Paul says of his unsaved past in Acts 22, “I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.
[4] And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.
[5] As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.”

Jordan explains, “When Paul talks about what he was doing, he said, ‘I persecuted them unto the death. I’m involved in killing some of these people; martyring them.’

“When he says in Galatians that “beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it,” he did it to both men and women; nobody was safe!

“He went to Damascus; he had letters. He had warrants issued by the government of Israel to go and extradite these people from Damascus and bring them back to Jerusalem.

“Now, when you carry government warrants and go execute them, you are an official of the government, are you not? Can you understand why the Apostle Paul, in I Timothy, would have called himself ‘the chief of sinners’?!

“When he said that, he didn’t mean, ‘I’m the worst profligate; I’m the nastiest, raunchiest, filthiest mouth-inhabited guy you ever met.’ In Philippians 3 he says, “As touching the law I was blameless.’ What he meant when he said he was ‘the chief of sinners,’ is that, ‘I was the leader!’

“When you think about him leading the world’s rebellion against Christ, you realize he literally was the official representative of his nation in persecuting others. When Christ stopped him on the road to Damascus, as the hymn writer says, ‘He stopped my wild career.’

“Christ says, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ and He knew Paul hated Christ and he hated those who named the name of Christ.

“Now, there’s somebody in the Bible who’s also going to do that in the prophetic program. He’s known as the ‘man of sin; the son of perdition’—the one who becomes the personification of the lie program.

“And as sure as you’re sitting in your chair tonight, the Apostle Paul understood that if God had not have interrupted that prophetic program back there in ‘times past,’ the chances were very good that Paul could have been a prime candidate to have been that man himself! That’s a scary thing for a fellow! I think Paul understood that, and that’s why he said, ‘I’m the chief of sinners.’ He understood just how deceived he was.

“In Acts 26:11 Paul says, ‘And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.’

“Notice he’s compelling them to blaspheme. He says, ‘I was exceedingly mad against them!’ Think about it, if that’s the attitude the guy had!

“He said, ‘You know my apostleship didn’t come from those Jerusalem saints. No. 1, you know it because they were scared to death of me. I wasn’t listening to what they had to say; I was out trying to kill them and persecute them and they weren’t talking to me just because I was trying to kill them and they were afraid of me.’

“Besides that, he says in Gal. 1:14, ‘And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.’ Notice there’s competition in Israel to be in the star seat, and Paul said, ‘I was the star! I had it made!’

“In Philippians 3, he confesses something about that. He says in verse 7, ‘But what things were gained to me I counted them loss for Christ and the things were gained were the things in the Jews’ religion.’ And notice he says they were gain. When Paul got saved he lost a fortune, folks! And he lost a money-making machine; a cash cow!

“He’s profited in that more than anyone else—‘being exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.’ You understand traditions; traditions aren’t necessarily bad. It’s good to have family traditions; good to have family habits so you build some loyalty in your family and some commitment and camaraderie among your family. And it’s not bad to have traditions in an assembly, or things you do in a group, or some common interest or camaraderie.”