COMMITMENT “Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” Acts 26:19
Paul spoke this to Agrippa in the twilight time of his life and he who began so faithful and continued so, could finish his course no other way. Observe carefully the words of the Apostle of Christ, “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” What was the “heavenly vision”? It was the revelation of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ (Gal.1:11-16). Here in Acts twenty-six, we see a preacher of the gospel looking back and telling his life story. The blessed Apostle to the Gentiles had stood his trial on a capital charge and has made his appeal to the Supreme Court. The representative of Rome (Felix the governor) is in difficulty because he has no tangible charge against the prisoner. He seeks advice from King Agrippa, before whom Paul stood and told his story. He told how he had been “exceedingly mad” against those men and women with whom now he is identified. He told how that on the road to Damascus to persecute those people a great light shown round about him, and how he heard a voice from heaven saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Therefore it follows, “Whereupon O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” To the day of his death, in spite of persecution, physical torture, desertion, and humiliation, he never regretted that he had been faithful to the revelation of the gospel. We think often of Paul’s “three times was I stoned and beaten with rods,” without realizing the mental pain of the humiliation of it. Paul preached to the poor, the rich, the ignorant, and the wise. Many of them gloried in his preaching. He bore grateful testimony that they had loved him. Also he had to turn and ask them with a breaking heart, “Am I become your enemy because I have told you the truth in rebuking you?” He was disappointed in some that professed Christ and dogged his footsteps, questioned his authority and doubted his apostleship. He was disappointed with his own preaching. I think he regretted somewhat his address at Mars Hill. Being familiar with their culture and their poets, he appeared to address them on that level. They scoffed him and questioned who this fellow was that imitated their “learning.” And as He was making his way to the trade center of Asia in those days, he seemed to have vowed never again by words of human wisdom to clothe the simple message of the cross. For himself “He determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” Therefore, persecuted, disappointed, and unjustly charged, to the last moment he was never sorry he had been obedient to the gospel. The apostle’s strong stand and testimony should stimulate all men who profess to be preachers of God’s gospel to be obedient to the “heavenly vision.” God forbid that a man who claims that sacred office should compromise and sell short the heavenly vision! The scripture says, “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty Angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor.2:2).
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