+I. May create a reputation for religious devotion.+--"Ye have
heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion"
(ver. 13).
+II. Breeds the spirit of violent persecution.+--"How that beyond
measure I persecuted the Church of God, and wasted it" (ver.
13).
+III. Makes one ambitious for superiority.+--"Profited . . . above
many my equals, . . . being more exceedingly zealous of the
traditions of my fathers" (ver. 14).
+IV. Is neither good nor wise.+
+V. Stores up a retrospect of bitter and humiliating regret.+
_Review of a Misspent Life._--1. A sincere convert will not shun to
make confession of his wicked life, not omitting anything which may
tend to a just aggravation of it, not in a boasting manner, but that
the freedom of God's grace may be commended. 2. That the Scriptures
were indited by the Spirit of God, and the penmen not actuated with
human policy, appears from this, with other evidences in the
Scripture itself, that they concealed not their own faults, but
blazed them to the world when the glory of God did so require.
3. Though the Church of God, as to the inward estate, cannot be
utterly wasted, neither can the outward state be so far decayed as to
cease to be, yet the Lord may so far give way to the rage of
persecutors that the outward face and beauty of the Church may be
totally marred, the members partly killed, partly scattered, the
public ordinances suppressed, and the public assemblies interrupted.
4. The life and way of some engaged in a false religion may be so
blameless and, according to the dictates of their deluded conscience,
so strict, as that it may be a copy unto those who profess the true
religion and a reproof for their palpable negligence. 5. As our
affections of love, joy, hatred, anger, and grief are by nature so
corrupt that even the choicest of them, if not brought in subjection
to the Word by the Spirit, will lay forth themselves upon forbidden
and unlawful objects, so our zeal and fervency of spirit will bend
itself more toward the maintenance of error than of truth. Error is
the birth of our own invention; so is not truth.--_Fergusson._
_True and False Zeal._
+I. Zeal is a certain fervency of spirit arising out of a mixture of
love and anger,+ causing men earnestly to maintain the worship of God
and all things pertaining thereto, and moving them to grief and anger
when God is in any way dishonoured.
+II. Paul was zealous for the outward observance of the law+ and for
Pharisaical unwritten traditions.
+III. He himself condemns his zeal because it was against the Word,+
and tended to maintain unwritten traditions, and justification by the
works of the law, out of Christ. What Paul did in his religion we are
to do in the profession of the Gospel. 1. We are to addict and set
ourselves earnestly to maintain the truth of the Gospel. 2. We are to
be angry in ourselves and grieved when God is dishonoured and His
Word disobeyed. 3. We are not to give liberty to the best of our
natural affections as to zeal, but mortify and rule them by the
Word.--_Perkins._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 15-19.
_The Imperative Claims of a Divine Commission--_
+I. Are independent of personal merit.+--"But when it pleased God,
who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace"
(ver. 15). From the beginning the apostle was Divinely destined to
fulfil his high vocation. His Hebrew birth and Hellenistic culture
combined to prepare him for his future work. When he developed into a
hot persecutor of the Christian faith he seemed far away from his
life-mission. But a change took place, and it soon became apparent
that, not on the ground of any merit of his own, but because it
pleased God, the training from his birth was the best possible
preparation for his lofty calling. We cannot see far into the future
or forecast the issue of our own plans or of those we form for others.
"There is a Divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them as we may."
The Divine element in our lives becomes more evident as we faithfully
do the duty imposed on us. Joseph recognised this when he declared to
his brethren, "It was not you that sent me hither, but God" (Gen.
xlv. 8).
+II. Are based on an unmistakably Divine revelation.+--"To reveal His
Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen" (ver. 16). The
dazzling appearance of Christ before his eyes, and the summons of His
voice addressed to Saul's bodily ears, formed the special mode in
which it pleased God to call him to the apostleship. But there was
also the inward revelation of Christ to his heart by the Holy Ghost.
It was this which wrought in him the great spiritual change and
inspired him to be a witness for Christ to the Gentiles. His Judaic
prejudices were swept away, and he became the champion of a universal
Gospel. The same revelation that made Paul a Christian made him the
apostle of mankind. The true preacher carries within his own
spiritually renovated nature evidence and authority of his Divine
commission.
"This is what makes him the crowd-drawing preacher,
There's a background of God to each hard-working feature;
Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced
In a blast of a life which has struggled in earnest."
+III. Are superior to the functions of human counsel.+--"I conferred
not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them
which were apostles before me" (vers. 16, 17). The counsel of the
wise and good is valuable, and ordinarily should be diligently sought
and thoughtfully pondered. But when God calls, the commission is
beyond either the advice or the opposition of men. Paul had reached a
state into which no human authority could lift him, and from which it
could not dislodge him. He might legitimately confer with others as
to methods of work, but his call to work was imposed upon him by a
power to which all human counsellors and ecclesiastical magnates must
submit. Channing once said: "The teacher to whom are committed the
infinite realities of the spiritual world, the sanctions of eternity,
the powers of the life to come, has instruments to work with which
turn to feebleness all other means of influence."
+IV. Stimulate to active service.+--"But I went into Arabia, and
returned again unto Damascus" (ver. 17). Immediately after his
conversion the history tells us, "Straightway he preached Christ in
the synagogues" (Acts ix. 20). In Arabia, a country of the Gentiles,
he doubtless preached the Gospel, as he did before and after at
Damascus, and thus demonstrated the independence of his apostolic
commission. A call to preach demands immediate response and impels to
earnest and faithful endeavour. It is said that Whitefield's zealous
spirit exhausted all its energies in preaching, and his full
dedication to God was honoured by unbounded success. The effect
produced by his sermons was indescribable, arising in a great degree
from the most perfect forgetfulness of self during the solemn moment
of declaring the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. His evident
sincerity impressed every hearer and is said to have forcibly struck
Lord Chesterfield when he heard him at Lady Huntingdon's. The
preacher, as the ambassador for Christ, is eager to declare His
message, and anxious it should be understood and obeyed.
+V. Are recognised by the highest ecclesiastical authority.+--"Then
after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and . . .
James the Lord's brother" (vers. 18, 19). The claims of Paul to the
apostleship, evidenced by such supernatural signs and such solid
Christian work and patient suffering, were at length acknowledged by
the chief leaders of the mother Church in Jerusalem. Good work
advertises itself, and sooner or later compels recognition. What an
eventful meeting of the first Gospel pioneers, and how momentous the
influence of such an interview and consultation! Though the call of
God is unacknowledged, ridiculed, and opposed, its duties must be
faithfully discharged. The day of ample reward will come.
+Lessons.+--1. _God only can make the true preacher._ 2. _A call to
preach involves suffering and toil._ 3. _The fruit of diligent and
faithful work will certainly appear._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._