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The language of the king was the language of a scornful and contemptuous rejection of the idea that he could become Christian. "Am I to sink to so low a condition as that?" The two words rendered "almost" mean "in a short time," or "with little effort," i.e., easily. This was the most critical moment in Agrippa's life. He was challenged by the apostle; he answered with a sneer.

I. HOW UNEXPECTED AND SUDDEN IS THE COMING OF THE DECISIVE HOUR OF DESTINY AND DIVINE VISITATION.

1. Herod Agrippa came to Caesarea on a visit of ceremony and pleasure. The prisoner offered a diversion in the midst of the gaiety. The king's presence gave a chance to Festus of extricating himself from a dilemma, for he did not know how to state a case. It never entered into their minds that the hour spent in hearing Paul would be an hour big with destiny. Agrippa was called to decide not the prisoner's fate, but his own. Forty years after he died as he had lived.

2. The mode in which the gospel was presented to him in the experience of Paul illustrates the same principle. With the same suddenness, at the height of his fame, Paul was called to decide his own fate. Now the persecutor is the persecuted preacher of the faith he once destroyed.

3. It is the same still. All life may be called a day of visitation, but there are also opportunities of a richer, rarer kind, in which we receive calls more express, solemn, weighty, decisive.

II. HOW NEAR GOD'S GRACE MAY COME TO A MAN ONLY TO BE REJECTED. Paul made a favourable impression on Agrippa, but the spiritual testimony was disdainfully rejected. How often is this history repeated.

1. There are those who are brought to acknowledge the reasonableness of Christianity, but who yet reject it as the spiritual rule of their lives. Persuasion has overpowered the intellect, but it has not overcome the pride of the heart.

2. There are those who acknowledge all Divine revelation and the marvellous beauty of the gentle life, who yet stand aloof from it and reject its grace. This does not arise from pride and self-sufficiency, but from a mean and degraded clinging to the fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

3. There are those who have neither doubts nor pride nor gross habits overcoming their convictions who yet do not become decided Christians. Some were impressed when young, but their impressions have become like the morning cloud. Subsequent impressions fare no better. The reason for this lies in the wilful waywardness of disposition. Conclusion: Almost a Christian is the equivalent of not. Almost stands without and loses all Christianity's inestimable boons.

(W. H. Davison.)

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KJV: King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.

WEB: King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe."