Should not the Apostle, who received such great promises from the Son of God Himself, who was made the cornerstone of the Church of Christ, who was appointed the gatekeeper of the Kingdom of Heaven, rightly be called the supreme one?

Even more amazing is the Divine omniscience that our Lord Jesus Christ manifested in relation to another great Apostle – Paul, the second supreme Apostle, whom many call the second, after Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity.

I think that all of you know the story of the miraculous appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to the cruel enemy and persecutor of Christians, Saul, who was on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus. He blinded him with His divine light and shook his soul with the question: "Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute Me? He said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It is difficult for you to go against the" (Acts 2:11). 9, 45). And the Lord commanded him to go to Damascus, having His companions as guides, and He Himself appeared in a vision to the Apostle Ananias, who lived in Damascus, and commanded him to go to the address indicated to the blind Saul, to restore his sight and to baptize him.

Ananias is amazed, for he has heard from many how much evil this man has done to the saints in Jerusalem.

We are also amazed, together with Ananias, at the answer of the Lord Jesus Christ: "Go, for he is my chosen vessel, to declare my name before the nations and kings and the children of Israel. And I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:1516).

The name of Saul, the cruel enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ and the persecutor of all who believed in Him, was widely known beyond the borders of Jerusalem and in Damascus and inspired fear, and the Divine omniscience of the Lord Jesus foresaw in him that great disciple of Christ, who would write in the Epistle to the Galatians the amazing words about himself: "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2, 1920).

With His divine gaze, He clearly saw in Saul's heart a treasure of boundless faith, full of fearlessness, patience, and mighty faith.

The Lord Himself was a witness to the hardest labors and sufferings that the great Apostle Paul endured during the many years of his fiery preaching about Him; beforehand, as it were, he was present at beatings, imprisonments, even when stoned almost to death; I was with him at shipwrecks three times, when he spent day and night in the depths of the sea, holding on to a wreck of a ship...

That is why the Omniscient Lord said to the Apostle Ananias: "Go, for he is My chosen vessel... And I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:1516).

The Lord knew that the time would come when this chosen vessel of His would be honored with the greatest reward for His labors and feats, would be caught up to the third heaven in paradise and would hear there ineffable words that cannot be told to people.

Is all this really not enough to say that from the Son of God Himself the great Paul deserved the title of the chief Apostle?

I could end my sermon here on the day of the great chief Apostles Peter and Paul, but I want to focus your attention on two facts from their great lives.

Is it not amazing that the enemy of Christ, such as Saul was, suddenly transformed into a chosen vessel of grace full to the brim, such as he, the supreme Apostle Paul, became?

I think that it is not difficult to answer this question. The enemy of Christ was the youth Saul, who grew up and was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, the famous rabbi, teacher of the law of Moses.