Do you believe God is? Do you believe the Bible is true, that Jesus Christ is the Messiah? Yes.
You say, "Just give me one little reason why you believe it."
Well let me go to Saul of Tarsus -- who became the Apostle Paul -- [it] is one of the great testimonies of the accuracy of scripture.
Let me give you some of the background here. Saul of Tarsus was his Jewish name.
Paul, the apostle Paul, was his Christian name, but Saul of Tarsus was a great Jewish leader.
He studied under Gamaliel
who was the grandson of Hillel a great Jewish scholar born in Babylon.
He studied in Tarsus, which was the intellectual center of the world at that time.
He believed that Jesus was a false Messiah.
He despised Christ and he would get permission to go from city to city to city to have the Christians arrested and he would cast his vote for their death.
He despised the Christians because he thought they were propagating a false Messiah in Jesus Christ.
But something happened to Saul.
He was going to Damascus again to have the Christians thrown in jail and to cast his vote to have them to be killed,
but on the road to Damascus, something happened to him and Acts 9 verses 3-6 it describes it.
It says,
“as he, Paul, was nearing Damascus on his mission a brilliant light from heaven suddenly beamed down upon him.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?'
'Who are you sir?’ Saul asked. And the voice replied, ‘I am Jesus the one you are persecuting.
Now get up, and go into the city and you will be told what you are to do.’”
Now something happened.
Something happened in Paul’s life that literally turned his life upside down.
Now the Scriptures say he went into Jerusalem and he was struck blind and he waited and God spoke to a believer and He said, “Go to Paul.”
And he said, immediately he said, “I’m not going to go. I know the reputation of that man, what he does to Christians.”
God said, “You either go, or you’re unemployed.” And it says he went to Paul and he put his hands on his shoulders.
Can you imagine that? Here he was fearful anyway. He only went out of obedience, because here was a man who could have him killed.
And he reached out, out of obedience and he put his hand on his shoulder and he said, “Brother Saul”.
And it says his eyes were opened and he came to Christ
and he immediately started propagating Christ all over the world,
but how unique is that?
In the next segment I want to show you the implications of Saul’s conversion. And I’ll tell you this, once you learn it you will want to share it with others.