January 15, 2006

Clearly, here was “a man on a mission.” This saying, indicating a person of relentless drive,

perfectly describes the young Pharisee Saul headed for Damascus.

We were first introduced to this young man at Stephen’s martyrdom. Luke tells us, “Saul was there, giving approval to his death.” In fact, as a time of great persecution then erupted, “Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.” [i]

Saul’s relentless drive and fervent passion for this all came about from who he was at this particular time in his life. He describes this for us in his own words in his letter to the Philippians: “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.” [ii] That’s quite a pedigree! This was not your average first century Jew!

And this helps us to also realize somewhat of the reasoning behind why Saul was on his way to Damascus, a large city some 150 miles from Jerusalem to the Northeast, in the Roman province of Syria. His intentions surely included these: Unifying Judaism by making Christians out to be their common enemy; Capturing any Christians who had fled from Jerusalem to Damascus; Putting a stop to any further advancement of Christianity; and Promoting personal gain in his standing and reputation as a Pharisee.

But in spite of all these intentions and all the reasoning behind each one of them, the Lord obviously had other plans for this young man. In a blaze of supernatural light, the Lord Jesus appeared to Saul and brought about a most powerful conversion. And in the conversion of this “unlikely convert”, whom we refer to today as Apostle Paul, we are left with some principles to consider.

ONE PRINCIPLE

IS THAT ANY CONVERSION

INVOLVES A PERSONAL ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS CHRIST.

When we look carefully at the description of what happened, we can see immediately that this was no mere vision. The Risen Lord engaged this Pharisee in such a way that can only be described as real! This was no trance, dream or vision, but a real-life encounter with the Risen Christ.

Saul, in true rabbinic thought, would immediately recognize that a voice from heaven, coupled with such a blazing, intense supernatural light, could only mean that he was in the presence of deity. That’s why Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?”

A dialogue then developed, and when Saul got his answer from Jesus, he realized that in persecuting the Church, he had been persecuting the Church’s Head. It was a personal encounter of the most dramatic kind, and like Isaiah the prophet of old, Saul would never be the same again. [iii]

In any event of true conversion, there will always be an encounter with Jesus Christ. The revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is the primary focal point of the Christian faith. Strip the Christian faith of a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, and you only end up with a religious lifestyle, nothing more, nothing less. As such it has no power, it has no joy, it has no influence. But with the living Christ at its center, it has all this and more!

In the 18^th century, two young Englishmen had firmly rejected the Christian faith. Lord Lyttleton and Gilbert West were their names and they were both gifted lawyers and determined unbelievers. In a conversation one day, one of them said to the other:

Christianity stands upon a very unstable foundation. There are only two things that actually support it: the alleged resurrection of Jesus Christ and the alleged conversion of Saul of Tarsus. If we can disprove those stories, which should be rather easy to do, Christianity will collapse like a house of cards.[iv]

They then agreed that West would write a book disproving the resurrection and Lord Lyttleton a book disproving Saul’s conversion. They went off separately to write their books and met again after a while. And when they did, the house of cards was beginning to collapse. Only the house was that of their unbelief. Separately, they admitted to each other that they were starting to believe there might be something to this after all.

After much investigation, and in the end after each one had written his own book, it was clear that both had come to a far different conclusion! They had both been converted, by the truth, and by an encounter with the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. And both of their books bore glad testimony to the same!

The Christian faith is essentially a relationship with God through an encounter with Jesus Christ. It is for this very reason that we as the Church sing and say:

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;

She is His new creation, by water and the Word:

From heav’n He came and sought her to be His holy Bride;

With His own blood He bought her, and for her life He died. [v]

II

THE OTHER PRINCIPLE

WE OUGHT TO CONSIDER HERE

IS THAT THE PRECISE NATURE

OF SUCH AN ENCOUNTER WITH CHRIST MAY VARY.

Sometimes an initial encounter with Christ will be a break-through, sudden, dramatic experience. This was certainly true of Saul while traveling to Damascus. In fact, those who have had a dramatic conversion experience will often describe it in saying that it was a “Damascus Road Experience.”

We are not certain of the date of Saul’s conversion. Some indicate a date of around 34 AD. But noted clearly in so many of his writings in the New Testament, Saul could never forget the time, place or circumstances involved in his rock-solid conversion.

So it has been with several people over the course of time. Because of a radical and distinct conversion experience, they can point to a certain time in their lives as a before and after watermark. They do not do so with arrogance, but rather in gratitude for the grace of God revealed in such a life-changing way.

When I was in college attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, I myself had quite a “Damascus Road” conversion experience. Not long after, out of curiosity I attended on the campus a speaking engagement with Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

You may recall her name from being the well-known atheist primarily responsible for removing prayer from the public schools. She did so through a very public lawsuit that went to the Supreme Court in 1963. That court decision led to O’Hair becoming the nation’s most famous atheist. She founded American Atheists in 1963, but she was not a woman without controversy. In 1964, Life magazine called her “the most hated woman in America.”

In 1973, ten years after the Supreme Court decision, as I listened to her and watched her, I found her to be a very impertinent and angry woman. As she spoke, I couldn’t help but think that she would be such a wonderful witness if she would have a dramatic encounter with Christ. I prayed that she would and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one! But of course, she never did. As far as we can tell, she continued in her stubborn ways until in 1995, when she and two adult children of hers were kidnapped and murdered.

One may well wonder what it must have been like to have been raised as a child in such an environment of angry atheism. Most, if not all, could only see those children being formed and fashioned in their mother’s image.

But on Mother’s Day in 1980, her son William made a very public announcement. He announced his conversion to the Christian faith. He said he had found Jesus Christ and had left behind the errors of his ways. He wrote a book about this and became an outspoken evangelist. What an unlikely convert! It was all to his mother’s horror, and to his heavenly Father’s honor.

But of course, this kind of experience is not universal. Not everyone has such a turn-around experience in the way of a kind of before-and-after event. There are those whose encounter with Christ has been far more quiet and reserved. This is often the case in terms of growing up in a solid, Christian family.

David Livingstone is a name that often arises in the category of missionaries. He was a pioneer missionary to Africa during the nineteenth century, exploring vastly unknown regions and sharing the Gospel. When he died in 1873, he was found kneeling at his bedside, apparently in prayer. His African companions were so grateful for his ministry that they buried his heart and organs in Africa, and then shipped his body back to England, where it was interred in Westminster Abbey.

Livingstone was raised near Glasgow in a poor Scottish family, and a church-going family at that. Livingstone never wrote in depth as to the details regarding his coming to faith in Christ, but he once wrote briefly of his spiritual upbringing and conversion and had this to say:

Great pains had been taken by my parents to instill the doctrines of Christianity into my mind, and I had no difficulty in understanding the theory of our free salvation by the atonement of our Savior, but it was only about this time that I really began to feel the necessity and value of a personal application of the provisions of that atonement to my own case. The change was like what may be supposed would take place were it possible to cure a case of ‘color blindness.’

The perfect freeness with which the pardon of all our guilt is offered in God’s book drew forth feelings of affectionate love to Him who bought us with His blood, and a sense of deep obligation to Him for His mercy has influenced, in some small measure, my conduct ever since. [vi]

When we hear such testimony as this, we have the sense of a quiet encounter, and yet nevertheless a very real encounter with Christ that bore much fruit in the course of time!

Here, again, regardless of the precise circumstances of an encounter with the living Christ, we must all remember that in a very real sense, we are all “unlikely converts.” Whoever we are, we would not come to God unless He first came to us. While God chooses to call us to Himself in varied ways, with a varied set of circumstances and details, it is all yet the grace of God in Jesus Christ that saves us.

God gives us this message, I believe, not only in the actual event of Saul’s conversion, but also in the name of the man told by the Lord to go and see Saul. Do you remember his name? The man’s name was Ananias, a name meaning “The LORD is gracious” or “The LORD shows grace”.

Oh, dear friends, indeed He does. Indeed He does!