Deliverance

Acts 8:1 Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. 3 As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

If you can imagine placing your sin in a socially-acceptable environment, in which your sin is not only encouraged but rewarded in every way, than that sin becomes a raging flame unto death. Gasoline on fire, so to speak.

Normally, morality keeps all of this in check, but every so often in human history, the social mores become so bent that what would normally be thought of as abhorrent is not only accepted – it is rewarded. Think Nazi Germany, for example. Think Soviet Russia, for example. Think Saul, for example.

While I agree it is difficult to place the writer of the majority of the books in the New Testament in this context, it is true nonetheless. Saul had an unbridled passion for death and destruction of the early church. He was fueled by a protectionist prejudice, empowered by Satan, and emboldened and rewarded by both the state and public opinion.

There is no telling how much Saul was paid to arrest and kill people simply because they believed in Jesus. He became the defender of evil against the good.

Acts 8:5 Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. 6 And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.

There is a revelation of something new at work in all of mankind in Philip going down to Samaria. He is, in a sense, an ‘anti-Saul.’ Everything Saul was fighting to preserve – (at this time in his life) – was being un-done by a wholesale change of heart among this growing group of Jewish-Christians. The prejudice and hatred by culture Saul was seeking to preserve was being opposed and destroyed by men like Philip, who were alive in Christ Jesus. Philip was seeking to save Samaritans! This is unthinkable!

Of all the indications of the change of heart produced in men by Christ, this may have been the most powerful of early indicators that the world was being turned upside-down. No man would be excluded from the opportunity to come to Christ. There was no culture beneath the dignity of Christ, (not even the Samaritans,) and no sin too great for Christ to heal, (as we shall see – not even Saul’s.)

- Pastor Bill