doctors or whatever the circumstance is and to do all
the evaluations but at some point there is an X variable factor in there and
only God knows what those variables are beyond the hard data that we
have. I was praying last night that God would just make this clear.
There were several options that were on the table yesterday but when I
went down to the hospital this morning a couple were taken off the table pretty
quickly. It basically comes down to three options: (1) 24/7 care at
home but unless the Lord dumps another $2700 a month minimum in my lap that's
not going to happen, (2) Put him in a VA contract nursing home or (3) Put him
in a very nice room in a VA hospice room. That seems to be where
we're heading unless something happens.
He may surprise us. This is a man who was in the first wave at
It's sad for us when we watch someone deteriorate. It's a slow
time. We all asks the question: why doesn't the Lord take so-and-so
now? Why do they have to go through that suffering? That is an
underlying issue. People ask that about everything. That's because
we don't know the X variable which is opportunities I might have, Army
might have to witness there at the VA, what opportunities do we have that the
circumstances might bring such as me talking about it here. Maybe as it's
going out on the internet someone else might be going through something
similar. 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, says “We comfort one another with the
comfort which we ourselves have been comforted.”
There are so many ways in which God uses events like this that
we're not aware of. We just get myopic and focus on why God lets this
suffering happen and we don't know. That's the whole point of the book of
Job. God asks all those questions of Job to point out to him that he
can't comprehend any of this. God says that if he were to answer Job's
questions Job wouldn't understand it so quit asking why; just trust
Him. That's what we're supposed to do.
I'm making some decisions to scale back on some things but I'm not going
to back off the November 10th involvement at the Center for
Terrorism Law because that's such a crucial thing, after the events of the last
two weeks. I don't care how much time I have to put in on preparation
because it's focused on the point at which we, as a nation and as Christians,
are being assaulted. It's such a high priority but there are some other
things that are up in the air that the Lord will make that clear as time goes
by. That's how we go through decision making.
Now let's go to Acts, chapter 9. This is part 2 of Paul's
conversion. Last time I named it: Paul's Conversion: Psychotic
Break, Psychological Delusion or God's gracious forgiveness and
transformation. That really sets up the interpretive conflict between
human viewpoint, on the one hand, and divine viewpoint, on the other. The
world looks at that and says, “Ahh, this is just some psychological
break. He's overwhelmed by the guilt of persecuting these Christians,
persecuting women and children.”
I have a problem with that. I'll just use one word,
'holocaust'. You just didn't see that kind of thing happening to the SS
troops. Paul has a shorter window of time here. You just don't see
this kind of psychological event occurring for people who are so mired in the
darkness of evil in their own soul that guilt has that kind of reaction.
It might bother some people but not this kind of complete 180 degree shift with
the Apostle Paul. They may have a nervous breakdown, emotional breakdown,
whatever you may call it but they don't become the passionate, most brilliant
declarer of the opposing view within 72 hours. It just doesn't happen.
That is the brilliance of what happens with Paul. So, these human
viewpoint explanations just really don't work in the face of the historical
evidence. But they have this presupposition they bring to the evidence
and say, “Well, that can't be accurate evidence. So we have to discount
it. It was probably written not by Luke but by somebody two or three
hundred years later.” That completely flies in the face of all historical
evidence today. That's a 19th century view that liberals tried
to float because they didn't have enough historical, archeological confirmation
in the mid-19th century to argue against some of those views.
They got away with suggesting a late authorship of New Testament documents and
people bought into that.
Today, that's not true. There's one book written by an extreme
liberal theologian, John A. T. Robinson. He wrote a book back in the late
sixties called Honest to God in which he set forth the death of God
theology. You may remember how popular that was back in the
sixties. But John A. T. Robinson also wrote another book
dealing with the origin of the New Testament in which he dealt with the
historical, archeological evidence of the New Testament. He even ended up
trying to date all the New Testament even earlier than most conservative
theologians would. I don't buy into his dates but it shows that when
liberals are honest with the historical, archeological dates they cannot late
date anything in the New Testament to the mid- or late- second century or even
the late third century. They can't say that there was some period that
oral transmission got so garbled that X became non-X, white became black, and
up became down which is just basically the liberal view.
This shows that there is documented, historical evidence of numerous
things in the book of Acts so there's no reason to doubt its historicity or
authenticity. We have this tremendous story here of Paul's conversion,
told by Luke as it happens in Acts 9 but then it's repeated by the mouth of
Paul two other times in the books of Acts when he is giving a defense of his
particular position. Once in Acts, chapter 22 and again in Acts, chapter 26.
Some people try to make a case of certain discrepancies in these views but they
fit together. They're just the addition of details. Not being
mentioned in one account does not mean that someone is covering something up or
distorting something. It's just that no one is sitting down and trying to
write in terms of a modern, academic model of historiography, an exhaustive
detailed account of everything that happened on the road to
(CHART) Looking at maps, just to orient us, down in the southern
tip is
I pointed out the last time that the Apostle Paul's background is such that
he was born into a family associated with the Pharisees, a wealthy family,
indicated by the fact they had Roman citizenship. His father was an
entrepreneur businessman and had a tent manufacturing business that the young
Paul would have apprenticed to. We know of this because later in life as
an adult, at times, he went back to that, established that kind of business in
places like Corinth, employing believers in order to make money. Capitalism.
Not the kind of pseudo-capitalism that is often attacked today by different
elements of our modern media and press which is really a very federally or
governmentally-controlled capitalism, which is not free market at all.
They had an opportunity to start a business and to build a business and to
generate income that supported them. This is completely in line with the
teaching of Scripture.
Paul gives us a little bit of his autobiography in a couple of different
passages, such as Acts 3, 5, and 6 which we talked about last time. He
talked about giving his credentials as a strong passionate 180% dedicated
Pharisee, dedicated to first century rabbinical teaching on how a person gained
approval with God and that this is based upon both the ritual and the moral law
of Moses. He's from the stock of
In Acts 22 he talks about his background and he is giving his testimony
to a Jewish audience when he went to
There are problems with that and one of the problems I have is that the
language was not always Aramaic. Here it says Paul addresses them in the
Hebrew language. I think it’s important to recognize that he is
addressing them in the Hebrew and they understood that. He is speaking to
them in their language, not in Greek. I don't think Jesus taught the New
Testament in Greek or in Aramaic. Whatever language he used, he may have
shifted language because he was multilingual. Whatever language was used,
God the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture to write it in Greek so
that the Greek is what accurately reflects what Jesus' intent was. So we
can't get mired in with those who think we need to go back and translate it
into Aramaic so we can get the real sense of what was going on.
That's not necessary if we truly believe in the inerrancy and inspiration of
Scripture.
Paul talks to them in Hebrew. That calms them down. He's not
a foreigner. He's not talking to them in Latin or Greek and they gave
their attention to him. He says here, “I'm a Jew born in
I've heard Arnold Fruchtenbaum refer to some passages in the Talmud
where a name has been removed and there's some speculation that may have been
Paul but we have no way to verify that. I wouldn't hang my hat on that
too much but it's interesting information to be aware of. So Paul says he
studied at the feet of Gamaliel. He is his prize student, the number one
apple polisher in Gamaliel's class, far and beyond the greatest rabbinical
student of that generation. No one could touch him. He was
absolutely brilliant. Anyone who studies Paul, whether you're a believer
or not, [I have read conservative Jewish scholars looking at the New Testament
in terms of its Jewish background come to the same conclusion] that whether you
agree or disagree with the Apostle Paul his writing are among the most erudite,
the most logically rigorous of all writings in the ancient world. They
cannot be simply dismissed or diminished lightly. He says he was taught
under the 'strictness of our fathers'. So we see that he has a
rigorous view of the interpretation of the text, and the Law, and he's zealous
or passionate toward God.
I pointed this out last week. There is evidence that he, at his
core, is positive toward God. Like many people who may be positive at an
early age, because we all have a sin nature, go off the rails and get trapped
in suppression of truth and unrighteousness so that for all practical purposes
our observance of them is that they're the last person in the world who would
ever, ever become a passionate disciple of Jesus Christ. That's wrong on
our part because up until five minutes before Jesus appeared to the Apostle
Paul on the road to
This guy is so hostile. He is Adolph Hitler personified in his
hatred and antagonism toward Christians. Yet in an instant he does a 180
because when Jesus Christ appears to him in the light, he saw the truth for
what it was and responded positively. If you know somebody who's really
hostile to the Gospel, that may just be their defensive mechanism to try to
cover up something that makes them very uncomfortable thinking they may be a
little positive, so you never know. It's in the Lord's hands.
In verse 4, he admits, “I persecuted this way to the death.” The
way was a term used to refer to early Christians in the church. It was
taken over by a small cult group in the
In verse 6 he describes what happened. “Now as I journeyed and
came near
When we see God appear again and again in the Scripture, it is that
effulgence of His being that is often referred to as His Glory. It
becomes reduced in a finite way to the pillar of fire that led the Israelites
out of
Again and again that when Isaiah is before the Throne of God in Heaven,
in Isaiah chapter 6 and in numerous other places, the appearance of God is in
this brilliant light. The light is also significant because it's
revelatory. It exposes that which is in the darkness. It
illuminates truth so that we talk about 'walking in the light of God's Word' or
in the 'light of truth'. The psalmist says, “It is in your Light
[revelation] that we see light,'
The resurrected ascended Christ appeared personally to the apostle in
the road to
Then he hears a voice. He answers and says, “Who are you,
Lord?” Some people have made a lot of theological headway out of that
word 'lord' but the word kurios [kurioj] is just a simple
expression of someone worthy of respect, much as we would use the term
'sir'. In Spanish speaking areas I see a bumper sticker that says, “Jesus
es mi senor” meaning 'Jesus is my Lord'. Senor is normally associated with
mister but it is also the polite word for sir or lord. That's how they
translate 'lord' in the Bible. When Paul says, “Lord, why are you
persecuting me?' we can't make the mistake that John McArthur makes [I use him
as an example because he is in print with the argument that Paul was submitting
himself to the lordship of Jesus Christ and that's when he was saved.] It
simply should be understood that in this context I'm not sure if Paul
understood that Jesus was God. He is just simply recognizing the
superiority of the one in his presence and demonstrating language of
submission, like we do when we are stopped by a police officer and we say, 'yes
sir' so we don't end up in any more trouble. Paul says, “Who are you
Lord?” If he knew who Jesus was, why would he ask this? That's
ridiculous; that's contradictory; that's irrational.
Paul is asking the questions for identification purposes and Jesus says,
“I am Jesus of Nazareth.” That's how Jesus identifies himself in terms of
His humanity and in terms of the One who walked on the earth thirty-three years
teaching consistently that He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament passages
related to the Messiah. He doesn't say, “I'm Jesus, the Messiah.”
He doesn't say, “I'm Jesus Christ”, which means the Messiah. He says,
“I'm Jesus of Nazareth.” He's connecting the dots right away. He
doesn't say I am the One who was crucified because I claimed to be the Son of
God.
Paul got the message right away. Then Paul says, “Those that were
with me saw the light and were afraid.” What's interesting is that in all
three of these accounts Paul says those with him saw the light. What you
hear from the liberals is they say, “Well, this was internal. Paul had a
hallucination. It's all inward inside his head between his ears.”
But the statement that in all these passages that while those with him didn't
hear the specific words that Jesus said, they heard someone speaking but the
words were inarticulate to them. They saw a light but they couldn't see
clearly who was being revealed in the light because it wasn't for them.
The fact they saw the light and heard the sound tells us that this is an
objective event that was not a psychological apparition that was between Paul's
ears. “Those with me saw the light and were afraid.” They're not
just looking at Paul on the ground as if he had a seizure and were asking,
“Let's call
So he says, “Those that were with me were afraid but they did not hear
the voice that spoke to me.” Other passages say they heard so what's the
contradiction? Well, one is that they heard the sound of the voice but
they didn't hear the specific words that were said, much as if you may be in
one room and you hear someone talking in another room, you know there's someone
there but you don't hear their words clearly enough to have any idea what they
are saying or even identifying who the speaker is. They the sound of a
voice but they didn't hear specifically the content of what was being
said. So Paul says, “I said, 'what should I do, Lord'? And the Lord said,
“Go into
Now by this point Jesus has identified himself. This is the point Paul
believed in Jesus. But what Paul says is the result of the fact he has
believed in Jesus. He's had his moment of faith alone in Christ alone and
as a result of that he says, “Okay, Lord, I'm convinced. What do I do
now?” He is directed to go into
In verse 11 Paul says, “And since I could not see from the glory of that
light…” [he was blinded by it]... he's led by the hand into
Let's turn to Acts 26 now. In Acts 22 Paul is standing before the
crowd in
The procurator at this time is Felix and when he appears before Felix,
Felix is somewhat sympathetic to him. Paul plays his trump card in
chapter 25 and calls for an appeal to
In verse 1 of chapter 26, “Then Agrippa said to Paul, 'you're permitted
to speak for yourself.'” So Paul stretched out his hand and gave an apologeta,
a rational, apologetic defense of his belief. That's all apologetics is:
giving a rational, articulated defense for what you believe and why you believe
it. He says, “I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall
answer for myself before you concerning all the things of which I am accused by
the Jews, especially because you are an expert on all matters concerning the
customs of the Jews.” Now he is not pandering to Agrippa at this
point.
Agrippa is a grandson of Herod the Great and he does know Jewish custom
and Jewish law. He was considered one of the better Herodian rulers so
Paul is making an honest statement and he is appealing to his knowledge about
Jewish law and custom. He says in verse 4, “My manner of life from my
youth, which was among my own nation in
He continues, “...all the Jews know. They knew me from the first
if they were willing to testify that according to the strictest sect of our
religion, I lived a Pharisee.” So he was a highly observant Pharisee.
Josephus says there were only about
So Paul goes on to say, “...now I stand and am judged for the hope of
the promise made by God to our fathers.” Notice what he does here.
He's talking to a Jew. When he's talking to Gentiles, he goes back to
creation but when he's talking to Jews he goes back to Father Abraham.
The Jews had a problem understanding the monotheism of the Old Testament and
the historicity and accuracy of Genesis 1 – 11. So he can start with
Abraham. And that's where he starts this. He locates this in the
Abrahamic promise that was made by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “the promise
of the twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day for this hope
sake.” So what's the hope? That God is going to give them the land
and they're going to experience the prosperity and blessing God intends to give
the Jewish people but they haven't experienced it yet because they haven't been
obedient. They haven't accepted the gospel. When they were obedient
in the Old Testament they experienced a measure of that. But that's the
hope of the promise.
It's the Abrahamic promise and it included from what Paul said to the
Jews earlier, the hope of resurrection. The Sadducees rejected this
but that's what Paul means when he says, “I am accused by the Jews. Why
should it be considered incredible by you that God raises the dead?” See
he nails it. He goes right to the core issue that the Old Testament
promise focuses on a resurrection. Paul explains that he was teaching
about the resurrection. That's what the Bible teaches about the
promise. Why does it upset people when you teach that God can raise people
from the dead? It's all through the Old Testament scriptures.
He says that he got caught up in that trap and thought that he must do
many things contrary to Jesus of Nazareth like he also did in
He goes on in verse 10, “And this also I did in Jerusalem and many of
the saints I shut up in prison, having received from the chief priests, when
they were put to death, I voted against them and often in every
synagogue. We see that Christians are still meeting in synagogues with
Jews who don't believe in Jesus. Christianity is still considered part of
Judaism at this point. But it is splitting. Those who had accepted
Jesus Christ and those who hadn't were still meeting together in the
synagogues.
So he's going in to weed them out and identify them and compelling them
to blaspheme, to deny Jesus. And he says, “In a seeming rage against
them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.” He's chasing
them. He is just on crusader arrogance to the max. And he says in verse
12, “While thus occupied I journeyed to
Now there's some new information. We see here that Paul has had
more time to talk about what happened and so he adds that not only did he see
the light that knocked him down but it knocked down everyone around him.
Why is that important? It shows that according to the only historical
accounts we have, it is an objective event. It's something that wasn't
between Paul's ears. This is why the authority of Luke and the authority
of the writers of Scriptures is constantly attacked because if you can do away
with the only documentary evidence we have and destroy that, then its all just
guess work. And so it's important.
I've gotten this from a Jewish friend. We have discussions now and
then. I let him always initiate because I think that's when he feels
comfortable and in control and he'll start asking questions. Once the
gate opens, it's not just one question, it's like twenty. I'll just say
“Stop. Let's just deal with one. You can no longer say with any
seriousness that the New Testament was written three hundred years after Jesus
lived. In fact, liberals who don't believe the New Testament or the Bible
is what it claims to be believe that it was written in the first century.
There are copies, quotations from almost all the New Testament books within the
first 50 years of the death of the last apostle. This was all written in
the first century.” I then move the ball down the field maybe one
foot or six inches at a time. Sometimes that's all you can do. You
settle for limited objectives and you make sure you move the ball down the
field and don't get sacked in the backfield and lose twenty yards because
you're not prepared.
So Paul is giving this information...clear and objective. He heard
a voice speaking to him in the Hebrew language. New information.
Jesus spoke Hebrew to Paul. I think Hebrew is going to be the language in
Heaven. Maybe we ought to start learning now. “Saul, Saul, why are
you persecuting me?” And here this line is added, “It's hard to kick
against the goads.” A goad was a long stick that was pointed at one end
that was used to prod oxen and other domestic animals so they would move and
not just stand there and eat. The idea here is that every time Paul heard
the gospel, he's being goaded, he's being pricked. God is pushing him in
some direction and sticking him with the truth of the gospel. Paul is
resisting it over and over so God asks how he's going to kick against the goads
all the time. And he knew it. God is saying, “In your soul you know
this. Don't give me that stuff that you just don't know. And you're
just trying to cover it up but you know the truth and you're just suppressing
it in unrighteousness.
Verse 15, Paul says “Who are you Lord.” He answers, “I am Jesus
whom you are persecuting [notice here he doesn't say Jesus of Nazareth but that
would be the full statement.] And then we have additional information
given. Jesus said to him, “Rise and stand on your feet for I have
appeared to you for this purpose.” At this point Christ gives him his
commission as an apostle. He says, “...to make you a minister and a
witness.” In the introduction to Acts I said this is a key word in Acts.
The Church is to be 'a witness to
Paul fits in that pattern. “A witness both to the things you have
seen and the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you
from the Jewish people as well as to the Gentiles to whom I now send
you.” Now Jewish isn't in the original text but the implication is there
from the original language and he says, “...to open their eyes and to turn them
from darkness to light, and the power of Satan to God that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith
in Me.” This is an important verse and we'll get there in due time.
Notice that Paul is given this commission to be the apostle to the
Gentiles. That's his commission. Then he goes on in verse 20 to
talk about what happened afterwards. Paul says in Galatians 1 when he is
talking to the Galatians later on after his first missionary journey that he
identifies his source of the gospel. “I neither received it from man...”
He's not saying he didn't get additional information but he didn't get the
gospel from a human being. His core understanding of the gospel that
convinced him of the truth of the gospel did not come from a human witness.
“I did not receive it from man nor was I taught it from man but it came through
the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ is the One who revealed it
to him on the road to
Then in Galatians