Acts 9:9

9. Without sight We look for the cause of this blindness, which affected Saul alone of this company, less into the region of matter than of soul. It was, perhaps, the powerful collision of spiritual forces, the Divine upon the human, which drove the perceptive power of Saul inward and disabled it from action.

Neither did eat nor drink The spirit, forced from external action, concentrated inwardly upon itself.

Three days If we contemplate the awful struggle within the mighty spirit of this great man, in the present hey-day of his young manhood, we shall not wonder that its violence left no vitality for the outer perceptions or sensations. Like a powerful rail-train, he is stopped and driven back by a solid collision, and terrible and apparently wrecking is the recoil. 1. Jesus of Nazareth and his Church, strange to say, are true and divine! Whatever a Christian is, that Paul must now be, at whatever cost. 2. The whole structure of his past life, education, and hopes is in ruins, from which he must emerge a new Man 1:3 . The sin of relentless slaughters, real or purposed, presses heavy on his soul and demands deep repentance. 4. He had supposed hitherto that he was keeping the law to the very highest standard; but now he sees that he has never known the law in its essence, and that he has broken and destroyed it to the very foundations. The experience of Romans 7:5-13, is now actually undergone. He was imaginarily alive without the real law; that law comes and he is dead. Who shall deliver him from this death, pressing like a dead body upon him? 5. Stephen beheld the glorified Jesus in Acts 7:55-56. Saul, standing by, beheld Stephen, in a rapture of prayer, commit his spirit to that heavenly Jesus. Saul has now seen that same glorified Jesus, and turns to him for help, committing himself to him for salvation. And now, “Behold, he prayeth!” It is time for Ananias to be called.