We are just a few days away from October 31, the day that many of us recognize as Reformation Day. The Protestant Reformation was a theological and then social revolution that is normally considered to have begun on October 31, 1517. One of the more impactful groups that sprang from the Reformation is the Baptist Christians. One of our most influential early documents was the 1689 London Confession, which provides the foundation across the centuries for many Baptist doctrinal statements, including the current confession of the Southern Baptist Convention, called the Baptist Faith and Message – which is the basis of our doctrinal statement here at FBCD.

The 1689 uses the word “converted” for what happens to someone who hears the good news of Jesus and is moved by the Holy Spirit to come to the Lord Jesus in repentance and faith. These days we use the word “conversion” to identify the point in our lives when God led us to consciously, deliberately gave ourselves to Jesus, and accepted his lordship and salvation for our lives. Those of us who have been well taught the biblical and Reformed truth rejoice to confess that our conversion was something worked in us by the Holy Spirit, not anything we did on our own. We gladly confess that our repentant faith was something we chose only because it was worked in us miraculously and monergistically by the Holy Spirit. We turned to Jesus only and entirely because the Holy Spirit turned us.

Still, it remains true that each believer turned to Jesus from something, or some things. The truth is, we all still find ourselves having to repent, to turn from things. This talk is to answer the question, on this Lord’s Day before Reformation Day, what are the things we turn from when we turn to Jesus?

We are looking at a brief excerpt from the apostle Paul’s testimony in his trial before the Roman governor Festus and the Judean king Herod Agrippa II in Acts 26. Last Sunday we looked at the broad sweep of Paul’s testimony, so if you need a review of that, you can find it on our church website (www.dundalkfirst.org). Today we are just looking at verses 13 through 18, where Paul recounts his very first meeting with the Lord Jesus, just outside Damascus. We want to pay special attention to what the Lord commissioned him to do and say….

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