In the sermon "Jesus Calls Saul," Peter Allison explores the transformative call of Saul to apostleship as depicted in Acts 9. Saul, initially empowered with authority to persecute Christians, is struck blind by a divine vision and directed to Damascus. There, Ananias, despite his initial reluctance due to Saul's notorious reputation, is instructed by God to heal Saul. This encounter showcases the elements of a divine call, emphasizing that God's calling reveals personal unworthiness, operates through grace, and is confirmed by the church. Saul’s call is underscored by his transformation from a zealous persecutor to a devoted apostle, highlighting the grace and sovereignty of God’s choice. The sermon also draws parallels between Saul's special call and the general call all Christians receive, emphasizing that those whom God calls are equipped and sanctified through suffering. Moreover, the church plays a critical role in outwardly confirming an individual's divine call, ensuring it aligns with God’s will. The message concludes with a reminder that God’s call is irrevocable and that He equips those He calls for their ministry, urging listeners to support and pray for those in ministry roles.

Please turn to Acts 9. And we will begin reading today at verse 9. Saul has just been knocked to the ground. He's seen this great light. And God has given him this command to go into Damascus.

And he arises, he's blind, and we pick up in verse 9 then with him in Damascus, hear God's Word. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him the Lord said in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Here I am, Lord.

So the Lord said to him, Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold he is praying. And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered and said, Lord I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here He has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, Go!

For he is the chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake." And Ananias went his way and entered the house, and laying his hands on him, he said, "'Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as He came, has sent Me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once, and he arose and was baptized. So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. Immediately he preached to Christ in the synagogues that He is the Son of God.

Then all who heard were amazed and said, Is this not He who destroyed those who called on His name in Jerusalem? And He has come here for that purpose that He might bring them bound to the chief priests? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ." May our petitions be received that the Lord would deliver us according to His Word. Heavenly Father, Your Word is refined, purified, refined seven times. Your Word is truth.

Sanctify us by that word this morning. Grant to us faith as we hear your word to believe it, to test put our lives upon it. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips to proclaim the riches of your grace in Christ. In His name I ask. Amen.

Well, this message about the call of Saul, Jesus' call of Saul to the Gospel ministry, his call as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a very timely message. We are in a season of seeking for the Lord to call officers in our midst and in our denomination. And so we want to look this morning at what are the elements of a call. How does one know if they are called to an office?

What does that look like? And we'll see this morning that there are many parallels between God's calling of His messengers, of His heralds, and His calling of us as Christians. We speak of one as the special call, a call to a special office, and the general call that we all have as Christians. We are a royal priesthood, the priesthood of all believers. We are called to be saints.

And so we'll see there are many parallels. And so the aspects of God's calling of Saul, there are some supernatural aspects to it, but there are many ordinary aspects to Saul's call. And in that call, we will see, Lord willing, some parallels, or many parallels, to our calling as Christians. So I think this message about Saul's call, Jesus calling Saul to his apostolic ministry is something that is important for all of us, whether we are called to a special office or not. Because whether or not we are called, any of us are called to a special office or not, we are still part of this process of God calling men to office.

Because as a congregation, we are used by the Lord to validate in an external way God's inward call of men. And so we'll see that in this passage as well. So we looked this morning then at God's Jesus' call of Saul. What does a call look like? What are the elements of a call?

And the first thing that we see when God calls a man to be His messenger is that He first shows them their own unworthiness and inability. Saul came to Damascus as a strong man, empowered with the authority to arrest and deport Christians, as Ananias says here in this passage, and as we read last week. He had the backing of the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, the high priest, as Ananias also recognizes here. He was a learned man. Saul was a learned man who studied under Gamaliel.

That would be analogous to someone holding a law degree from an Ivy League university. In Galatians, Paul tells us that he was advanced in Judaism beyond his contemporaries. Paul was rising in the corporate ladder of the priesthood and the Jewish leadership. I should say the Jewish leadership. He wasn't a priest.

He was a Pharisee. But he was rising in that corporate structure. He speaks about voting to kill these Christians. So he was a member of the Sanhedrin. He was advanced in Judaism, he says, beyond many of his contemporaries in his own nation.

Here he is. He has a prestigious training, a prestigious position, the backing of the rulers in Jerusalem. Power to deport people and arrest them. He's zealous for the traditions of the fathers. He's an important person.

He's up and coming. He's a young man. Lots of promise. He has a great career ahead of him. And suddenly, with no warning about noonday, as he's getting near Damascus, he sees a great light and he is knocked to the ground, helpless, blinded.

And we looked at his conversion last week as God calls him, sovereignly, saves him. And when he gets up, he can't see, and he has to be led into Damascus by those who just minutes before he was leading. And once he gets to Damascus, he spends three days praying and fasting. He says He didn't eat anything. Three days without sight and neither ate nor drank.

Extreme fasting. Afflicting his body. You see the ambition to be somebody, the ambition to hold a position of prominence, to be important, to have prestige and respect in a community. It will utterly destroy both a man and the ministry. Confidence that You have the ability to do great things, can also destroy the man in the ministry.

God uses people with a broken and a contrite heart. He doesn't need great academic degrees. He can use them, but he doesn't need them. He doesn't need great learning. He can use it.

And he does use it, but he doesn't need it. And he doesn't need great confidence in our abilities. That's what the corporate America looks for. They look for somebody who has great self-confidence. Somebody who is assured, who has poise.

And they say, that's the person that we want to lead us. But we know God doesn't look on the outward. He looks on the heart. And He uses those of a broken and a contrite heart. And so those whom God would call, He first shows to them their own unworthiness and their own inability.

He first breaks them and then remakes them. Spurgeon said of himself in his lectures to his students, Spurgeon, as you know, is considered one of the greatest, most eloquent speakers of this century, or the last century. He said, I very frequently have to bemoan or mourn over my non-success and shortcomings as a speaker." Secondly, we see that God's calling is by grace. God's calling is by grace. So remember, grace is what's not deserved.

It's not earned. Work is the opposite of grace. It is what is owed. It is what is earned. When you do a day's labor, you have owed a day's wages.

It's your right. It's what you've earned. Grace is what you haven't earned. God's calling is by grace. Saul didn't deserve to be called an apostle.

To be called as an apostle. This chapter, remember, opens with Saul breathing out threats and murders against the Lord's disciples. He says in Galatians that he was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man. He had done nothing to deserve or earn a call as an apostle. His great learning didn't earn him the right to be called an apostle.

He didn't earn this calling by anything that he did. In fact, everything he did would have said he wasn't worthy of such a calling. He was a murderer of the Lord's disciples. A blasphemer of the Lord's name. And so, Paul acknowledged this gracious nature of God's call in Galatians 1 verse 15 by saying, God called me through His grace that I might preach among the Gentiles.

It's nothing that is deserved. Third, we see that those who are called are chosen by God. They are first chosen by God. Chosen by God. God told Ananias, go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine.

You see, God chose Saul. Saul didn't grow up and decide one day to be an apostle. He didn't think of that as a career choice. God called him, and as He says in Galatians, God set him apart from his mother's womb. He told Timothy in 1 Timothy 1, 12, and I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me because He counted me faithful, putting me into ministry." You see, the ambitions of others, Even the good ambitions of others is not sufficient grounds for a call to the ministry.

How many people have gone into the ministry because their mother or their father desired that they have a child or a grandchild to be a pastor or be a missionary. And they wanted to, thought they should live up to that desire. No. Those whom God calls are chosen by God. And it's a worthy ambition.

It's certainly a prayer that we as parents and grandparents and great grandparents ought to be praying that the Lord would raise up from our offspring those who will be His messengers. But that by itself is completely inadequate and insufficient basis for a call. Those who are called are chosen by God. And those whom God calls, He sovereignly and irresistibly brings into the ministry. Sometimes, despite their trying to run away like Jonah did.

My experience as an 18-year-old considering what to do, the ministry was something at the forefront of my mind because my father was a pastor, he was a minister of the Gospel. And so you sense that maybe that ought to be something I should do. But I didn't think I could come up with something to say every week. I was an 18 year old, and I said, how could I do that? And I didn't want to be poor, and I had great interest in the math and sciences.

And so that's what I did for the next 20 plus years. And I never ever dreamt in those 20 years that one day I would be preaching every week. But you see, those whom God calls, He irresistibly brings into the ministry through circumstances that are utterly beyond our control. And even after I started preaching each week, again, through circumstances beyond my control, and there's at least a couple of you here that remember those days, I thought it would just be temporary. This was just a temporary thing.

I would fill it temporarily. I had absolutely no intention that this would ever be permanent. I was just filling in until we could find someone else. But after two candidates came and went and I was still there, then I slowly began to acknowledge that the Lord was calling me. And I could not be disobedient to that call.

See, because those who are called by God have a God-given duty. Ananias received a vision in verse 15 in which God first called His name. Ananias. Ananias. Ananias responded with what every servant of God should respond with.

Here I am, Lord. Here I am, Lord. You called, I'm here. So I ask you children among us this morning, when your father or mother calls your name, how do you respond? Do you show up and you say, here I am, Mom.

Here I am, Dad. What do you want me to do? Or do you continue doing what you're doing and wait for something further? Wait to be given some direction? When the prophet Samuel was a little boy, he heard someone calling his name in the middle of the night, and he thought it was Eli.

And so he went running to Eli. Samuel didn't just say from his bed, yes, huh, what? No, he got out of bed and he went running to Eli. And he said, Here I am. Here I am.

You called for me. Here I am. You remember the story. Eli said, I didn't call you. Go back to bed.

It happened again. And then Eli recognized it was the Lord calling him. So he told Samuel, say, speak Lord for your servant hears. So when Ananias answered and said, here I am Lord, Ananias wasn't just saying the obvious, that I'm right over here and I'm not over there. I'm over here.

No, Ananias is saying, what he's saying is, I am ready to do whatever it is that you're calling me to do. And that's the way we should answer the Lord's call. I am here. Here I am. I am ready to do whatever it is you are calling me to do.

And that's the way your children should answer the call of your parents, because they are speaking in the place of the Lord. They are exercising authority He has given them. And when you disobey them, you're disobeying the Lord. So God tells Ananias what He wants him to do. And then all of a sudden that wasn't so easy to do.

He wasn't quite so excited about this. Now he was supposed to go to this guy who'd been murdering Christians and had power, arrest authority, and anoint him? Lay his hands on him? This is a guy who's their worst enemy. And so he pushes back a bit.

He says, but Lord, I heard from a lot of people that he's a wicked man. I've heard from a lot of people all the harm that he's done to the church in Jerusalem, and how much tragedy and sorrow he has brought to the families there by killing parents and believers and children. And now he's come here with authority to arrest and extradite believers. You want me to go to Him? But God repeats His command, go, for He is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, Kings, and the children of Israel.

See, Ananias' call was mandatory. And Saul's call was also mandatory. And notice how Ananias carries out this call, which he didn't initially want to do. He doesn't go, he doesn't say, oh well, alright, I'll go. He doesn't go to Saul and act in a gruff and disinterested manner.

But notice he comes to him, he enters the house, and how does he address this man who as far as he knows was there to kill him? He says, Brother Saul. Brother Saul. He was obeying this command not just externally because he had to, but he was obeying it from the heart. He said, well, Lord, if you are calling this man to be your chosen vessel, then he's my brother.

And he's a member of this body that I'm a member of. And I'm going to treat him like that, even though that's not what his reputation would lead me to do. That's obedience from the heart. That's obedience with understanding. And that's the only way to genuinely obey when we're called to a duty.

God's call on Saul is also mandatory. In this chapter, Luke 9, where we read last week when Saul asked, Who are you, Lord? Luke only records the first part of Jesus' answer. I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But in Acts 26, Luke records the rest of Jesus' answer, of Christ's answer, as Paul told that to King Agrippa when he was speaking before him.

And there Paul tells us that Jesus continued saying in verse 16 of that chapter, But rise, though I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness, both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you." And Paul said, Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to this heavenly vision. When God called Saul, it was a mandatory call. It was a duty. God's calling on your life is also your duty. Whatever He has called you to, He calls us to many things.

He may call us to be fathers or mothers, husbands and wives. He may call us to be servants of some corporation or other callings. But what He calls us to do is mandatory. You might think, You mean I don't get to choose to do what I want to do with my life? No.

No. We don't get to choose what we do with our life. Saul didn't get to choose what He would do with His life. God called Him. God chose what Saul would do with his life.

And Saul was not disobedient to that call. Just like Saul didn't get to choose what he did with his life, we don't get to choose either. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9.16, Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel. Woe is me. He could not disobey God's call on his life.

There was a time when Jeremiah was very discouraged. And he wanted to stop preaching because people were just attacking him. And everything he said, he was being treated kind of like President Trump is. They were accusing him of treason and so on, and they were putting him in jail, in a dungeon. And he told the Lord in Jeremiah 20 verse 7, I am in derision daily.

Everyone mocks me for when I spoke, I cried out, I shouted violence and plunder because the word of The Lord was made to me a reproach and a derision daily." And then Jeremiah says, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name. But then he says, but the Word was in my heart like a burning fire shot up in my bones. I was weary of holding it back and I could not." Those whom God has called to preach His Word have a fire in their bones that no amount of mocking and difficulties and reproaches and derisions and gainsayers can destroy, can put out that fire. There is a sense of duty to do what God has called them to do and that will not let them stop. Now Those whom God calls are confirmed by the church.

God gives to men an inward call in the form of a desire. A desire born of right motives. But then that inward call, when God calls somebody, will be validated, confirmed by the church. Notice that in verse 12, 15, and 26, there are these parallel revelations being given to Ananias and to Saul. According to Acts 26, in the vision that Saul had on the road to Damascus, Jesus told Saul that he was God's minister to preach the Gospel.

It's not in this chapter, but it is in Jesus' words that Paul gives in Acts 26. And that is exactly what Jesus also tells to Ananias, for He is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. So God gave in a vision to Ananias the same call that He gave to Saul on the road to Damascus. So that Ananias could come and confirm that call to Saul. But there's also a second parallel where God confirms to Ananias what He's telling Saul.

God told Ananias to go to this street called Strait and inquire at a specific house for Saul, who would be praying. And then He told Ananias that Saul had seen a vision of a man named Ananias laying hands on Him so that He might receive His sight. Do you see how God is giving the message to Saul and also the message to Ananias? And so there is this confirmation of the call. When Ananias is told to go lay hands on Saul, Saul has also been told somebody by the name of Ananias is going to come and lay hands on you, so that when it happens, it's a confirmation.

It's this dual confirmation. But it's also confirmed through the broader church. So Saul is not left to wonder about this vision that he had. Am I really called? Is this for real?

Remember, Peter is delivered from that time in prison and he thinks it's all a dream. It's not until the angel departs and the light's gone and he's out on the street that he realizes, no, this really happened. And so Saul might have been wondering, is this real? Am I just hallucinating? And so having this confirmation that God gave to Ananias, Saul isn't left to wonder about the reality of His call and His vision.

But it's also, I say, conformed through the broader church. And verse 20 says that the church was amazed when they heard Him. Just like they were amazed at Jesus' teaching, because He taught with authority. And the People were amazed when he as a child discussed in the temple things of Christ. The church was amazed.

They recognized his gifting. Verse 21 says that Saul increased in strength and confounded the Jews. There is evidence to the church that he was called. His call was apparent to those in the church who heard him. And so God confirms in this inward call of Saul, through the outward recognition of that call by the church.

See, there are many people who have seminary training, Bible college degrees, and so on, who know Greek and Hebrew and so on, but the church has not yet recognized that call. And that's an important part of a minister's call, that a body of people recognize a man as someone God has gifted to bring His Word. And so it's right and proper that until that happens, a man is not placed into a church. So this completely rules out somebody hanging out their shingle and just saying, I'm the church of such and such. Rather, men that God calls, that call is confirmed by the church.

And those whom God calls are willing to wait. Many years sometimes for God to confirm that call. And in my case, it was very different. But some people like David, God called David to be king of Israel. And he waited for many years for Israel to recognize that He was the rightful King.

But He waited patiently. He didn't go out and try to seize power and say, well, God has called me. You have to bow before Me. He waited. He waited until the nation made Him the King.

Until they recognized that God had called him. And they of their own voluntary will made him their king. And the elders, you remember, the elders came together and they were united. First, he had just the tribe of Judah, just his own tribe that recognized him as king. And he patiently waited.

He didn't go out on a warpath seeking to conquer the rest of the land and force them to recognize His call. He waited. So those whom God calls will wait until there is an outward confirmation of that call by the people of God. And while they are waiting, they will be busy. Busy using the gifts that God has given them.

Busy working where God has placed them. And waiting for the Lord in His timing to confirm their call. We next see that those whom God calls are ordained by the laying on of hands, prayer, and fasting. The laying on of hands, prayer, and fasting. Ananias laid hands on Saul that he might receive the Holy Spirit.

Paul talks about Timothy not neglecting the gift that is in him through the laying on of hands of the presbytery, the gift of prophecy in the laying on of hands. See, even though God may call somebody, God called Saul, he didn't run out on his own. The church confirmed that call, and then he was ordained by the laying on of hands. This is what Hebrews tells us about the ordinary office of a high priest. And it applied it to Christ as well.

For every high priest taken among men is appointed for men. In Hebrews 5 verse 1, every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men. There has to be an appointment in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices to sins. In verse 4 it says, and no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God just as Aaron was. No man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.

So it has to be a call. And that call has to be validated by the church and confirmed through the ordination and laying on of hands. But here's what's amazing. This is even true of Christ. So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become high priest.

But it was He who said of Him, You are My Son today. I have begotten You. This is nothing that any person can take to themselves. God's call is a holy thing. And it's very wrong for people to presume or to take upon themselves this call.

Of course, it's also wrong when God has called somebody to not recognize, or when God has validated this call to not recognize that call. This is a significant matter. And it's not something that should be lightly entered into. Paul spent three days in prayer and fasting prior to this. And in Acts 13, when the elders are ordained, we see again that there is prayer and fasting.

In verse 2, as they're going to set apart Barnabas and Saul, They ministered to the Lord and fasted. And the Lord Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them. And then having fasted and prayed, They laid hands on them and sent them away. And in chapter 14, when they appointed elders in every city, and that word appointed means to elect by a show of hands. So the apostles oversaw the election, but it was the churches that elected them.

And prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they believed. You see, this is an important matter. It's a very solemn matter. And it's very appropriate that this occasion be marked with solemn prayer and fasting by the church lest they lay hands on someone unhastily or unwisely. This is a lifelong calling.

This isn't just taking another job. This is a lifelong calling. And it shouldn't be entered into lightly. Those whom God calls, He calls for life. Romans 11, 29, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

This was spoken in the context of salvation, but it's true of all calling of God and all the gifts of God. God doesn't call people from darkness into light and then uncall them. God doesn't call men to be His heralds and endow them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit to do so and then uncall them." This is a lifelong calling. And it should be entered into with all necessary sobriety, prayer, and fasting, and seeking the Lord. Here's a big one.

God sanctifies through suffering those whom He calls. God told Ananias, He is a chosen vessel of mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel, for I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake. And this is true even of Christ. Hebrews 5 that we looked at earlier goes on to say, "...Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. Perfected through obedience, or through suffering.

Learned obedience through suffering. Perfected through suffering. Just look at all the times that Paul in his instruction to Timothy, who was his son in the faith. Timothy was somebody that Paul had discipled and mentored and brought into this call as a pastor. Look at all the things he says in 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy 1, 8. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but be a partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God. For which cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed." Therefore, in 2 Timothy 2-3, you must endure hardness. That's an imperative.

You must endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You must endure affliction. 2 Timothy 2-9, Wherein I suffered trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds, but the Word of God is not bound. Therefore, I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." 2 Timothy 2-12, if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will also deny us.

2 Timothy 3.10, But you have fully known my doctrine, my manner of life, my purpose, my faith, my long-suffering charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions which came into me at Antioch, Iconium, at Lystra, what persecutions I endured, but out of them the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution." And then in 2 Timothy 4 verse 5, but be watchful in all things. Endure affliction. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry.

You see, one who is called should expect hardship. In Paul's letter to Timothy, he commands Timothy to preach, to exhort, to rebuke, to admonish, and all these important things related to the call of a minister. But those were only commanded once. There's one command In that book that's repeated three times, and that is you must endure hardship. You must endure suffering.

It's an imperative. Endure affliction. Be ready for them. Have your mind girded. You aren't necessarily doing something wrong if you have hardships and trials.

Paul faced many, many hardships. He faced emotional hardships. Paul had co-workers forsake him, turn their back on Him, leave to join the other side. He had enemies mock His abilities. People resist His teaching.

Condemn it. There was physical hardship. He had a thorn in the flesh that he says was given to him for his spiritual benefit. He engaged in the depravations, afflictions of spiritual warfare. And in 2 Corinthians 11, he recounts some of these afflictions.

He's defending His apostleship and He says, Are these other people ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more. In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often from the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have been in the deep, in journeys often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and in toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness, besides all the other things which come upon me daily, my deep concern for the churches.

Those whom God calls, He sanctifies through hardship. Hardship is a necessary part of warfare. A good soldier does his best, most effective work, often in the context of the greatest hardships, not in the times of rest and ease. Think of the great military victories that have been won by a willingness to endure hardship. Think of Thomas Jackson's great victory at Chancellorsville.

It was won because his army endured a hardship. The Northern general thought it would be impossible to endure. To be able to march all night as he marched over the distance that he marched and still be able to fight a war. They didn't think that was possible until he showed up somewhere where nobody thought it would be possible for him to show up. They weren't expecting it.

Or Hannibal won a great victory because his soldiers endured a hardship that the Roman generals thought was impossible. Hardship is a necessary part of a call. Pray for your pastors then. Pray that God would sustain them in the afflictions that they will face. But those whom God calls, He also equips.

Notice in verse 17, Paul is filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 19, he spends days with the disciples. When he's received food, he's strengthened, and he spends days with the disciples in Damascus. He told the Galatians, When it pleased God who called me through His grace that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went to Arabia and returned again to Damascus." And if we synchronize these passages in 1 Corinthians 1 and Acts 9 and 11, we can, I think, piece together a rough timeline of Paul's life? Galatians tells us three years and fourteen years.

After three years, he went up to Jerusalem. But he first says, I went to Arabia and then came back to Damascus. And I believe that happens here right between verse 19 and verse 20. Luke leaves out that trip to Arabia. He spent some days with the disciples of Damascus.

Some days seems like a short amount of time. Paul said then he went to Arabia. We're not told. And then returned to Damascus. And I think that's where verse 20 picks up then with immediately or straightway or right away, He preached Christ.

He comes back from Arabia. We're not told how long he stays there. He could have been there months, a year. Some people think he was there the three years, because in Galatians it says, then after three years I went up to Jerusalem. And I believe that we'll get to that later on, but it says, verse 23, after many days were passed.

I think that's the three years that he speaks of in Galatians 1. So We're not told how long he was in Arabia, but we are told that he went to Arabia and that while he was in Arabia, Christ revealed the Gospel to him. He didn't go up, He said, to Jerusalem to get it from the Apostles. I believe when he says he went to Arabia, some people believe that he just kind of went into the region surrounding Damascus because in that day it was called Arabia. But in the same book, Galatians, Paul says that Mount Sinai is in Arabia.

Mount Sinai is where God revealed Himself to Moses. Remember when he was watching the sheep? And He gave him His call at Mount Horeb. And it's where God revealed Himself to Elijah and renewed His call Mount Horeb. And I think it is where God instructed Paul in the Gospel and gave to him the Gospel.

He received it from the Lord. He didn't get it from other apostles. He didn't go up to the apostles in Jerusalem for three years after His call. Those lastly whom God calls do have a desire born of right motives. In verse 20, immediately, immediately He preached the Christ, the Christ, the Messiah, in the synagogues that He is the Son of God.

You see, God makes His servants whom He calls willing. He gives them a desire, a willingness, to follow this call. He gifts them. He sanctifies them through affliction. He confirms that call outwardly through the church.

But He also gives a desire born of right motives for that duty. He makes His servants willing. It's just like God makes those whom He calls in salvation willing when He draws us to Him. We who are an entity who are haters of Christ, the Lord, when He subdues us, makes us willing to come. So that we willingly cry out to Him.

And so God makes His servants willing. And Paul immediately then begins to exercise this call. Well, we can learn from this something of what it is to be called to an office. And as we evaluate officer candidates, as you see people that have these gifts, then make a formal nomination to the session, but also encourage that person that you see. Affirm to them the gifts that you see them exercising, the gifts that you see that God has given them that they are exercising in the body, because you play a part in God calling men to office.

And so as you see that, affirm that. Encourage that. Pray for that. Pray that the Lord would develop those gifts. Of course, we are also all called as Christians.

So many of these aspects of Paul's call and the call of ministers is also true of our call as Christians. We are called to suffer affliction. Our calling as Christians is irrevocable. God will preserve and God enables all those whom He has called to persevere. All those He has justified, He sanctifies and all those whom He sanctifies, He glorifies.

And there's also an equipping. The Lord will equip us. For whatever He has called us to do, He will equip us regardless of our natural abilities. You know, I know a man who was an elder in the Covenant Presbyterian Church, the CPC, in the very beginning, one of the nine original elders. He's now departed to be with the Lord.

But there was a time when He could not read. He was illiterate. But the Lord called him to this ministry. And the Lord equipped him. And I remember having a conversation with Him not too long before He died.

Just amazed at how literate He was. How gracious He was. How evident the Lord's equipping of Him was. Somebody who had absolutely no formal education. The Lord equips us for whatever He calls us to do.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are the Sovereign, that You irresistibly call us and draw us to You and equip us for what You call us to do and You give to us all resource, every resource that we need in Christ is ours. Lord, may we possess what You have given to us. May we use what You have given to us. May we remember each day that we have died with you, we have been crucified with you.

And this life that we now live in the flesh, we live by faith in the Son of God who has loved us and given Himself for us. May we Lord be those who walk by faith, who believe Your Word even when we do not understand it, who follow You even when we do not see where You are leading us, or what You are calling us to. We ask, Lord, that You would equip us, and that You would give to us a zeal for Your glory, and a contentment with where You have called us in whatever station or place you have given to us. For Lord, our work is not ours but yours. And we leave in your hands all of the results.

We ask that as stewards of what you have entrusted to us. We might be faithful to use it In Jesus name Amen