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, 15th 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