Sermon by Pastor Dale Wolcott

July 26, 2003

(Scriptures quoted are from the New King James Version unless noted)

He was at the top of his class – the kind of guy one would expect might win the balloting for "most likely to succeed." With a brilliant mind, protégé of the most respected elder statesmen of the country, already in his thirties he had a seat in the inner circle of national leadership. If there ever was a young man who had his life together, it was Saul of Tarsus. Everybody knew that Saul was on his way to the top.

And he was religious too! Probably the class pastor, he knew his Torah (the Bible of his day) backwards and forwards. And not only knew it. He did it, and woe to anyone who didn’t. His biting tongue was well known in the synagogue.

And he was learning the uses of power. One morning he arranged an appointment with the high priest:

"Your honor, do you remember that troublemaker, Stephen? We had him executed. The rest of his bunch left town, most of them. But I understand they’re causing trouble in our Jewish communities wherever they go. They come into the synagogue, act like they are one of us and then they start talking about that Nazarene, Jesus, as if He were the Messiah! I am willing to go and arrest them, sir, if you will give me the authority."

And so papers were drawn up, requests for religious extradition, and a logistical support team was arranged – a caravan befitting Saul’s important mission. The first stop would be Damascus in Syria.

But all the while, something was churning the insides of this bright, successful, "together" young man, this rising star in the religious and political world of Judaism. He had trouble sleeping at night. He kept remembering a face – the face of Stephen. Surrounded by the angry Sanhedrin, on the day of his trial and execution, Stephen’s face had glowed like the face of an angel. Acts 6:15. There had been peace on that face. In the midst of an angry storm all around, Stephen had peace.

Saul had peace all around, and yet it seemed like he was having a war on the inside. What did Stephen have that he didn’t? Stephen, the despised condemned nobody; Saul, the star pupil of Gamaliel and youngest member of the Sanhedrin. In spite of everything, Stephen had the face of an angel.

And in the blackness of night, in his luxury apartment in the best neighborhood in Jerusalem, Saul kept having flashbacks of Stephen’s trial; he kept remembering lines from Stephen’s speech (recorded in Acts 7), and then seeing again that upturned face, glowing as if a great heavenly torch were shining on it. And the video in his mind would play the soundtrack: "I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" Acts 7:56.

That had been Stephen’s death warrant. Saul had followed as they hustled Stephen outside the city wall. He had participated in the ritual stoning. And now the bloody, kneeling face of Stephen was etched on his memory, and it kept coming back to haunt him in the night. He could still see the lips moving, as he had strained to make out what the dying man was saying – without seeming to be interested, of course. But he’d heard it clearly: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Acts 7:59. And then the very last words, as Stephen was already knocked to his knees by the barrage of rocks – he’d heard them crystal clear: "Lord, do not charge them with this sin." Acts 7:60.

From that day on, something deep inside Saul’s conscience had been haunting him: Jesus IS alive! The God of your fathers has something better for you than you’ve ever dreamed. The Good News about Jesus, the Gospel that Stephen preached, is what you need.

Acts, chapter 9, tells the story of how Saul of Tarsus discovered the Best News in the World! I hope and pray that you will discover it too, or rediscover it, here this morning.

Father, please send your Spirit to our hearts today as you did to the heart of Saul so long ago. I pray that we’ll see Jesus as he did, and that someone here will never be the same again, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

"Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" Then the Lord said, "I am Jesus whom you persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads." So he, trembling and astonished, said, "Lord what do you want me to do?" Then the Lord said to him, "Arise, and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."" Acts 9:1-6.

So he did. Notice the outcome in verse 20:

"Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. Then all who heard were amazed, and said, ‘Is this not he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem, and has come here for that purpose, so that he might bring them bound to the chief priest?’ But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ." Acts 9:20-22.

The focus of this message is on three great Gospel facts, which changed Saul’s life – and will change yours. I want to share with you the Best News in the World!

Good News Fact #1: JESUS IS AFTER YOU! Notice the last part of Acts 9:5. "And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’"

Jesus is out to get you! You may not think that’s such good news. For a while Saul didn’t either. When Saul headed for Damascus, he was actually running away, running from that face, running from his conscience.

Have you ever noticed that when your conscience bothers you, you have to keep busy? Perhaps that is why a lot of people have to have "background noise" no matter what they’re doing: TV on, radio playing, anything to distract from the silence of the soul, because in the silence of the soul, the still small voice becomes loud and insistent.

Have you ever noticed that if somebody has done something which he or she knew was displeasing to you, or if someone is holding a grudge against you, that person is always too busy to talk? You’ve seen it work that way with yourself as well, right? I’ve known people to literally cross the street to the far sidewalk, simply to avoid a possible conversation with a certain person.

The fact is, all of us are running from Jesus, in some way or another, in some facet of our life, until He "lays hold of" us, to use Paul’s phrase in Philippians 3. A poet a century ago called Jesus the "Hound of Heaven:"

"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years…."

But Jesus doesn’t give up, He persists, He follows. That’s Good News – the Best News in the World: Jesus thinks I’m worth pursuing!

In college, I pursued a young lady named Nancy. She was 18 years old, with dishpan-blond hair, a cute pug nose and a sharp wit. But most of all, this girl had a spiritual depth; a transparent openness about how important Jesus was to her, that persuaded me that she was worth pursuing. The beauty of it was that she didn’t run too hard! It does something for a girl’s self-worth when somebody starts courting her; it did something for mine when she let me catch her!

So the beginning of the Best News in the World is that Jesus wants you. Jeremiah 31:3 says, " I have loved you, with an everlasting love; Therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you." He won’t ever force. He didn’t force Saul. Even on the Damascus road, Saul was free to respond in surrender or in rebellion. But He’ll do everything an Almighty God can do, short of coercing your will. And that says something about you!

Ellen White let Jesus catch up with her very early in her life, while she was still a girl. Many years later, in a letter to friends, she wrote a prayer, disclosing what she’d been praying in the mornings when she woke up. Nancy and I have memorized it, and often repeat it when we first wake up. It uses the old King James English. (Some of you remember when everybody prayed with thee’s and thou’s.) Listen:

I love Thee, O Lord! Thou knowest that I love Thee! Precious Saviour, Thou hast bought me with the price of Thine own blood. Thou hast considered me of value, or Thou wouldst not have paid an infinite price for my salvation. [Life Sketches, p 339, 340.]

The fact that Jesus is pursuing you, Jesus wants you, Jesus values you, speaks volumes about you. You are worth EVERYTHING to Him!

And it says even more about Him. He loves you not merely because of who you are; He loves you in spite of who you are! Near the end of the "Hound of Heaven" poem, the writer, Francis Thompson, imagines Jesus speaking to him in these words:

"Alack, [says Jesus,] thou knowest not how little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee, I did but take, not for thy harms,

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child’s mistake fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand and come!"

Saul was kicking against the pricks, running away from the Hound of Heaven. How about you? Do you have a conscience? Does it prick you sometimes? And how do you respond when it does? Do you kick against the pricks? Or do you sort of ignore it and hope it will go away? The scary thing is that it can go away, if we ignore it long enough.

More often in our post-modern world we psychoanalyze our conscience: "You probably feel that way because of something that happened when you were a kid; you really need to grow past that, get over it, accept yourself the way you are." The way post-modern society kicks conscience in the teeth is by denying that there is any such thing. (Like many dangerous lies, this is a half-truth. There is such a thing as false guilt, and a false conscience.)

But a healthy conscience, activated by the Word of God, is a precious gift, placed in your heart by the Hound of Heaven. A teenager once said to me, "Sometimes I wish I didn’t have such a loud conscience." Hey, if you’ve got a loud conscience, cherish it! Listen to it! Thank God for it. And remember that those pricks that sometimes make you feel like kicking are Good News – The Best News in the World. God values you so much that He’s not willing to let you go blissfully, merrily down the tubes to eternal destruction. He loves you too much for that! And so He hounds you.

Let’s think a little more about those "pricks." Suppose you learned that some close friends were living in a house that had been built on a radioactive disposal dumpsite, and didn’t know it. Would you tell them? Suppose they say, "Well, it’s probably a fairly low level of radiation, and none of us are getting sick. We like it here." Would you drop it, or would you push it some?

How much resistance would it take before you would tell your friends, "OK, I’ll drop it; we won’t talk about it anymore?" It would probably depend how close you felt to them, how much you loved and cared about them. Suppose it was your child? You wouldn’t quit! You’d hound them, offer incentives, plead, be tempted to manipulate – whatever it takes to get them out of there! God never manipulates, but He does hound, because He loves you. That is Good News fact #1.

Good News Fact #2: JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS. On the Damascus road, the living Jesus who had been hounding Saul, pricking his conscience; the Jesus whom Saul had been fighting; the Jesus he’d been denying even existed, finally got through to Saul. And when He got through, what did He say? "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" Acts 9:4.

Earlier, Jesus had told His disciples: "Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." Matthew 25:45. Now He said to Saul, "When you stoned Stephen, you were crucifying me."

In the same way, He says to us, "Whenever you make life difficult for a neighbor, you drive a spike in My hand. When you hurt anybody around you, by words, attitudes or actions, you’re shoving thorns into My forehead. When you hurt yourself by intemperance, indulgence or self-pity, you put a knife in My heart."

How is that Good News? That is the best news in the entire world! Jesus volunteered to let you do that to Him! Jesus was not merely the unfortunate victim of a corrupt political system. When He died on the cross, Jesus took in His own body, voluntarily, the eternal consequences of your destructive choices and mine. You see, ultimately, we didn’t do it to Him; He chose to accept it because He loves us. The old gospel song says it well:

When Saul of Tarsus met Jesus of Nazareth on the Damascus road, Saul saw the one who was willing to die in his place. He saw the persecuted Jesus, the Jesus of Isaiah 53, "despised and rejected by men" (vs 3), "led as a lamb to the slaughter" (vs7). And when Saul saw the Lord on the cross, he saw an entirely new picture of God. From then on, he read the Old Testament with gospel glasses!

The persecuted, crucified Jesus brought peace to Saul’s churning, prick-sore heart. And if you really see Jesus crucified for you, it will change your heart too. You can’t stay proud when you’re looking at Jesus on the cross. You can’t stay a rebel if you keep looking at Jesus on the cross. If you want to rebel, you’ll have to look the other way. If you want to rebel, you’ll have to shut your eyes and block your ears because your Creator hanging on a cross voluntarily, for you, is the Hound of Heaven. And if you do keep on gazing at Jesus on the cross, you won’t stay defeated, you won’t stay discouraged and you won’t stay rebellious.

Good News Fact #3: JESUS WILL AMAZINGLY CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Notice Acts 9:21, "All who heard were" what? "Amazed."

His former friends were amazed, sort of like the people who saw the blind man after Jesus restored his sight. Some said, "Yes, it’s him," others said, "It can’t be; he just looks like him." Saul of Tarsus was a different guy than he’d been before.

Even the church was amazed. It took Barnabas to finally persuade them to accept Saul as a believing brother (Acts 9:26-28). Are we a bit like that sometimes when new believers enter the family – a little skeptical that they are really changed?

But let’s not be too hard on ourselves. Not only were Saul’s old friends and his new church family amazed; his own letters, preserved in the New Testament, reveal that Saul himself was amazed. "For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle" (1 Corinthians 15:9). "I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man" (1 Timothy 1:13). "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ" (Philippians 3:7). "But I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me" (Philippians 3:12). He chased me, He pursued me, and He got me. And now that He’s got me, says Saul who became Paul, I’m determined I’m NEVER going to let go of Him.

Brother, sister, young person, JESUS IS AFTER YOU! That’s Good News. JESUS DIED FOR YOU! That’s Better News! You don’t need to run, because your pursuer is your Best Friend. And JESUS WILL CHANGE YOU! That is the Best News in the World. Listen to this: "Christ is making experiments of grace on human hearts and is effecting such transformations of character that angels are amazed." [Testimonies for the Church, vol. 7, p. 16].

Wasn’t that an amazing children’s story this morning? A thief accidentally steals a Bible, reads it and it changes his life. Stories like that are happening all around the world – in Africa, New Guinea, Mongolia, South America.

I have one here from the Philippines, recently published in Mission Post magazine. Two Filipino student missionaries take a year out of college to pioneer in an animist village out in the jungle of their own country. When they arrive, the place is deserted – everyone is afraid of these missionaries from the lowlands. Eventually they persuade the chief to let them start a school. It seems like everything they do is unappreciated, but they persevere. They go back to college a year later feeling they’ve been a failure. Four years pass. They go back for a surprise visit – and they’re the ones who get the surprise. The pigs are gone. The school is thriving. As the sun sets, the people come together, the air is filled with heavenly music, and the young missionaries’ eyes fill with tears. What an amazing change!

Jesus is making amazing changes in human hearts right here in Midland as well. Would you like to amaze the angels? Do you want that kind of transformation in your life? Only Jesus can make it happen. Saul of Tarsus discovered that he was able to be what he knew he ought to be only when he let Jesus grip Him – when he looked long and hard at the cross of Calvary and said, "Lord what do you want me to do?" Acts 9:6.

This morning if you know your life is out of joint, if you know you need Jesus, if you’re ready to stop running and invite Him to be your Lord as Saul did, if you’re ready to let Him change your life and give you peace, please come forward as we sing our hymn of response.