The Babe in Christ – Acts 9:1-22

The New Testament uses two separate Greek words to describe new Christians as “babes in Christ.”

In his first letter, Peter says, “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

And Paul uses another word when he says,

“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.”

Both Peter and Paul were at the time mature saints of Christ, BUT they both had once been babes.

And about the only glimpse that we have of Paul in that condition is right here in Acts 9.

Every mother, anxiously examines her new born child.

She wants him or her to have 10 fingers and 10 toes, to have bright eyes and an healthy cry.

She wants her children to be born healthy.

I think that in Saul of Tarsus we see a babe in Christ who shows excellent health.

But before we get to Saul, let’s think briefly about Ananias.

I like this man, and perhaps I like him because I see him overcoming a little imperfection or two.

I like his immediate recognition of the Lord’s visit.

The Lord said, “Ananias” and he said, “Behold, I am here, Lord.”

That is the equivalent of saying, “Yes, Lord, I’m listening.”

This takes us back to that other admirable servant of God named Samuel.

“Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.”

Had the Lord ever visited Ananias like this before, so that the man knew the sound of the Lord’s voice?

Or was it simply that he was so filled with the Spirit and so spiritually attuned that his heart just leapt out of his chest when the Lord spoke?

And then there is the uncommon candor with which he conversed with God.

“Lord, you want me to meet with Saul of Tarsus?

I’ve heard terrible things about this man; and I’m not sure that I want to be in the same city with him.”

How many people have you ever scratched off your prayer list?

You were praying for your aunt, but then she joined the Mormons you stopped.

And there were some of your old friends,

But when they started using drugs and having conflicts with the law,

You withdrew from them and stopped even thinking about them.

And besides they were frying their brains, and straying outside the reach of the grace of God.

And then there were some others for whom you prayed and prayed for years,

But it appeared that the Lord had no interest in them, so you lost interest as well.

BUT, is there anyone outside the realm of the grace of God?

Is the Lord’s arm shortened that it cannot save,

Or is His ear too heavy to hear your prayers for those people?

Ananias had committed a very common sin: He had jumped to conclusions about Saul of Tarsus.

Just because he was head of a Jewish death squad, didn’t mean that the Lord couldn’t save him.

“But Lord, Saul of Tarsus is the least worthy man in all the world for salvation.

Lord if there is anyone whom I would call a tool of the anti-Christ or the chiefest of sinners it would be this man.”

And the Lord replied, “Ananias, just stop right there.

Don’t you limit my power or my grace, even in your own mind or estimation.

Don’t jump to conclusions about the worthiness or the savability of any man’s soul, including this one.”

Have you ever noticed how the Lord specifically responded to Ananias’ arguments?

“Go thy way, Ananias.”

“And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me.”

I hope that some day it might be said of David Oldfield: “He went his way, and it was the way of the Lord.”

“Ananias I have a job for you to do.”

“Yes, Lord, show me the way, and I’ll do it right now.

I’ll make sure that my way is your way.”

Ananias got out his city map and found the street called “Straight.”

He took out the white pages and found the address of Judas’ house, then he marched right over there.

He boldly knocked and when he was invited in, he entered as if they were all old friends.

The servant of the Lord has nothing to fear when he is on an errand for the King of kings.

So Ananias met Saul, healed him and shortly thereafter arranged for his baptism.

Then this good man walked back into the shadows of the Word of God never to be heard from again.

Oh, I’m sure that we will probably hear much about Ananias when we all gather together around the throne of the Lord.

Paul will probably have wonderful things to say about this man.

And I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Syrian saints talking about the ministry that this man had in Damascus.

But just as quickly as he appeared in the Word of God he disappeared as well.

I like Ananias.

But let’s get back to Saul, the babe in Christ.

It appears that this babe was born healthy.

Behold, he PRAYETH.

The way that Saul was described to Ananias was that he was a praying man.

It is a very common thing for people to pray, especially when they get themselves into trouble.

I have heard some of the most ungodly people mutter a request to God for help, when they had come to the end of all other resources – even professed atheists.

THOSE people may call their words prayers, but in reality they aren’t.

The Bible is quite clear:

“Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.”

“He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.”

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”

Prior to his conversion Saul was an unforgiven and rebellious sinner.

He had been hearing the Word of God for months and years, but he kept turning away his ear from listening to what it had to say.

His plans for the slaughter of God’s saints was clearly a contemplation of iniquity.

Saul had probably many times stood in the Temple and prayed thus with himself:

“I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.”

But since Saul had not been listening to God, you can be sure that neither was he conversing with God.

The Lord certainly hears the so-called prayers of the wicked, but He doesn’t respond to them as prayers.

He hears but He doesn’t hear.

But now, Saul was really praying.

Can you imagine about what sort things he was talking with the Lord?

He was undoubtedly confessing his sins and asking the Lord to reveal them even more of them.

He was praying for victory over his most besetting sins, particularly his pride self-righteousness & hatred.

Was he praying to be delivered from his blindness, or did he accept this as the just reward for his crimes?

Did he begin to pray for the saints whom he had persecuted and arrested?

I wonder how many men and women there were who were at that very time incarcerated in Judean jails, and Saul’s heart went out to them?

Then the Lord told him that a man named Ananias would be coming to visit him soon; did Saul pray for Ananias?

Was he praying for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ?

When Ananias arrived at Judas’ house and met this praying man, several things took place:

First, the PREACHER WAS ACCEPTED without reservation.

While he was learning to pray, the Lord spoke to this new babe in Christ.

Have you ever thought about the similarities between the birth of a baby and the birth of a child of God?

There are many similarities, and I’m just going to leave most of them to your sanctified imaginations.

One of the things that new mothers do is to talk to their new-born.

And it is believed by many people that those babies know the sound of their mother’s voice,

Because they have been listening to it for the previous nine months.

Just after his new-birth Saul heard the voice of the Lord, and he recognized it immediately.

He had been hearing it and rejecting it for months,

But now he had ears to hear.

And the Lord told him that one of His servants was on his way to visit him.

His name was “Ananias.”

He would put his hand on Saul and restore his sight.

When Ananias came in and announced his name, Saul saw him as the man of God.

Have you ever noticed that strange propensity in children to love and accept certain people and not others?

Many of them love the pastor and display heart-warming affection, but over time either that affection or at least its display goes away.

The same is very often true of adults who become babes in Christ.

King David’s affection for the prophet Nathan fluctuated with the condition of his own soul.

When Ananias came into the house of Judas, Saul was ready for him.

He probably would have accepted just about anything that the man told him.

Those first few months are a very dangerous period of time for new-borns, which can either make or break them as future servants of God.

And Ananias put his hands on Saul “and immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales.”

Of course, the Lord was under no obligation to heal Saul’s blindness.

But once again, I remind you of the purpose of Biblical miracles:

They were given by God to authenticate the message and the messenger of God.

After his miraculous conversion and then his miraculous healing, there was no question about the Lord.

But was this miracle sent in order to convince Saul, or was it perhaps to convince others?

Could it have been as a testimony for Saul’s traveling companions?

Could it have been as a testimony to Ananias and the rest of the mission in Damascus?

Or was it for Saul?

Not only was Saul healed but he was then FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT.

“And Ananias . . . entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”

Even though we are not specifically updated on this fact,

I must assume that when Saul was healed he was also filled with the Spirit of God.

Because of what I read elsewhere in the Bible, I believe that Saul was indwelt by the Spirit when he was born again by the Spirit out there on the road three days earlier.

As we said a few weeks ago about the saints in Samaria, when sinners are regenerated, it is through the operation of the Holy Spirit.

At that time those souls become temples of the Spirit and He begins to reside in them, never to be evicted.

Those new-born saints are indwelt and sealed by the Spirit of God.

But to be filled with the Spirit is something very different, and signifies the presence of the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

With the laying on of hands by this man, whom the Lord had especially ordained to this ministry, Saul began to display the power of God in his life.

He immediately began to understand what the Old Testament teaches about Christ.

“And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues that he is the Son of God.”

I know that this rule of Hermeneutics, this rule of Bible interpretation, applies to me as much as the next guy:

I know that we are not supposed to deduce doctrine or even sustain doctrine, from the silence of scripture,

But I think that in this case the weight of that rule lies more on the charismatic than it does on me.

The Bible doesn’t say that when Saul was first filled with the Spirit that he immediately started speaking in unknown tongues.

Since the Bible doesn’t say that he did, I’m going to assume that he didn’t.

And if the charismatic says that he did, he’s going to have a harder time than I have in trying to prove his position.

Glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, sometimes was an evidence of the filling of the Spirit, but the filling and the speaking are never synonymous in the Bible.

Of course, another thing that this new babe in Christ did was to receive BAPTISM.

Since we looked at this subject pretty thoroughly less than a month ago, I won’t go too far with it this evening.

Let us just say that to read verse 18 in the language in which it was first written. . .

To read that verse in the manuscripts from which our King James Bible was translated. . .

And even to read it in the ancient manuscripts of the of the Bible deniers like Origen. . .

This verse says “And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was immersed.”

Saul was buried under water somewhere in or around Damascus in order to testify to the world that he was a disciple of Christ.

As Naaman said to Samuel “are not Abana and Pharpar, two beautiful rivers of Damascus?”

There was plenty of water in Damascus in which to baptize Saul.

And when he was planted in that water he told the world that he now believed that Jesus Christ died, was buried and that he rose again.

He also said that he himself was dead to his old life, but resurrected to walk in a new life to the glory of Christ.

Have you noticed that some Biblical children were told about their future ministries for God when they were quite young?

Zacharias and Elizabeth were told what sort of person their son, John, would become.

Do you suppose that they told John?

Of course, there was the Lord Jesus.

And there was Samuel and a few others.

In that light, what do you suppose is the meaning of verse 16?

“For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

Notice that this was what the Lord was telling Ananias in the process of encouraging him to go to Saul.

“For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

When and how did the Lord reveal to Saul what he could expect out of the rest of his life?

I am of the opinion that the Lord told Saul right up front that he was going to suffer for Christ.

And I also think that Paul was a man spiritually ready to hear the Lord.

Talk about separating the men from the babes, this sort of revelation might have a tendency to do that.

How much of II Corinthians 11 did the Lord give Saul right here?

Are there other ministers of Christ?

“(I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.”

Most men, if they had been told that these sorts of things were coming up in their lives, they might have sought for a ship sailing to Tarsus,

But I don’t think that Saul would have been like that; at least not at this time.

He was probably so broken over his sins and his crimes against the Lord’s church, that he would have done or endured anything to correct the harm that he had inflicted.

Saul was to be a testimony of the grace of the Almighty Saviour.

In verse 15 the Lord told Ananias, “Go thy way, for [Saul] is a chosen vessel unto me.”

In English sometimes we talk about sailing ships or ocean-going transports as “vessels.”

The Greek word doesn’t go quite that far, but the idea is very similar: a vessel is a container for carrying something from one place to another.

It might be from the kitchen to the dining room or from Chicago through the St. Lawrence Sea way and on to Antwerp.

Saul was chosen by God to be a vessel carrying the Name of the Lord to Israel and the Gentiles.

When do you suppose that the Lord made His choice of Saul?

Is it my over-active imagination, or must it really have been some time before his conversion?

But isn’t the Lord being a little presumptive to choose Saul to become a servant before He actually saved his soul?

A person might argue that the Lord looked through the mists of time and saw that he was going to be saved and so the Lord felt that it was permissible to choose him as an apostle.

But if the Lord could choose him as an apostle, couldn’t he also choose him to become a son?

Based upon an abundance of Scripture that is exactly what I think happened.

So what do we see this babe in Christ?

Serious praying.

Willingness to receive baptism,

And joyful receiving the opportunity to serve his master and even to suffer for his name.

This was a healthy child of God, indeed.