You Just Never Know
Acts 9:1-9 
By Ron Rasmussen

Do you suppose anyone at all in that day was praying for Saul’s conversion? Did anyone in any of the Christians circles of that day even think to mention his name? As the brethren met for prayer, do you suppose there was a single piece of papyrus with his name of someone’s prayer list?

He was a crusty old guy, nearing the age of 70 when I met him. His name was Wes Overson. Deep lines crisscrossed his leathery face. He stood about 5’10", and probably weighed 220. Most of that was in his belly. Dropping in on him at his home was not such a pleasant experience because his casual, at-home attire was often just a pair of gym shorts. Wes was still practicing law when I first knew him. I always had the feeling that most lawyer jokes were about his kind of attorneying. I actually wondered if he had ever been disbarred.

His voice fit his gruff nature. Very gravelly, even his laugh. He was a recovering alcoholic, a heavy smoker and a course joker. His everyday talk was laced with spicy language. He was, in every sense of the word, a curmudgeon.

But I liked him. Maybe it was his transparency. Maybe it was the soft heart that I sensed was under all that rough exterior. Or maybe it was that he loved golf. Wes actually became my #1 choice for a San Jose golf partner.

Our talks about God were few and far between. He never brought up the subject and when I did, he was kind but curt. His wife was a Christian, a member of the church I preached for. Wes would attend on special occasions. But nothing ever seemed to penetrate that tough, rhino like hide.

Frankly, Wes was near the bottom of my list of "prospective believers."

One of the last things I did with him before leaving San Jose was share the passage about the vineyard workers from Matthew 20, assuring him that even getting in late in life was still very much a possibility. He gave up no response that I could see.

Have you ever known someone like this? Sure you have. All of us know people that we’d love to see come to Christ but are doubtful that they ever will. They have so much… shall we call it, "unchristian baggage."

I imagine that you have at least one such name in mind right now as I speak.

Today’s message, in a sentence, is this: Never count anyone out for entering the kingdom. Like the title of this message says, "You Just Never Know."

Our text is Acts 9:1-9.

You just never know. That’s why you should never count anyone out for entering the kingdom.

It is true that:

For instance, we have a great example here in Saul.

Saul is first introduced to us, not here in the ninth chapter, but in the seventh chapter of Acts. Luke briefly mentions him in the 58^th verse. This is in the setting of the stoning of Stephen. In that 58^th verse of Acts 7 we read,

"The witnesses [those who were stoning Stephen] laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul."

Saul was probably in his early thirties at this point. He was a student of Gamaliel, who was a highly respected teacher and Pharisee of the day. Saul was born in Tarsus, which is in modern day Turkey. But don’t let that cause you to think that he wasn’t a pureblooded Jew. Saul was born of pureblooded Hebrews, mother and father. He became a staunch Pharisee and in the third verse of the 8^th chapter we read a little bit more about him.

So we have here not only a non-believer. Saul is not just someone you might think would never come to the gospel. We have here a person who was a persecutor of those who do believe. In fact, it says in the ninth chapter, in our text, that he was "breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples." What a vivid description! His very life-breath was this murderous mission. He’s like a fire-breathing dragon, tramping up and down Israel and beyond.

Had the Apostle John written his first and second epistles about the time of Saul’s conversion (he hadn’t of course) the early Christians would have identified Saul as the Antichrist! He even wanted to go after Christians in the northern city of Damascus! So he went to the High Priest, Caiaphas, and asked for letters to authorize his going into a foreign country where he could arrest (or kidnap) these, as he might call them, "God hating terrorists" and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment. Damascus was 175 miles northeast of Jerusalem.

Why would Saul make such an effort? It had to be because he believed absolutely that he was right – that these Christians who had fled the persecution out of Jerusalem needed to be brought back in order to stop the spread of the gospel to other cities. Damascus was the intersection of several trade routes.

So here we have the man who was later to become the apostle to the world, the apostle to the Gentiles, God’s conduit, trying to stamp out the spread of Christianity. Isn’t that ironic!

Saul didn’t want this to result in anymore trouble with Rome. He wanted to advance his own career, I’m sure, and make a name for himself. So he is off to Damascus.

Do you suppose anyone at all in that day was praying for Saul’s conversion? Did anyone in any of the Christians circles of that day even think to mention his name? As the brethren met for prayer, do you suppose there was a single piece of papyrus with his name of someone’s prayer list?

It’s true, isn’t it? Some people just seem to be unreachable.

- Usama bin Laden
- Saddam Hussein

Does anyone ever think to pray for men like these?

Everyone has that one name buried at the bottom of his or her prayer list because they the person it represents seems unreachable.

A Chicago company is one of the world’s largest magazine fulfillment firms. That means they handle subscription mailings by computer. Among other things, they send out renewal and expiration notices.

One day the company’s computer malfunctioned. Soon after, a rancher in Powder Bluff, Colorado, got 9,734 separate mailings informing him that his subscription to National Geographic had expired. He wasn’t even a subscriber.

This got the rancher’s attention. He dropped what he was doing and traveled 10 miles to the nearest post office, where he sent in money for a renewal – along with a note that said, "I give up! Send me your blasted magazine!"

Don’t stop praying for people, even if it seems you’ve prayed a lot. Sometimes that may be what it takes.

Some seem unreachable but you should never count anyone out for entering the kingdom. Some seem unreachable but:

He can get anyone’s attention, even a Saul. That’s what happened here. The third and fourth verses say, "As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

God can use most anything to get our attention. All resources are at his fingertips. He may or may not choose to use a human agent. Later in this chapter we’ll see that, at the right time, God would use a human agent, but at this point it was just God and Saul.

Saul thought he was doing God a favor by persecuting Christians. He thought he was chasing heretics. Jesus made it clear to him that when you persecute the saints of God you’re persecuting the Lord Himself.

"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" He says in the fourth verse. Then in the fifth verse: "‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

You know Saul probably got up that day thinking it would be just like any other day. Maybe he was sitting there drinking his coffee, reading the morning paper thinking, "It’s going to be just like any other day." But God knew better. Saul was so sure of his mission that he was totally blind to the truth that he was working against the God he thought he was working for! So God had to blind him with the light.

You just never know what God might do to reach an unbeliever.

Some time ago Larry Schanz shared with me the story that he was a hospital orderly at the Eugene Hospital and Clinic in the 1970s. Larry said that one day he went into the intensive care unit and found all the nurses crying. He said it seemed that they had had some kind of special moment. Nurses and doctors were all around the nurses’ desk in the ICU not long before that when they noticed that one of the patients across the hall was standing at the foot of his bed talking to someone. But they couldn’t see anyone else. As they all went over to help him back into his bed they realized that he appeared to be speaking with Jesus. After they got him back into his bed he told them, "I have to go now." He said "goodbye" to each of the people standing by his bed, he closed his eyes, and he died. Larry said that the nurses were so overcome with emotion that they could hardly tell him what had occurred.

God can reach anyone. Never count anyone out for entering the kingdom. Some people seem unreachable, yes, but God can reach anyone. However:

Note the obedience here. Something simple at first: "Get up." Saul did. Then something else: "Go into the city." Saul did. He went into the city and waited for three days.

Saul was humbled. He was taken to his knees by the touch of God. But its all not good unless there is obedience.

Think about it. Saul could have reasoned this all away. He could have stood up, turned to his fellow travelers, and said, "Did you guys see anyone?" The text says that they hadn’t seen anyone. They heard some sounds but they saw no one. I can imagine them saying, "Well, we heard some sounds, but we didn’t see anyone, Saul. It must have been thunder and lightning." To that, Saul could have said, "Yeah, that’s all it was. Let’s go."

You may have had some very special experiences in your life. They may have been more exciting than those of other Christians. They may even have seemed more spiritual. They could even be from God Himself. But that does not excuse you from obedience. Those kinds of flashy experiences are only meaningful if you obey God.

God had big plans for Saul. He may have big plans for you. But He will never take away your free choice. You can choose to obey Him – or not. You can choose to call Him Lord – or not. You can choose to follow him – or not. The choice is still yours and you have to make it.

Never count anyone out for entering the kingdom. Some people seem unreachable. God can reach anyone. But obedience is still man’s choice.

- The son of Madaline Murray O’Hare
- Manuel Noriega
- Jeffrey Dahmer

Never count anyone out for entering the kingdom.

I want to share a letter with you. I began ministering here with you in July of 1989. I received this letter from Wes Overson shortly after I got here. It was amazing to me. I don’t think I had ever heard of him writing a letter. I had written to him within the first few weeks of arriving here and he wrote back:

Shortly after he wrote this, his heart failed him and he landed in the hospital. I remember when I got the call that he had died. But what I remember best about that call was the account of what happened within a few days of his death. He obeyed the Lord and became a Christian when a friend of mine shared the gospel with him.

Finally - a worker hired late in the Master’s vineyard – gets paid in full with salvation.

All Scripture Quotes are from the New International Version unless otherwise specified.

Permission is granted to subscribers of The Preacher's Study to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or any place beyond the local congregation is prohibited. The author of this sermon, Ron Rasmussen,  may be reached at: rjrass@juno.com.