The Conversion of the Holy Spirit
Acts 9:1-9
It is our 7th online worship. I wish we all could bear the fruit of endurance as a result of spiritual sincerity. I do not know who is great between Stephen and Apostle Paul, but God surely uses Paul as the greatest evangelist in the history among those who killed Stephen. There are many expressions about meeting the Lord: rebirth, repentance, regeneration, salvation, and more. The word conversion carries the meaning of turning back. Saul experienced rebirth and repentance at the same time, and people usually call this his conversion. Let us think about the conversion of the Holy Spirit.
First, people have terrifying and worthless eagerness before they experience the conversion of the Holy Spirit. In verse 1, it is said that Saul was breathing out murderous threats. At first, when the apostles were imprisoned, the religious leaders decided not to persecute the church as Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law, advised them. However, Paul thought that anyone who was crucified was lawfully a sinner as it was written in the book of Deuteronomy, and for him, that was the reason the cursed Jesus could not be the Savior. He believed that he was different from someone like Stephen because he was sinless, keeping all the Law and commands from his childhood. And then he heard that many of the Jews became Christians in an old and big city of Damascus. So this clever Saul went to the same high priest who killed Jesus for official letters to kill the Christians. In verse 2, the first letter of the word Way was capitalized because Jesus is the Way, Truth, and the Life, and that indicated the life of those Christians was to be preserved regardless of any attempts of killing them. Saul was proficient in the Law and language he was from a respectable family as a Greek diaspora. The Bible showed us that if ones eagerness comes before God, it rather hinders Gods work and becomes irrelative to His will. With exceptional background and ignorant eagerness, Saul killed Stephen, and the Pharisees killed Jesus the Creator. People, who believe to be perfect like Saul, breathe murderous threats when someone who seems to have done nothing approaches them and tell them to believe in Jesus because they are all sinners and their actions cannot take them to heaven.
Second, one is aware that he is persecuting Jesus with the conversion of the Holy Spirit.Conversion includes a meaning of a definite turn back and the change in personalities. The light of midday in wilderness is fatal to eye sight, and the brighter great light of Jesus came down to Saul. The Lord comes as light and life, but those who belong to death would get terrified when they see this light. The light of the Lord grows as the faith grows. The light in this passage was the one of the Son of Man that Stephen witnessed, and as this light forcefully came down to Saul, he fell to the ground. There was nothing Saul had done for his conversion. This was the Lords calling which makes us too grateful bringing us to tears. Surprisingly, the Lord considered the church and Stephen as Himself. The Lord considers us as Himself as we are under persecution. Because we are chosen, the Lord considers us the same as Himself. And He says that the persecution is pointed at Him, not us, testifying our conversion and comforting us. Paul had an assurance that he was serving the Lord by persecuting the churches. There is a time for one to believe that Jesus is Christ. But the legalism does not wait for the time. It just breathes out murderous threats to kill right away. Saul was reminded of Stephen who died with the expression of the Holy Spirit on his face and was overwhelmed by the light and the voice that he said 'Lord' unknowingly. At that moment, Sauls theological knowledge and values were broken down.
Third, one needs to know that he is spiritually blinded.God sends a person to instruct what to do for the one who knows that he has persecuted Jesus. God will guide the chosen one, the converted. Everyone at the site heard the same sound but only Saul heard it as voice. The first sign of meeting Jesus was that Saul was led to Damascus, the city that he was going to destroy. God made him a blind so that he could realize that he had been a spiritual blind. As Jesus rose again after three days of His death, Saul did not eat or drink anything for three days. God wanted Saul to know that how small he was. As he was taken by others unable to see anything, he became to understand the pain of the sick and the blind. I pray that you would obey to the three days that God does not let you see anything. God needed a witness standing on the ends of the earth with the great authority. Stephen showed the great authority through his martyrdom. But now God needed a person who had a great authority in the Law, family, and knowledge to argue against the Jews who killed Stephen. Thus He called Saul with irresistible force.
I think my husband had the most dramatic conversion among people around me. I thought of his legalism and how he had the murderous zeal. He was a good son to his parents, he was a passionate husband to me, and he was a merciful father to his children. When I was reading the true Law, the Bible, he told me that I should serve God physically by mopping the hospital floor. He himself mopped the floor when he had no patients. Even though he was not aware of his persecution on me, it eventually was his way of serving God. If he had not persecuted me, I would have been cursed. My husband was diagnosed with cancer, in the bright flash from heaven, and he shouted out the Lord to forgive him. He converted by realizing that he persecuted Jesus, by repenting, and by entering heaven. The Holy Spirit efficiently helped him to know that Jesus visited him so he could accept Jesus at the end and call out to Him.
I pray that there will be the conversion of the Holy Spirit throughout the world that is having hard time with COVID-19. I think the only solution to COVID-19 is repentance. Even though we might be under persecutions, God says that the persecutors will be the great workers for God. Let us believe that so we can gain victory at the end with the facial expression of the Holy Spirit like Stephen did.
