Conversion: A Meditation on Acts 9, for the Second Sunday after Easter

And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and

slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the

high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to

the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether

they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus:

and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:

And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him,

Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said,

I am Jesus whom thou persecutest:

 it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

And he trembling and astonished said,

Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?

And the Lord said unto him,

Arise, and go into the city, and it

shall be told thee what thou must do.

The Church of Christ has seen times like ours before.  Persecutions both perceived and real have been with the Church from its beginning, as those who oppose the Gospel of Jesus Christ seek every means to resist or hinder it.  In our day it is the rising tide of secular humanists in the west who seek to drive the Christian witness from the public square, and in the east a rising tide of Jihadist Islam which moves from suppression of Christians to murdering them en masse.  Some have observed that the 20^th century’s atheist tyrants made it the bloodiest century in recorded human history, and now new Islamist tyrants are on pace to beat their mark in the 21^st.  Whole communities of millions of Christians which have endured since the Apostles planted churches in their respective areas, are now on the brink of extinction.

How does the Church of Christ respond to the oppression and persecution she endures at the hands of unbelievers?  She prays for their conversion.  While God has given the power of the sword to the political government for the preservation of justice, He has given the Keys of His Kingdom to His Church by His Word.  The Sword of the Spirit which the Church wields is not one crafted of iron or steel, but because it is the Eternal Word of Almighty God, it is sharper than any weapon made by man, piercing beyond muscle and bone into heart, mind, and soul.  This Word of God the Church bears in the Holy Scriptures contains such power because its origin is the Incarnate Word of God Jesus Christ, and its proclamation goes out in His Name by the wonder-working power of His Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, the scourges of our time are being met by churches that have lost their confidence in the Word of God.  Church bodies and fellowships across various traditions have yielded one after another before the seductive lies of so-called Higher Criticism, handing over their faith to liberal scholars who dismiss the witness of Holy Scripture, recasting Jesus into various humanist constructs, and removing from the people any authoritative witness to His Gospel.  Churches which have allowed themselves to wallow in the pride of submitting Holy Scripture under their critical analysis have declared the miraculous works of a holy God to be fanciful myths, at best left to us by misguided misogynists of antiquity for some general moral guidance.  Such churches have been shriveling and dying for the better part of a century, decaying from the inside out as they deny the Means of Grace which originally gave them life.  They have become fat, blind, and lethargic by their partnership with an unbelieving world system, little more than political lap dogs to be manipulated and used to bark on queue for their masters.  They may bear the outward marks of a Christian fellowship, but they have denied the Christ who is part and parcel with the Scriptures they cast aside.

From such a vacuum of biblical fidelity several odd realities have emerged.  Honest Christians, deceived by the liberal lies of an unbelieving academy, look elsewhere for how to build Christ’s Church and convert our persecutors.  They dream that music might be able to manipulate the heathen into Christ’s camp, so they craft endless variations on praise bands and stage craft to make their churches “seeker sensitive.”  Having lost confidence in the Word of God, they hope that if their church looks, sounds, and feels like the pagan world at large, they will woo pagans into the church.  Sadly, such churches often become greater aggregations of unbelieving pagans, since the Word of God has been replaced by lesser human things.  Even if they are successful in gathering stadiums full of swaying and singing participants, if they are gathered around something other than Christ and His Word, they are not in any real sense His Church.  A pagan in Christian garb or standing in a Christian locale is still a pagan.

The Easter hope of Christ’s people does not lie in liberal scholars, who puff up their own credentials for the sake of their own personal pride, while belittling and despising the Word of God.  It does not lie in the praise band, the sound board engineer, the light show coordinator, the ntertainment consultants, or the gimmicks of non-biblical sermon series.  It does not lie in the secular weapons of a political state, whose fallen ambitions are twisted toward their own power and wealth to be lavishly spread within their inner cabal.  The hope of Christians has never been a human construct, plan, or strategy; rather, it has always been, and shall always be, the grace of God Almighty.

In the beginning, before human beings or any other creature walked the earth, it was the grace of God through His Word which brought all things into existence, without any assistance or contrivance of man.  After our first parents’ Fall into sin and death, it was the grace of God through His Word which gave the promise of salvation to be accomplished by the suffering of His Messiah yet to come.  Through the millennia in which His people waited, it was the grace of God through His Word which gave His people faith to look forward to their Messiah, and to endure the rising and falling of evil empires and false prophets.  At the moment of Jesus’ conception in the blessed Virgin Mary, it was the grace of God through His Word which brought forth the Incarnation of His Son, apart from any human work or machination.  At the Cross of Calvary, it was the grace of God through His Word nailed to a tree where the Vicarious Atonement of all mankind was accomplished, even as men and devils fought their hardest to oppose Him.  At that first Easter morning, it was the grace of God through His Word which showed forth the defeat of sin, death, hell, and the devil by the resurrection of His Only Begotten Son.  On the days which followed, it was the grace of God through His resurrected Word which called and gathered His scattered disciples, gave to them His Holy Spirit, and sent them out as His Apostles to preach His Gospel of salvation to all who would repent and believe in Jesus.

Just as the Word of God Incarnate came and converted the murderous heart of Saul, so that he might become the greatest missionary in the history of the world, so too has the Word of God come to you, giving your cold dead heart a new life of faith in His grace.  God’s Word of grace in Jesus Christ is as much the sure hope of your salvation, as it is for every other soul under heaven.  The people of God do not cast about for some other savior or some other word, when our Savior and His Eternal Word are given to us in grace and mercy beyond measure.  God’s Word not only gave existence to the world and sustains it unto the Last Day, but it continues to be the conversion and salvation of all who hear and believe Him.

O little flock, do you see the rising tides of demonic hordes upon the hills, hiding behind their masks of false politics and false religions, gathering to surround the City of God?  Do you see them with their awful weapons, their dark intrigues, and their wicked hearts bent on your destruction?  Do you see the king of hell arrayed in his earthly splendors, surrounded by his sycophantic slaves who think to quench the light by their darkness?

Rise up, O Christian, in the irresistible power of God’s Eternal Word!  Rise up in the Easter glory of your Risen Savior, who has defeated every enemy of His Kingdom and His people by His Cross.  Rise up in the faith given to you by His Word and Spirit, that through you His light might dispel all darkness and gloom.  Rise up, O Children of God, in the power of His grace which He has bequeathed to all His sons and daughters, that they might be dauntless in the face of both life and death, because their hearts cling steadfastly to Jesus’ eternal life.  Rise up out of your earthly grave of unbelief and despair to stand unflinching and unbending before the gaudy king of hell, whose kingdom your Lord and your God has already plundered.

Rise up in the Word and Spirit which calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, and enlivens you both now and for eternity—and you shall see that same Word and Spirit convert the hateful hearts of our persecutors into our fellow brothers and sisters in light everlasting.  Rise up!  For your Easter is proclaimed before heaven and earth by the Word of God your Risen Savior.  Let your doubt fall away, and be girded in triumphant faith and humble repentance for the battle already won in Jesus.  Arise, O saints of God, in the power of His Eternal Word to stand stalwart in Jesus’ Easter victory, proclaiming in fearless faith before all the world His Gospel for the conversion and salvation of souls.  His Kingdom and His Word are yours, O Child of God—Arise! 

Amen.