O Thoughtful Man, Kick Against the Pricks No More!

Saul had just left the High Priest’s in Jerusalem. He had with him letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus asking for ‘followers of the Way’ to be returned to Jerusalem in chains. You know the story.🙂 When he had almost hit Damascus, the Lord Jesus interrupted his journey. Without introduction, without salutations, He called Saul twice and asked ‘why do you persecute me?’ [Acts 9:4].

Of course Saul is confused, ‘cos he was actually now on his way to carry out that business. But he definitely had a sense that this wasn’t one of the ‘followers of the Way’; it was the Way Himself, and I have a feeling Saul was asking a rhetorical question when he asked who He was, because he said ‘Who are you, Lord’. Had Jesus chosen not to introduce Himself to Saul, I can bet that Saul would have known for sure who he had encountered. But trust Jesus to be as dramatic as it gets😆 He responds. Not only with who He was, but with a statement of fact that He knew would haunt Saul for the rest of his walk with Him. He said:

‘I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.’ – Acts 9:5 [KJV]

I never quite got round to being spiritual enough to read KJV😂. In actual fact I was reading Acts 9 in NLT when I thought to check it out in KJV, only to find that KJV had an addition to Jesus’ introduction in verse 5 that no other translation had:

“It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

I’d never seen this line in scripture before, and I have read the book of Acts severally. It was only upon making this discovery that I noticed Paul had repeated these words to King Agrippa in Acts 26:14 when he recounted his encounter with the Lord. ‘It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.’ Jesus clearly hadn’t repented from His use of parables even though His disciples never quite understood them😅. Saul didn’t ask Jesus what he meant. It appeared he’d understood what the Lord had communicated; he just didn’t know how to execute. But I’m no Saul, so I googled. Here’s what I found:

‘The expression was a Greek proverb, but it was also familiar to the Jews and anyone who made a living in agriculture.

An ox goad was a stick with a pointed piece of iron on its tip used to prod the oxen when plowing. The farmer would prick the animal to steer it in the right direction. Sometimes the animal would rebel by kicking out at the prick, and this would result in the prick being driven even further into its flesh. In essence, the more an ox rebelled, the more it suffered. Thus, Jesus’ words to Saul on the road to Damascus: “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.”’

I was intrigued! I was just about to pull out my Greek and Hebrew skills when I chanced upon an absolutely beautiful sermon written by Charles Spurgeon published in September 1866. So I will put my pen down in honour of the man who not only rightly divided the Word of Truth, but did so with the mastery of an artist’s tongue and the boldness of a man filled with nothing but the light of God’s Word and power. You may go home if you’re here for a 3-paragraphed piece😂, because this is about to be long. Take it in bits if you will, but be sure to finish it if you can. It will definitely be worth your time. This is a condensed version of an 11-paged sermon; all emphasis are mine. Enjoy!

KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS

Charles Haddon Spurgeon
September 9, 1866
[Condensed]

“THIS expression is highly characteristic of the Saviour. While he was on earth, without a parable spake he not unto the people; and speaking out of heaven, in this instance, he still adopts the parabolic style.

We have in the text five things— an ox, an ox-goad, kicks against it, painful results, and a wise counsel.

1. We have in the parable of the text AN OX.

That ox is here employed as the picture of persecuting Saul and of all who are like him. No other beast besides the ox is driven by an ox-goad, and therefore it must be the ox which is here meant as kicking against the pricks or goadings when he is urged onward by the driver. Alas, how low is man fallen that he can fitly be compared to a brute beast! “Oh,” saith the proud heart, “doth God compare me to a beast?” Ah, my friend, and it is the beast which hath cause to complain rather than you; for what beast is that who has rebelled against God? [ouch!🤭] I never heard of such. The beast acknowledges God and bows its neck to man, whom God appoints to be its ruler; the beast fulfils its Maker’s purpose; it lives and it dies, and both in life and death it answers the end for which God sent it into the world; but as for you, you wantonly run against God, and when you know his will you do the contrary; and though he has addressed you with words of love and tenderness as he doth some of you every Sabbath day, yet you will not hear, but reject what he saith, and go on in your rebellious ways.

But courage! Though God compares the unregenerate and rebellious sinner to a beast, yet it is to a valuable animal; it is to a creature which is an object of property and possesses value. The text does not liken a man to a wild beast without an owner, but to an ox for which its master careth, and for which he hath paid a price. The ox is bought with money; it is often dearly purchased. When God compared Saul to an -ox, he did as good as say to him, “You are acting like a wild bull, running against me and goring my people; but still you are precious in my sight, and are purchased with a price.” “I,” says Jesus, “I whom thou persecutest, I redeemed thee, not with corruptible things, as with silver and gold, but with my own precious blood; thou art mine, and I will not let thee go; thou art mine, and I will break thee in: I will curb that stubborn will of thine. Why dost thou kick against me, for I mean to subdue thee to do my work.

It is vain for thee to strive and struggle, for I have bought thee and I will have thee [sheesh🥶]. I have paid for thee too dearly to let thee be lost. I have looked upon thee as mine too long to let thee go astray from me anymore. I will have thee, and therefore bow at once, for thy will shall not long stand out against mine.” [Pretty profound, no?]

Our Lord Jesus also compared Saul here to the ox, because the ox is an animal that is dependent upon its Master for the supply of its needs. Herein you will remember the prophet Isaiah saith, “The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass its master’s crib.” [Isaiah 1:3] The ox receives its fodder from its master’s hand, and knows the hand that feeds it. The breath which is in thy nostrils and in mine cometh from the Most High. He formed us of clay, and his omnipotence keeps together the particles of dust that make our frame…

An ox is a creature of which service is rightly demanded. As every man who keepeth an ox expecteth it to serve him, so also does God expect of those creatures whose wants he supplieth that they should do his bidding. Wherefore should God keep them, and they do him no service? Wouldst thou thyself fodder an ox that would not plough if thou usest it for such work? The bullock which is not good for its master in the furrows shall soon be good for the butcher in the shambles [😅]; and the man who will not serve God in life shall ere long have to acknowledge his justice in the pangs of death, and to show to wondering worlds what the judgments of God are in the terrors of eternity.

The ox was also selected as a picture of Saul because of its perverseness. The bullock is not easily made accustomed to the yoke. It is not easy to train an ox to do one’s bidding. Hence a very rough and cruel instrument was used by the Eastern husbandman— a long stick with a sharp prong at the end, which he drove into the stubborn ox to compel it to move. It was sometimes very perverse, and when it set its neck to go its own way it was not easy for the husbandman to make it move in another; and therefore the strokes of this ox-goad were sharp and many.

Ah, how perverse are our wills! They are more stubborn surely than the ox. We will not go in the right way; we choose the wrong naturally. We go to the fire of sin, and we put our finger in it, and we burn it; but we do not learn better; we then thrust our hands into it, and though we suffer for it we return and plunge our arm into the flame!

Yet remember there is this thing about the ox: though thus a perverse animal, it is a creature which can be of great service to its master. When the ox becomes docile, and puts its neck to the yoke, and to plough in patient earnestness, it is one of the most valuable possessions of the Oriental husbandman. What could he do without it? When man once gives his heart to his Master— when once this brutish heart is conquered by divine grace, and becomes a servant of God, of what use he is! Do you see the labour and zeal of Paul? Why, he never grew weary! [I know right?😅] He was an ox that never fretted under the yoke. He went to the end of many a long furrow and back again, and to the end again. No stripes hindered him; no prisons stopped him. He was not afraid of death itself! He crossed the boisterous sea — no mean feat in those days of unskilful navigation; he traversed the equally dangerous land, suffering perils from robbers, from rivers, from wild beasts, and from false brethren. Like a strong ox he ploughed a heavy soil from morning to evening without complaint. He left no work undone, but he could say at the close of his career, “I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith!” Oh, what a vast amount of good might be done by some of those who are now doing so much mischief! When a sinner is really convinced of sin he cannot think that God himself can ever make anything of him; but you do not know! Ah, but the Lord can thus get a double victory over Satan, not merely by capturing Satan’s best men, but by transforming them into captains in the army of the cross!

2. In the second place, in this little parable, we have THE OX-GOAD.

No doubt it is a cruel instrument, but it is one which was thought by the Oriental husbandman to be needful for the stubborn nature of the ox. When he wanted to make his ox go, he just drove the goad into it from behind; and then pricking the ox from behind. Our God has many ways of goading us, but he does not use the goad with us where gentler means will avail.

He says, “I will guide thee with mine eye;” [Ps. 32:8] and he again says, “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they will not come.” [Ps. 32:9]. God does not come to blows with men till he has first tried words with them. It is a word and a blow with man; but there is often a long space between the word and the blow with God. It is, “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?” before he comes with the executioner’s axe. Before the tree is cut down there is a time of sparing, in which it is digged about if haply it may bring forth fruit. But when words are of no avail, then the Lord in tender mercy, if he means to save the soul, adopts sharper means, and comes from words to blows and wounds [😅].

Every doctrine, and every part of the teachings of God’s Word, acts like a goad to unconverted men. I have known people come in here; curiosity has brought them to hear the preacher, and his sermon has made them feel so angry that they could almost have knocked him down, but yet they could not help coming again. Why did they come? They could not tell why, but they could not stop away; and yet they hated the truth they heard. Many of you know, before you were converted, that anger was just your first state of feeling when you heard the gospel.

I feel rather glad when I hear that I have made some people angry [Uncle Charlessss! #Unbothered!😂]. I think within myself, “Well, they were not asleep at any rate, and they gave the sermon some sort of thought.” When a man thinks enough about the truth to begin to fight against it, I am in hope that the truth will give him a shaking, and never let him go till it has fairly beaten him into better things [language!😍]. Angry feeling is better than no feeling, and enmity to the truth may be looked upon with more hope than indifference to it.

Now what a goad to some men is the doctrine of the cross! They cannot hear of the wounds of Jesus and sin pleasantly. To some the doctrine of the punishment of sin is like the file to the viper, they are always breaking their teeth by gnawing at it. There is no part of Scripture which, rightly understood, is not a goad to the sinner, saying to him unmistakeably, “Sinner, turn thee, turn thee from thy wicked ways, for why wilt thou die?”

When God has goaded a man, he stirs him with the common operations of the Holy Ghost in his conscience. The Holy Ghost often deals with men’s consciences so far as to arouse and warn them, but they quench the Spirit. They, as Stephen says, resist the Spirit as did also their fathers. It may be that some man here is the subject of these inward strivings; may he end in effectual calling, and not lead to increased damnation.

3. In the third place—and here let conscience be awake—we have to speak about THE KICKS. “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

The ox when wounded is so very foolish as to dash its foot against the goad, and consequently, drives it deeper into himself and hurts himself the more. This is the natural manner of men till God makes something more than beasts of them. Man is sure, like the ox, to kick against the pricks.

How can we do this? A man who is reproved by a sermon will perhaps feel that if it be true he must give up his drunkenness. “But,” says he, “I will not give up my drunkenness; I do not want to do that, and therefore I do not believe that the sermon is true.” The guilty conscience cries, “I will pick a hole in the minister’s coat, because he has found one in mine. If what he says be true, I must mend my ways; but I do not intend to do that, therefore I will try and find some fault with the truth which is taught, or with the man who teaches it.” There are many individuals who are so left of God through their sin, that they have come to persecute God’s people. They cannot burn them, they cannot shut them up in prison; but they vex them with cruel mockings, they twist their innocent actions into something wrong, and then they throw it in their teeth. They even sit down and wantonly invent falsehoods against the innocent, and utter libellous things against the people of God, because they have a conviction that the saints are better than themselves.

It seems to be the natural suggestion of our fallen nature that when goodness rebukes us we straightway try to prove that it is not goodness, in order that our conscience may be quieted.

This is your way of kicking against the pricks, but I hope that since God has brought you here he means to stop your rebellions to-day. I pray he may, and that no longer you may kick against him, but turn to him and say, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

4. THE RESULT OF KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS. Christ says, “It is hard for thee.”

Friend, let me hold you by the button-hole and talk to you. Young man, you know that sin does not make you happy. You have had your swing of it, and you are miserable this morning. Oh no, there’s no bliss to be found in evil. At last the truth is beginning to dawn upon your mind. Instead of happiness you have found unrest and dissatisfaction. You will make your present afflictions grow worse, and cause your present losses to accumulate upon you. You are kicking against the pricks, and are making the wounds already received ten times worse, and so it always will be so long as you keep on kicking.

I could weep when I think of how hard your sins will be for you if you are ever converted. He that is converted to God finds it hard to have been a sinner so long. His repentance is bitter in proportion to the greatness of his sin. “Alas!” says he, “that I should ever have so revolted against the God that loved me with such a love.” Those who are saved late in life feel that their sins will be their plague till they die. A man does not go and plunge into the ditch of sin without bearing the stench of its vileness in his memory all his life. An old song that you used to sing in your carnal days will come up and defile your closet prayers, and perhaps the recollection of some unholy scene in which you had a part in your younger days will trouble you even when you are at the sacramental table [😅]. The apostle Paul always bore the memory of his sin, for he says, “I was the least of the apostles because I persecuted the church of God.” He always felt that; and who knows but that the stripes and imprisonment that he had to bear himself must often have brought the tears into his eyes when he suffered them as he thought? “I persecuted them in their synagogue, and I compelled them to blaspheme, and now I am called to suffer the same things myself.” The past life of a regenerate man will always be his grief.

“Remember,” says conscience, “you were warned: you did not sin without knowing it was sin; you did not choose the downward path without understanding it to be the path that led to ruin. You felt the pricks of warning, but you kicked against them…” I have been a goad, I hope, to many of you, and you have tried hard to continue what you are while a loving heart has tried to bring you into a better mind. But by-and-by the goad will become a sword; the very gospel which warns will be the gospel that smites.

5. Then the last thing is THE GOOD COUNSEL.

Since it is hard for you to kick against the pricks, and there is nothing to be got by it, cease, oh cease from your evil way! Why should you do it? If it made you happy to be sinners, I could almost pardon you. If it were a profitable thing I might almost excuse you; but it is such an unsatisfactory thing, and the happiness is so transient, such mere scum upon the pot, that I cannot excuse you if you will follow it.

O sensible, thoughtful man, kick against the pricks no more. If you do not become a Christian, do not be a persecutor. There is no need to make your eternal portion worse. Suppose you think that the gospel is not true, at any rate do not fight against it, for if it be of God you cannot prevail against it, and if it be not, it will go down without you.

Do not, however, think that we ask you to cease from wrath because we are afraid of you. The gospel is like an anvil; you may hammer it and it will break your hammer, and itself remain unbroken. You may stumble against this stone and you will be broken, but you cannot break or remove the stone. Woe unto you if that stone fall upon you, for on whomsoever this stone shall fall it will grind him to powder.

Stop and think. If we can get men to think, we may have good hope of them [😂]. If you must and will go to hell, go there with your eyes open, and do not be deceived. Eternity must be such a weighty thing that it is surely worth a thought. If the devil be worthy to be your master, consider his claims, and serve him thoughtfully. If sin, and drunkenness, and money loving be the best things for you, think them over, and give a reason for the hope that is in you. There are some of us who think you foolish; justify your conduct then, and get an answer ready. Oh! if you would but think, you would soon say, No, no, no, I know there is a God, I know I have sinned, I know that he must punish me; there is mercy in Jesus, I will find it.”

Let me say to thee, sinner, yield thy heart to the goadings of divine love, for “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Oh, think not that the Saviour’s blood will be unable to cleanse thee. Not thy worthiness, but thine unworthiness attracts his attention; not thy strength, but thy weakness; not thy riches, but thy poverty.

He has never cast any soul away, however filthy its previous life may have been, and he will not begin to-day to reject sinners. Him that cometh unto him he will in no wise cast out. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Wherefore do ye kick against the pricks? “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? May God the Holy Spirit give you grace to be obedient, and unto him shall be glory. Amen.”

Told you it would be worth your time😊 Hit me up with your thoughts, would you please?😊 Until next time,

Love,

Rad!💖