Are You Kicking Against The Pricks?

 

Acts 9:1-6

"Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Paul had no idea that he was persecuting the Lord Jesus by persecuting His people. Paul would never have known that what he was doing was wrong if Jesus had not appeared to him on the road to Damascus. He would have just kept rounding up Disciples and putting them in prison, he thought that what he was doing was right!

Jesus said that the day would come when men would kill disciples of Christ and think that they were doing God a favor!

Jesus had been talking to Paul many times before this road to Damascus experience, but Paul kept resisting God, His Spirit, and His anointed servants. Even when Stephen, the Lords first martyr was preaching, Paul stood there holding the cloaks of the Pharisees while they stoned him to death. 

Acts 7:51-53, 57-58

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it."

"Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul."

It's not that hard for many people to resist the drawing and calling of God, when you feel the pull of God's grace, all you have to do is pull away from it, draw back, and say no thank you, I don't want salvation. 

This is why the Spirit of God said, "Today if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts"

Hebrews 3:7-11

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”

When an anointed man or woman of God speaks, you can do two things, resist the word of God or accept it, and when it pricks your heart, humble yourself and repent, cry out for the mercy of God, ask for forgiveness and live! 

Acts 2:36-39

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

The Holy Spirit comes to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. So when you feel the prick of God's Spirit upon your heart, what will you do?

The Choice Is Yours!

In Christ,

Tyrone