The Damascus Road

OPINION


Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

-- Acts 9:3-5, ESV

Ever since the Pharisee Saul became the Apostle Paul, we call it the "Damascus Road Experience" any time a really bad person comes to good faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the truth is, every genuinely born again Christian has their own Damascus Road.

I used to hear it said often by preachers that to become a Christian, you must take the first step, then God will take the rest. That's true, if you acknowledge that the first step is to sin. The Pharisee Saul certainly did his part. Though clothed in sheepish religious garb, Saul was a ravenous, sinful wolf who hated the body of Christ, the church; therefore, he hated the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus loved him and gave him grace.

Shining brighter than the sun, the Son of God convicted Saul of his many sins. Even with this brilliant and blinding Christophany on the Damascus Road, the gospel still had to be presented and explained by one beggar to another. So not only did God appear personally to Saul, He sent a man named Ananias. Like a skilled obstetrician, he helped birth Saul into the kingdom of God and New Testament church.

It is also worth pointing out that Saul was saved because he was chosen by God, because of the great grace of election. As Paul realized what it meant to be "a chosen instrument" of God in the ensuing years, he would write inspired letters explaining salvation, from election in eternity past to security through eternity future, better than any other biblical writer (ref. Romans 8:28-30; Ephesians 1:3-14; etc.).

While salvation is all of God and all of grace, it does make room for free and willing human choices that matter, for eternity. Saul stopped persecuting Christians, and no doubt repented of a magnitude of other sins. Saul believed the good news about Jesus Christ's life, death, resurrection, and in his case, reappearance. Saul was willingly baptized and became a member of the church he had once tried to destroy. And so Saul became Paul, with a lot more decisions to make, and a redemptive story to tell that will encompass half of the New Testament.

If you are a true Christian, your road to salvation may not have been named Damascus, but it was virtually the same path. Compare the experience of an average Christian to the amazing conversion of the Apostle Paul.

Your first step, like Paul's, is to be confronted with your sin, sinning, and sinfulness. Until one comes to grip with this fact, and its dire consequences of separation from God, certain death, and eternal punishment, the bad news will never give way to the good.

No one can know God unless God reveals Himself to them, and the Holy Spirit's favorite two tools in revealing the gospel to mankind are the word of God and a witness for Christ. Ananias was instrumental in Paul coming to Christ. In my case it was a Freewill Baptist preacher named Bill. Who witnessed to you? Who will you witness to?

Every Christian comes to Christ on the same road. The intellect is engaged, the emotions are triggered, and the human will enjoins the will of God in repentance and faith. Proof of saving faith is found in an eagerness and willingness to be baptized and become an active part of Christ's church.

The "Damascus Road Experience" teaches us many things. No one is so sinful that they cannot be saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. No one is so good that they do not require a miracle of grace to be saved. And while God is sovereign, and no one will be saved apart from His sovereign grace, He still saves anyone, anywhere, anytime, when they "call upon the name of the Lord."

Chuck DeVane is the pastor of Lake Hamilton Baptist Church. Call him at 501-525-8339 or email [email protected].

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