16
Sketches from the Life of Paul
evidence, and relentlessly urging on the persecution of the believers in
Christ.
He was in lonely seclusion; he had no communication with the
church; for they had been warned of the purpose of his journey to
Damascus by the believers in Jerusalem; and they believed that he was
acting a part the better to carry out his design of persecuting them.
He had no desire to appeal to the unconverted Jews; for he knew they
would not listen to or heed his statements. He seemed to be utterly
shut out from human sympathy; and he reflected, and prayed with a
thoroughly broken and repentant spirit.
Those three days were like three years to the blind and conscience-
smitten Jew. He was no novice in the Scriptures, and in his darkness
and solitude he recalled the passages which referred to the Messiah,
and traced down the prophecies, with a memory sharpened by the con-
viction that had taken possession of his mind. He became astonished
at his former blindness of understanding, and at the blindness of the
Jews in general, in rejecting Jesus as the promised Messiah. All now
seemed plain to him, and he knew that it was prejudice and unbelief
which had clouded his perceptions, and prevented him from discerning
in Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah of prophecy.
This wonderful conversion of Saul demonstrates in a startling man-
ner the miraculous power of Christ in convicting the mind and heart of
man. Saul had verily believed that to have faith in Jesus was virtually
to repudiate the law of God and the service of sacrificial offerings.
[28]
He had believed that Jesus had himself disregarded the law, and had
taught his disciples that it was now of no effect. He believed it to be
his duty to strive with his utmost power to exterminate the alarming
doctrine that Jesus was the Prince of life; and with conscientious zeal
he had become a persevering persecutor of the church of Christ.
But Jesus, whose name of all others he most hated and despised,
had revealed himself to Saul, for the purpose of arresting him in his
mad career, and of making, from this most unpromising subject, an
instrument by which to bear the gospel to the Gentiles. Saul was
overwhelmed by this revelation, and perceived that in opposing Jesus
of Nazareth, he had arrayed himself against the Redeemer of the world.
Overcome by a sense of his guilt, he cried out, “Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do?” Jesus did not then and there inform him of the work