15th January 2012

(for a Microsoftword version click here)

    “Damascus”    

Reading:

Acts 9: 1-20 

Saul's Conversion

 ¹ Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest

    ² and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

    ³ As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

    ⁴ He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

    ⁵ Who are you, Lord? Saul asked. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, he replied.

    ⁶ Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.

    ⁷ The men travelling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.

    ⁸ Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus.

    ⁹ For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

    ¹⁰ In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, Ananias! Yes, Lord, he answered.

    ¹¹ The Lord told him, Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.

    ¹² In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.

    ¹³ Lord, Ananias answered, I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.

    ¹⁴ And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.

    ¹⁵ But the Lord said to Ananias, Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.

    ¹⁶ I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.

    ¹⁷ Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord— Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here— has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

    ¹⁸ Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptised,

    ¹⁹ and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Saul in Damascus and Jerusalem

   Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus.

    ²⁰ At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.

Sermon 

In 1974, after the Watergate scandal, the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, and his whole regime came tumbling down. Internal investigations showed that the total administration had been riddled with dishonesty, deceit and devious practices. No-one was found to be worse than the President’s Special Counsel, a man called Charles Colson. He was described as “Nixon’s hatchet man, the President’s hard man, “the evil genius behind an evil administration”. Some said that he’d walk over his own grandmother, if necessary, to get things done! Early in the Nixon years he’d looked to hire thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators. He’d also suggested fire-bombing one of the Democratic Party’s buildings in order to steal politically damaging documents while the fire-fighters put out the flames. All this was designed to bolster Nixon’s presidency and to help re-elect him. (Colson was heavily involved in the “Committee to Re-elect the President”, or CREEP for short.) 

After Watergate all his crimes were laid bare and he was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment.  An evil man who got his just desserts – such a man was Charles Colson. 

But this morning we are looking at a man far more evil than  Colson – a man whose religious bigotry led him to murder, to torture and to attempt to destroy all those who he thought were undermining what he considered to be the truth. Descriptions of him were the same as those used of wild, ferocious animals thirsting for the blood of their victims. But he was no mere animal. He possessed a superb brain which he used to flush out his enemies. He then designed schemes to cause them the maximum pain – such a man was Saul of Tarsus.

Saul had a cultured upbringing. He was a Roman citizen. He was privileged and deeply religious. As a young man he was full of promise, extremely bright and ambitious. He studied under the famous Gamaliel, one of Israel’s top teachers.

To the Jews the Christian message was seen as an impudent intrusion. Saul became fanatical in his hatred of this “new sect”. But he went right against what Gamaliel taught. Here are Saul’s teacher’s wise words: “Leave these Christians alone. Let them go! For, if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you won’t be able to stop them. You’ll only find yourself fighting against God.” But Saul, in his fury, had convinced himself that persecuting Christians was God’s work.  

This was the cunning and conniving method Saul used in Jerusalem:-

Suppose you were a Christian in the 1st century. It’s so early in the life of the church that you are still worshipping in the synagogue – no specifically Christian churches then. The leader for that day is that very important man, Saul of Tarsus. He begins the service by saying, “I’ve heard that some of us have been persuaded away from the truth and now worship a crucified criminal called Jesus. I’m certain there are none of those among us, but, just to make sure, I want everyone to stand up and say, individually, these words, ‘I curse the name of Jesus’”. A shiver runs up your spine.  The man in the front row stands up and repeats, “I curse the name of Jesus”. The second does the same. Now it’s your turn. What do you say? Your life has been wonderfully changed by Jesus. He guides you and has given you joy and peace. Can you say “I curse the name of Jesus”? But if you refuse you know you and your family will be thrown into prison. That was the evil trickery that Saul employed. 

Because of this persecution in Jerusalem many Christians had escaped to Damascus, about 150 miles away. Saul had discovered this and set out on foot to flush them out. (This week, in E100, we are looking at the travels of this man but the journey we see here is the most dramatic he ever took.) Jerusalem to Damascus would have been about a week’s walk. Saul took a large battalion of soldiers with him and, because he was much more important than them, he marched out in front, on his own.  

Eventually he neared Damascus. It was midday. Most people would have taken a siesta away from the heat of the sun, but not Saul. He was on a mission. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed the beauty of the city as he approached it. There it was, set in a rich, green plain with its pure white stone walls shimmering in the bright noon-day sun. No wonder it was referred to as “a handful of pearls set in a goblet of emerald”.

The sun was certainly shining but now, suddenly, there was an even stronger light – so strong, so bright that it knocked this proud zealot off his feet. Down to the ground he fell. Then a voice. Two sentences which changed Saul’s opinions for ever. First, a question: “Why are you persecuting ME?” 

In his bigoted mind Saul thought he was simply going to round up a group of helpless heretics. Now, all of a sudden, he realised he was fighting one single, divine being. That has implications for us in Bures today. We may think we are just a group of people who choose to come to church.  But we in fact represent Jesus in this village, or hamlet, today. If others choose to criticise us, they criticise Jesus. If they see us doing good, they see Jesus in operation. 

Lying there helpless, Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?” He received an answer that was full of meaning but not obvious to us in translation. “I am Jesus”. The words “I am” are the Jewish words for God. The full thrust was, “I’m God. My name is Jesus”.

All those years Saul had thought he’d been doing God’s will. And now he discovers he’s totally wrong. He’s been batting for the opposition: against God.

Not only is he mentally shattered but, as he tries to get up on his feet, he realises he can’t see anything.  That was literally a blinding light. To be blind in those days was terrifying. You became an outcast. The only way to make a living was to beg; how particularly demeaning for this extremely proud man. And he had to rely on these mere soldiers to help him back on to his feet and lead him into Damascus. His whole world, the one he dominated, has been shattered. Someone has said, “Jesus made Saul blind in order to make him see.” 

But, you may ask, this is a very famous story but did it really happen? Well, there’s no doubt that something dramatic happened that day. One eminent doctor has described it as a case of epilepsy. But we must bear in mind that the man writing this story was Luke, himself a doctor. He was so convinced that he told this Damascus story 3 times in Acts. Not only would he know an epileptic fit when he saw one but he has also been proved the most detail-orientated and accurate of all New Testament writers.  

Many years ago a couple of university students determined they would disprove Christianity once and for all. Their names were Gilbert West and George Littleton. During the Summer Holidays they decided they would each take a well known Bible story and discredit it. West took the Resurrection and Lyttleton the Conversion of Saul. However, when they returned for the Autumn Term they were both a little sheepish. Rather than disproving the stories, both had found the facts overwhelming. In fact George Littleton wrote this: “The conversion of St Paul, alone, was sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation”. 

We might also ask, “Can this happen today?” A few moments ago I mentioned Nixon’s “hatchet man”, Charles Colson. In 1973, as Colson was facing prison, he went to see his close friend, Tom Phillips. He writes this: “The reason I visited Tom that night was that I was coming back to his firm as his counsel. But before he met me, Tom prayed about how he should treat me. After all, here was his lawyer, mixed up in the Watergate affair. Tom later told me that God spoke to him. “Tell Chuck Colson about me, because he needs a friend.” God was certainly right! I was as desperate and lonely as a man could be. 

“After talking to Tom I found that when I got into my car to drive away I couldn’t. I was crying too hard – and I wasn’t one ever to cry. I spent an hour calling out to God.  I didn’t even know the right words.  But I know for certain that the God who made the Universe heard my cry. From the next morning to this day I have never looked back.  

“I wonder now what would have happened had Tom not spoken to me that night. If I’d managed somehow to survive the high-powered party life in Washington among the rich, famous and powerful, I would have been so miserable I don’t think I could have lived with myself. If I did not know for sure that the God who created us sent his son to die on a cross that my sins might be forgiven, I would have long ago suffocated in the stench of my own sin.” 

Coming to Christ gave Charles Colson a purpose. When he came out of prison he founded the Prison Fellowship; a ministry that now operates in 114 countries. It helps tens of thousands of men and women coming out of prisons as Christians find their place in community. He has raised millions of dollars from the sale of his books and the awards for his work; but everything is ploughed back into the Prison Fellowship.  

Funnily enough it is 42 years to the day, 15^th January 1970, when a rather pathetic and lost 19 year old gave in to the arguments of his Christian friends and accepted the new life that Jesus brings. That young man was me. And if you’d told me that 4 decades later I’d be standing up here dressed up in this strange kit then I’d have probably run a mile! Like Charles Colson I suddenly found I had a new purpose in life; like many of us sitting here today. 

The world can never quite accept the permanence of Christian conversion. Non-Christian friends of mine said I was going through “a curious stage”. Some treated Colson’s conversion as a huge joke. One journalist compared it to W.C. Fields, that well known alcoholic actor, joining the Temperance Union; but soon going back on the booze. “Oh yes, Colson would soon be back dancing on his grandmother’s grave!” How wrong they were. 

One of the hidden heroes of the Damascus story is Ananias. God told him what had happened to Saul. Probably the only way he could get his head round it was that he’d experienced something similar in his own life. So he went to the house that Saul was staying in and greeted this broken man with these wonderful words. “Brother Saul” – such a warm welcome, a total acceptance, despite all that Saul had done, into the fellowship of Christian believers.  

Once, a Pharisee who was fascinated by Jesus, came to him secretly by night to ask him questions. He was shocked when Jesus told him, “Unless a man is born again he can’t see the kingdom of God”. The phrase “born again” has been stolen by the secular world. We now hear about “born again” politicians, or actors or sportsmen. But Christians know that being “born again” goes far deeper than just starting afresh. It’s a change from the inside that only Jesus can bring.

In the next couple of months Robin is going to run another Alpha Course when all of this will be explained in full. I know he’d welcome anyone who is interested in joining. 

Some people say that if they had a Damascus Road experience like Saul then they would believe. But we tend to forget that the work in Saul’s heart had been going on a long time. He’d seen Stephen stoned to death. He’d seen how all these Christians had stood up under the suffering he’d planned. For months he’d been resisting what he knew, subconsciously, was right. The same was true for Charles Colson. I know the same was true for me. 

Someone has said that conversion is the end of the Christian life – but it’s the front end! How will the rest of it turn out? Saul became Paul and turned 100% of his enormous energy into spreading this wonderful message throughout his known world. Chuck Colson used his prison experience to present the same message as Paul and encourage Christians in prison across the globe. I look back and am ashamed at how little I’ve achieved in 42 years. At the beginning of this new year let’s be determined to use the experiences we’ve had to benefit others through our love for Jesus throughout 2012. 

ME