When he was a young man you would have said of him that the world was his oyster. We only know a little about him, but this much is clear, if he had been alive today it would have been straight As at GCSE, A* at A level and his choice of a place in the best university. He was a man of great learning. He could have gone anywhere he wanted to go. But there was one thing that stopped him.

As well as being brilliant, he was religious. You would probably say he was a bit of an enthusiast, a fanatic, but that is perhaps to overstate it. He was certainly a good man. You could trust him. He took his faith seriously. He was a Jew, and not only was he a Jew – well listen to his own words:

[I was] circumcised on the eight day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law, a Pharisee, [concerning zeal, persecuting the church,] concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless².

He wanted to live in a way that pleased God, so he did everything he could to keep the law of God. He studied the law: he was taught by one of the greatest teachers of his day. He joined the strictest sect of his day, the Pharisees. Note: pharisee does not mean what we mean by it today. He thought that by doing this he would earn his way into heaven. That was the common teaching of the Pharisees: Do good and you shall live by it.

Saul did recognise however that he had sinned. The law said: you shall not covet, and Saul saw that that condemned him. But he also thought that these other things were worth having – being a Jew, being a Pharisee, keeping the law in all external matters, and that they would count for more than the mistakes he had made.

This all changed when Jesus died and rose from the dead. His disciples taught that good works would never get you into heaven, you had to trust the one who died on the cross, and had been raised from the dead. Saul hated that message, just as those before him who had crucified Jesus. He wanted to get to heaven on his own merits, and in any event, the Messiah would never have let anyone crucify him. His zeal as a young man hardened into a fanatical hatred, and he set about persecuting the church. He thought that he was doing the right thing and that this would earn him favours with God, until one day when bent upon destruction the Lord stopped him.

Listen again to what he said:

At midday I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun shining around me and those who were with me. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? I said: Who are you, Lord? And he said: I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting³.

Saul then understood. Jesus is the Messiah. The one who died on the cross had been raised from the dead. If that were so, then the other things that the disciples of Jesus taught were also true. He would not get to heaven on his own merits, he had to trust in Jesus who died for sinners. So years later, we find him saying to others who were beginning to think that they could earn their way into heaven:

We have no confidence in the flesh…[all those things] that were [supposed to be] gain to me, I have counted loss for Christ².

His way of thinking had been changed, just as Job’s was. Job had to learn that God could do as he pleased with him. Saul did not need to learn that, he knew it. But Saul needed to learn that, even though he was a good man, even though he kept the law in every way that he possibly could, it was not enough. He was a sinner, condemned by the law, and that the only salvation there was was in Jesus Christ. It was his encounter with Jesus that changed his way of thinking.

Now what about you? Where do you stand? What needs to be changed in your way of thinking? It is only when we change that, and say to Jesus that we shall follow him, that we can be saved.

^{_{¹ See Job, Paul and two thieves
² Philippians 3:3ff
³ Acts 26:13ff}}