Acts 26:19-20

Acts 26:19

Conversion of St. Paul.

I. The conversion of St. Paul meant that he became convinced of the mission of Jesus Christ. It convinced him of that only, as he says himself, because it pleased God to reveal His Son in him, because he was brought to know that the Son of God was the Lord of his spirit and the Lord of man, and that this Son of God must be that Jesus whom he had rejected as a crucified man.

II. St. Paul's conversion was, as to its law and principle, a typical one, and the circumstances in it which are never likely to recur were designed to fix that which is universal in it more deeply in our minds. Do I mean that we all have need of a conversion such as his was? I can only answer, Wherever there is aversion, there must, I conceive, be conversion. Wherever the eye shrinks from the light, there must be some power to make it turn to the light. If we are not conscious of anything which makes us unwilling to have our deeds made manifest, I cannot admit that unconsciousness as a decisive proof that there isnothing. I rather think that those who are most desirous of truth feel most their inclination to be false, crave most for help against their falsehood. St. Paul's conversion was the joyful recognition of an Almighty Friend whom he had suspected as an enemy, and his conversion created no chasm between his earlier years and his later. It brought into unity years that had seemed to be hopelessly asunder; for now he knew that God had been with him at Tarsus, in his rabbinical studies, in his mental anguish. Periods that he would once have given the world to blot out for ever were overshadowed by a Divine love and forgiveness which made the memory of them precious to him.

III. There was a crisis in St. Paul's life. There may be a crisis in the life of every one of us. But the crisis of a fever does not determine the issue of death or of recovery. And thiscrisis is only the moment when we yield passively to the death which has been always stealing upon us and threatening to devour us, or put our trust in One who has undergone death that He might deliver us out of the jaws of it. Let the history of St. Paul's conversion teach us that we are to interpret repentance, "Turning to God." It is to have no other sense in our vocabulary.

F. D. Maurice, Sermons,1st series, p. 157.

References: Acts 26:24; Acts 26:25. T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross,p. 76. Acts 26:25. Expository Outlines on the New Testament,p. 134; Good Words,vol. iii., pp. 186, 187; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 106; vol. iii., p. 30; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 265.