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The sermon centers on Jesus’ personal confrontation of Saul and interprets his conversion as evidence of Christ’s matchless grace. Spurgeon warns that opposing Christ is futile and self-destructive, while stressing that the gospel and Christ’s church cannot be stopped. Those convicted of sin are invited to repent and trust Christ’s mercy, with Paul serving as proof that even a chief sinner can be forgiven. Conversion is portrayed not merely as pardon but as a thorough transformation into useful gospel service.
Theological center: The conversion of Saul demonstrates the sovereign, personal, and abundant grace of Christ toward His enemies and repentant sinners.
Applications: Turn from opposing Christ · Confess sin and seek mercy · Receive Christ’s transforming mercy · Consider Christ’s personal question
Primary texts: Acts 26:14 · Acts 22:7
“And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Acts 26:14 HOW marvelous the condescension which induced the Savior to take notice of such a wretch as Saul! Enthroned in the highest heavens, amidst the eternal melodies of the redeemed, and the seraphic sonnets of the cherubim and all the angelic hosts, it was strange that the Savior should stoop Himself from His dignity to speak to a persecutor. Engaged as He is both day and night in pleading the cause of His own church before His Father’s throne, it is condescension indeed which could induce Him, as it were, to suspend His intercessions in order that He might speak personally to one who had sworn himself His enemy. And what grace was it that could lead the Savior’s heart to speak to such a man as Saul, who had breathed out threatenings against His church? Had he not haled men and women to prison. Had he not compelled them in every synagogue to blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ? and now Jesus Himself must interpose to bring him to his senses! Ah! had it been a thunderbolt which quivered in its haste to reach the heart of man, we would not have marveled, or had the lips of the Savior been heaving with a curse, we should not have been astonished. Had He not Himself in His own lifetime cursed the persecutor? Did He not say, whosoever shall offend one of the least of these my little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were cast in the sea? But now the man that is cursed by that language is yet to be blessed by Him whom he had persecuted. Who though he had stained his hand in blood, and had now the commission in his hands to drag others to prison, though he had held the clothes of those who had stoned Stephen, yet the Master, the King of heaven, must Himself speak from the upper skies to bring him to feel the need of a Savior, and to make him partaker of precious faith. I say this is marvelous condescension and matchless grace. But beloved, when we come to recollect the Savior’s character, it is but little wonderful that He should do this, for He has done far more than this. Did He not in person leave the starry thrones of heaven and come down to earth to suffer, and bleed, and die? But when I think of Bethlehem’s manger, of the cruel garden of Gethsemane, and the yet more shameful Calvary, I do not wonder that the Savior should do any act of grace or condescension. That being done, what can be greater? If He has…