Acts chapter 12 and 13 tells two interesting stories regarding the ways God deals with people, and I think it brings out a bit of a contrast. At the end of Acts 12, it tells the story of King Herod’s demise. He spoke a terrific speech, and the people cried they were the words of a god, not a man and he agreed. Then God struck him down and he was eaten with worms and died. The heavy hand of the Lord dealt the final blow.
The next chapter tells a story of Paul and Elymas, a sorcerer. Elymas was opposing the gospel, and the Spirit came upon Paul, and he cursed him with blindness. This was also the heavy hand of God at work, but there are a couple very significant differences. First, he didn’t strike him dead. Second, he didn’t even curse him with blindness for the rest of his life. Paul said “for a time” he would be blind.
Now we have no record that I know of regarding the life of Elymas from this point on, but it is interesting to see how God not only spared his life in the midst of his blatantly defying and hindering the gospel, but didn’t even punish him permanently. What was the difference between him and Herod, whom God struck dead? It seems God still saw a glimmer of hope in Elymas for repentance. God’s desire for us is repentance for as long as is possible. Many of us have experienced God’s heavy hand in dealing with our sin, for the purposes of bringing us to repentance.
I bring another person who experienced God’s heavy hand. Saul, who turned into Paul. He was on his way to hinder the gospel by imprisoning and killing Christians. The ressurrected Christ struck him with blindness and spoke a rebuke to him. While he was blind, he had a change of heart and repented and turned to God. Many of us are grateful recipients of the dealings of the loving heavy hand of God. His ultimate desire in our lives is to bring us to a place of submission and surrender to Him, and sometimes the only way for a willful soul is being struck down. And he does this out of love.