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When Saul, in answer to his inquiry, "What wilt Thou have me to do?" was told that he was to go as best he could into the city and seek for further advice there, it was a trial of his faith which ranks alongside of that of Abraham. For where in the great town of Damascus was there a place or a comrade to receive a lonely blind man into shelter? Who would tell him his duty? But hope begins with any Christian the moment he follows up the light he has.

I. WHAT WAS THERE IN THIS STORY SPECIALLY BELONGING TO SAUL AND HENCE OF NO ESSENTIAL VALUE IN ORDINARY USE NOW?

1. It arrests the imagination to think of such a reception for one who had reasonably supposed he would come in triumph as the Inquisitor-general from Jerusalem. But it is not necessary for anyone now to pass through those personal trials.

2. His intense fright and prostration. The words "trembling and astonished" do not belong to the Bible. Indeed, much more than this is left out of verses 5 and 6 (see R.V.). In his own accounts of his conversion, given before Agrippa, and before the mob, he did use the expression, "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks," and he did ask, "What shall I do?" but he never in any instance said he trembled, for he was not that sort of man. He was contrite and submissive, but he was not scared.

3. His vision. We must carefully discriminate between what belonged to this man's commission as an apostle, and what belonged to his conversion as a man. If the Lord ever makes a new apostle, it is possible He may deal with another man in the same way; but it is not necessary to see a luminous sign, nor to hear a supernatural voice, in order to be a faithful, honest, and even an assured follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

4. His physical catastrophes. The circumstances of any conversion are quite separate from the conversion itself. It cannot be a necessity now to be violently thrown on the ground. Suffering is not necessarily repentance.

II. WHAT WAS THERE WHICH WAS ESSENTIAL AND EXEMPLARY FOR PERMANENT USE?

1. His entire intellectual acceptance of the doctrine of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of men. And that carried the whole Christian creed with it. Jesus Himself pressed this necessity in His name (Luke 6:46). He admitted it to be His own rightful designation (John 13:13). And the apostles made it to be the form of doctrinal confession of Christianity (Acts 2:36). When Saul saw Jesus, he suspected his terrible error, and asked, "Who art Thou, Lord?" And when the answer came, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest," then he knew the truth, and took it to his heart as he called that Being, knowing Him to be Jesus — Jehovah.

2. His immediate commencement of first Christian duty (ver. 9). The earliest low cry of an infant is the definite evidence of life: it breathes. So we sing, "Prayer is the Christian's vital breath." Paul knew the importance of an evidence like this; for he wrote afterwards about it (1 Timothy 2:8).

3. His change of purpose. Saul's life swung around instantly and entirely both in feeling and in fact. He had loved to persecute Christians: now he loved to love them. He had hated and derided Jesus of Nazareth; now he accepted Him heartily as the promised Messiah. He had been "exceedingly mad"; now he was commensurately humble and penitent. He had been under commission from the chiefs of his bigoted nation; now be said simply enough, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"

4. His one ambition. He had been thinking that he verily did God service by his laborious and passionate zeal in persecution; now he kept at work for the mere joy of doing some loving thing for God. He rested by faith in the merits of a Redeemer crucified (Galatians 2:20). He put off the old man, he put on the new (Colossians 3:9, 10). He now desired only to be found in Christ, and to be found like Christ. In one lengthy passage of an epistle, he discloses his clear purpose, his passionate wish, all condensed into a single paragraph which really is worth studying word by word (Philippians 3:7-14).

5. He gave himself at once by public committal to the friends of the Lord Jesus. He told over and over again the story of his conversion (Galatians 1:20-24). At Damascus he was "with the disciples" (ver. 19). Even under cold prejudice at Jerusalem, he "assayed to join himself to the disciples" (ver. 26).

(C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

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KJV: And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus.

WEB: He took food and was strengthened. Saul stayed several days with the disciples who were at Damascus.