<TITLE>04. Par 30-36</TITLE>L-30 In the day that we're living in now, and everything is so breaking up, so fragile and carried away, I think that this Message would be a very appropriate thing, especially to Christians when they are going through their deep waters now. The Christian church is passing through the deepest water it's had for the last two thousand years. Because, we are coming to a spot to where there is something presented to Christianity, something they have to make a decision on, and I think that the Christian church ought to have something that they know that they are tied to, instead of just floating about like a leaf upon the water, the wind. As the Bible said, "Carried about by every wind of doctrine." The winds come and blow the little leaf this way, and then another wind comes, the north wind, the south wind, the east wind, the west wind. You'll never get anywhere, you're not stabled. The Christian life should be a stabled life. It should be something that's--that's a principle that--that you are tied to, that is more than life itself.

L-31   And you must have something that you're tied to. Some people are tied to their business. Some are tied to their families. Some are tied to a creed. Some are tied to the army post. We have different things that we are tied to. But I think, as a Christian, we ought to be tied where we know is right, see. Because, you might be tied to your family, and your--your wife could leave you. You might be tied to the army, and you might get killed. And you might be tied to any different things, and it's got an end. But there has got to be a final tie post. There has got to be somewhere that--that man has got to tie for his Eternal destination. Because, if you're going to trust it in your work, when your work is finished, it's done. When your family is taken, it's over.

L-32   But there is only one thing that I think is the final tie post. And I believe that Paul had a tie post in his life here. And I'd like to--to side in, if we'd call it that way, and speak on that tie post. He said, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Now, Christ was Paul's Absolute. It was his tie post. It was his. It was the end of all arguments. It was Christ, was his tie post.

L-33   Paul didn't always have that tie post. He used to be tied to the group of the Pharisees. And he had to be trained and educated, so that they would accept him and let him tie himself to their post. But one day he was on the road down to Damascus, and he met Jesus, face to face. And from there he cut loose from his Pharisee-ic tie post; and re-tied himself again, that Jesus Who he knowed was crucified, died, and rose again. Paul knew it because he met the Person. That changed him right there. He was never the same from then on. He never just met a book. He never just met a--a creed. He met the Person, Jesus Christ. "Who are You, Lord?"
He said, "I am Jesus."

L-34 Let's think of that conversion, for a few moments. I believe Paul was a sincere man. Being that this is Sunday school, we want to teach it like a Sunday school. Paul, I believe, was a deep, sincere man, and there was--there was nothing about him that was any different from anyone else.

L-35   All those prophets were man just like we are. The Bible said so. Saint James 5, "Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are," he had his up's and down's, his in's and out's, "and he prayed earnestly it might not rain."

L-36 And Paul was the same kind of a man like we are. He had his flustrations, his doubt. And he was an honest man. He was going to one of the finest sect of religions that there was in the world. And he was becoming a teacher of that sect; taught under a great teacher, Gamaliel, which was one of the most greatest teachers they had of the day. His parents seen to it, seen that there was something in Paul's life, and worked hard to send him away to school, that he might be taught in all the laws of God. And, with a deep sincerity, he believed every word of it.


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