How did Saul Confound the Jews?

Tom: This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment. We’re in the Book of Acts, and last week we left off Acts:9:22But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.
See All.... Well, we have Saul - who later we’ll know as the Apostle Paul - he’s just become a believer. He was on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians, and he met Jesus Christ.

Dave: He’s been transformed completely. Amazing.

Tom: Right. Verse 22 says: “But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.” Now, he starts out right away, Dave. He’s saved, he’s healed of the blindness that came over him, and boom! he’s just right out the door. I’ve met people who have come to the Lord in spectacular ways - not quite like this, but they were instantly transformed, and their zeal with the very little that they knew or understood, they still wanted to share that with what God had done for them.

Dave: Tom, and of course Saul’s case is a bit different, because he knew the Old Testament.

Tom: Right.

Dave: Now, he has been fighting against what it says. I  mean, you can’t help but read the Old Testament and see Jesus Christ there, the Messiah, the promised Savior. And in fact, if we get over to [Acts] 17, this is how Paul preached Christ. It says here he “confounded the Jews, proving that Jesus is the Christ.” How did he do that? He went to their own scriptures. That’s the only scriptures that he had; the New Testament wasn’t written, and he said, “Look here: look what your prophets have said! Look what David said: he said the Messiah would be crucified. Look at Isaiah 53 - well, look at Isaiah:9:6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
See All...: he said the Messiah would be God! He says that the Messiah would die; He would bear our sins in His own body on the tree, then He would take the punishment that we deserve. He’s going to be crucified. Now, you guys are saying Jesus couldn’t have been the Messiah because He got crucified,” but Paul…let me just read specifically what he says: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?” 

Well, this is what Jesus did to the two on the road to Emmaus, and it says, “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

So Paul is arguing, “Look, the prophets said the Messiah would be crucified. In fact, the prophets told the very day the Messiah would ride into Jerusalem on that donkey. You can’t escape that, guys.” And he proved from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. 

Tom, I’ve probably quoted it many times, but I love Acts:18:28For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.
See All.... This is Apollos. It says, “He publicly convinced the Jews, proving from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.” Now, we can prove this from the Bible. There’s no question about it. That doesn’t mean that then everybody says, “Oh, well, I guess you’re right! There’s plenty of proof for that. All the prophecies prove who the Messiah would be, and Jesus surely fulfilled the prophecies.” And then they say, “Oh, well, I want to believe in Him.” No, he proved it, and notice what the next verse says…

Tom: Well, before you get to that, did he go in with a sword, Dave? Did he go in and say, “Look, you guys, I’m converted; now you’re going to be converted”? Was this…

Dave: “Or I take your head off.”

Tom: Yeah.

Dave: No. Salvation in the Bible is believing with all your heart. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” So these people still had to believe.

Now, believe - it’s more than being intellectually convinced. I’m sure they were intellectually convinced. Paul laid out all the proof. They couldn’t deny it, but they’re not going to believe on Jesus, because that means they would have to give up their prejudices, their religious ways, everything that they have stood for in life, and they could be persecuted and killed, too, and they’re not going to take that route.

Tom: Dave, as you were alluding to the next verse - I’ll read it, but I’d like to discuss it in a way, maybe, that’s a little aside to the Scriptures, but it says, “And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him….” Now, Paul comes in - he’s just sharing information with them. He’s not coercing them, he’s not armed to the teeth, whatever…

Dave: He’s proving it from the Bible. 

Tom: Right, yet the reaction to that…he’s putting his life in danger. Why is it that with religion? I mean, we’ve been talking about in this program in our first segment what religion does to people sometimes, how it creates terrorists, okay? how it creates murder and mayhem and violence.

Dave: You can become very vicious. The worst wars in history have been religious wars, unfortunately, and the Muslim will say, “Yeah, what about those crusaders? Weren’t they Christians, and look what they did!” No, the crusaders were not Christians. How could I say that? Because they violated everything Jesus taught! They waved the cross, but they slaughtered Christ’s brethren, the Jews! They did it with the sword. Jesus very clearly said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight.” So His servants do not fight. 

And sadly, Tom - and we have said very little in this program, at least for a long time, about Roman Catholicism - but as you know, the popes had armies and navies for centuries during most of the Middle Ages. The popes controlled the world! They deposed emperors, they fought with armies and navies to establish a kingdom on this earth, and it still remains the wealthiest, largest kingdom that has ever been known - that is, the influence of the Catholic Church with its institutions all over the world. And world leaders, presidents, and so forth go hat in hand to visit the pope in Rome to ask favors of him.

Tom: And try and find chapter or verse to support any of this. You don’t.

Dave: So they watched the gates day and night to kill Saul, it says. So they knew the truth, but they rebelled against the truth. And Paul was not imposing this by force of arms; he didn’t get an army to quell the opposition, but it’s up to every person, and it says, “Their laying await was known to Saul, and the disciples took him by night and let him down by the wall in a basket.”

Tom: Now, Dave, why didn’t Paul just trust the Lord? Why did he have to go through this way of kind of sneaking out of town? Why didn’t he just throw his chest out and say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”? I mean, isn’t that the way that many Christians think today?

Dave: Well, some people do. It’s like walking across a busy six-lane highway or eight-lane highway at the height of rush hour traffic and closing your eyes and saying, “Well, the Lord’s going to protect me!” No, you’re putting yourself in a place where - this is called tempting the Lord. That’s why Jesus would not throw Himself from the pinnacle of the temple when Satan wanted Him to, and Satan said, “Well, the angels will catch you up and people will see that, and then they’ll know you’re the Messiah.”

Jesus said, “It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” So we don’t put ourselves knowingly in a position where God has to come through with a miracle or we’ll be killed. We do what we can with our own common sense and preparation and whatever we can do to keep out of harm’s way. 

Now, Paul - what would be the point of him just allowing these people to kill him at that point? We wouldn’t have the epistles that he wrote. 

Tom: Well, also, this was an act of humiliation, too, I think. You know, here is the great Saul, the one who was leading the persecution of the Christians, and he has to kind of sneak off into the night. So…

Dave: Mm-hmm, in a basket let down over the wall. 

Tom: Yeah.

Dave: Well, Tom, the Word of God is fantastic. We come to kind of a change in things. He’s going to go to Jerusalem now, and there the disciples won’t accept him. He tries to join them, and they say, “This is the guy who’s been persecuting us!” They’re afraid of him, but Barnabas, who became his partner, took him and brought him to the apostles, and declared how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that…what he’d been doing in Damascus, preaching the Word of God, and so forth, and he came to be accepted by the disciples at that point. 

Tom: We’ll end with v. 28: “And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem.”