{"id":49,"date":"2003-10-05T20:38:08","date_gmt":"2003-10-06T00:38:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-06-01T23:09:30","modified_gmt":"2007-06-02T04:09:30","slug":"kicking-against-the-goad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblearchive.com\/blog\/kicking-against-the-goad\/","title":{"rendered":"Kicking Against The Goad"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Stalker<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was the persecutor?s hope utterly to exterminate Christianity.
\nBut little did he understand its genius. It thrives on persecution. Prosperity has often
\nbeen [nearly] fatal to it, persecution never. “They that were scattered abroad went
\neverywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). Hitherto the Church had been confined
\nwithin the walls of Jerusalem; but now all over Judea and Samaria, and in distant
\nPhoenicia and Syria, the beacon of the gospel began in many a town and village to twinkle
\nthrough the darkness.
\n
\nWe can imagine with what rage the tidings of these outbreaks of
\nfanaticism which Saul had hoped to stamp out would fill the persecutor. But he was not the
\nperson to be balked, and he resolved to hunt up the objects of his hatred even in their
\nmost distant hiding-places. Having heard that Damascus, the capital of Syria, was one of
\nthe places where the fugitives had taken refuge, he went to the high priest and got
\nletters empowering him to seize and bring to Jerusalem all of the new way of thinking whom
\nhe might find there.<\/p>\n

As we see him start on this journey, which was to be so momentous, we
\nnaturally ask what was the state of his mind. We are told that, as he was ranging through
\nstrange cities in pursuit of his victims, he was exceedingly mad against them (Acts 9:1).<\/p>\n

But on this journey doubt at last invaded his mind. It was a long
\njourney of over a hundred and sixty miles and would occupy at least six days. A
\nconsiderable portion of it lay across a desert, where there was nothing to distract the
\nmind from its own reflections. In this enforced leisure doubts arose. What else can be
\nmeant by the word with which the Lord saluted him: “It is hard for thee to kick
\nagainst the goad” (Acts 9:5)! The figure of speech is borrowed from a custom of
\nEastern countries. The ox-driver wields a long pole, at the end of which is fixed a piece
\nof sharpened iron, with which he urges the animal to go on or stand still or change its
\ncourse. If the animal is obstinate, it kicks against the goad, injuring and infuriating
\nitself with the wounds it receives. This is a vivid picture of a man wounded and tortured
\nby compunctions of conscience. There was something in him rebelling against the course of
\ninhumanity on which he was embarked and suggesting that he was fighting against God.<\/p>\n

It is not difficult to conceive whence these doubts arose. Probably his
\ncompunctions were chiefly awakened by the character and behavior of the Christians. He had
\nheard the noble defense of Stephen and seen his face in the council-chamber shining like
\nthat of an angel. He had seen him kneeling on the field of execution and praying for his
\nmurderers (Acts 7:60). Doubtless, in the course of the persecution he had witnessed many
\nsimilar scenes. Did these people look like enemies of God? As he entered their homes to
\ndrag them forth to prison, he got glimpses of their social life. Could such spectacles of
\npurity and love be products of the powers of darkness? Did not the serenity with which his
\nvictims went to meet their fate look like the very peace which he had long been sighing
\nfor in vain?<\/p>\n

Their arguments, too, must have told on a mind like his. He had heard
\nStephen proving from the Scriptures that it behooved the Messiah to suffer; and the
\ngeneral tenor of the earliest Christian apologetic assures us that many of the accused
\nmust on their trial have appealed to passages like the fifty-third of Isaiah, where a
\ncareer is predicted for the Messiah amazingly like that of Jesus of Nazareth. He heard
\nincidents of Christ?s life from their lips which betokened a personage very different
\nfrom the picture sketched for him by his Pharisaic informants.<\/p>\n

But onward he pressed, and the sun of noonday, from which all but the
\nmost impatient travelers in the East take refuge in a long siesta, looked down upon him
\nstill urging forward his course toward the city gate of Damascus. The news of Saul?s
\ncoming had arrived at Damascus before him; and the little flock of Christ was praying
\nthat, if it were possible, the progress of the wolf, who was on his way to spoil the fold,
\nmight be stopped. Nearer and nearer, however, he drew; he had reached the last stage of
\nhis journey.<\/p>\n

But the Good Shepherd had heard the cries of the trembling flock and
\nwent forth to face the wolf on their behalf. Suddenly at midday, as Paul and his company
\nwere riding forward beneath the blaze of the Syrian sun, a light which dimmed even that
\nfierce glare shone round about them, a shock vibrated through the atmosphere, and in a
\nmoment they found themselves prostrate upon the ground.<\/p>\n

It would be impossible to exaggerate what took place in the mind of
\nSaul in this single instant. So measured, this one moment of Saul?s life was perhaps
\nlonger than all his previous years. A voice sounded in his ears, “I am Jesus, whom
\nthou art persecuting” (Acts 9:5).<\/p>\n

When his companions recovered themselves and turned to their leader,
\nthey discovered that he had lost his sight, and they had to take him by the hand and lead
\nhim into the city. What a change was there! Instead of the proud Pharisee riding through
\nthe streets with the pomp of an inquisitor, a stricken man, trembling, groping, clinging
\nto the hand of his guide, arrives at the house of Judas amidst the consternation of those
\nwho receive him and, getting hastily to a room where he can ask them to leave him alone,
\nsinks down there in the darkness.<\/p>\n

But, though it was dark without, it was bright within. He neither ate
\nnor drank for three days. He was too absorbed in the thoughts which crowded on him thick
\nand fast. In those three days, it may be said with confidence, he got at least a partial
\nhold of all the truths he afterward proclaimed to the world; for his whole theology is
\nnothing but the explication of his own conversion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Stalker It was the persecutor?s hope utterly to exterminate Christianity. But little did he understand its genius. It thrives on persecution. Prosperity has often been [nearly] fatal to it, persecution never. “They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). Hitherto the Church had been confined within the walls of Jerusalem; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acts","category-church","category-study"],"yoast_head":"\nKicking Against The Goad - Rey Reynoso's Bible Archive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/biblearchive.com\/blog\/kicking-against-the-goad\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kicking Against The Goad - Rey Reynoso's Bible Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"James Stalker It was the persecutor?s hope utterly to exterminate Christianity. 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