A Reading from the New Testament Book of Acts.
Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” [The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”] Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
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Contrary to how the stoning of a person is depicted in movies, the person was not tied down in a particular spot and surrounded by people who would then throw stones at them.
Rather, the person would be taken to a higher place, and thrown off that place, to land on rocks below. Then if the person were still alive rocks and boulders would then be thrown down upon them, until they were dead.
That is what was happening to a disciple of Jesus named Stephen who had been preaching very effectively – too effectively – about Jesus and against temple worship.
His message was that people had drifted away from worshipping God and were worshipping the temple.
The temple had become their focus rather than God.
Could that happen to us? I was told once, ” I attend church every Sunday isn’t that enough?”
For having raised the same question, Stephen was taken by the authorities to be stoned.
As they dragged him away, he prayed aloud,” Lord set not this sin to their charge.”
A young man named Saul was present at the time, and had been looking after the coats of the men who killed Stephen, and he would have heard that prayer.
Saul was one who was working to persecute Christians, and surely would have thought, on hearing that prayer ” How can such a man be considered evil?”
As he further went about capturing Christians and turning them over to the authorities, he would wonder how such Christians could be so serene and confident in God and in Jesus when they were apprehended and threatened with death.
How could they be considered evil?
He may have wrestled with such thoughts, even as he went to the Sanhedrin to obtain letters of credit that he might go to Damascus, to extradite any Christians there.
To travel to Damascus, on foot, a journey of 140 miles, would take a week. He was accompanied by temple guards. But as a Pharisee he couldn’t be near them, so walked alone.
The road just before Damascus rose up to Mount Hermon, and travelers would pause to look down in wonder at the city laid out before them.
As did Saul and his companions.
It is said that that region was subject to a particular weather phenomenon, in that when the hot air of the plain below met the cold air of the mountain range, violent electrical storms – thunder and lightening – would result.
Just at that moment, as Saul and the others stood there, such a lightening storm happened, and from the storm, Jesus spoke to Saul.
In that moment, the battle that had been taking place inside Saul’s head and heart was over, and Saul, surrendered to Christ.
You have heard what happened after he had been taken, blind, to Damascus and how Ananias a disciple was sent to heal him of his blindness.
Ananias on meeting Saul, addressed the man who had been persecuting Christians, ” Brother Saul.”
That sign of brotherliness and Christian love, may have been, along with the prayer of Stephen, what brought Saul to Christ and the church he would serve so well.
God had been calling Saul and he had been ignoring the call.
In the St James version, Paul quotes Jesus as having said, ” Saul Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.”
In those days, farmers had a form of accelerator in the harness on an ox. It was a piece of wood with a nail or spike in it and which rested lightly on the rump of the ox, within reach of the farmer’s foot.
If the ox moved too slowly, or not at all, the farmer could press down on the goad – the accelerator – and it would get the message.
But sometimes the ox would rebel and kick back against the goad.
That’s what Saul had been doing.
You might see Stephen’s prayer asking God to not hold the crowd’s actions against them, as a goad from God to move Saul forward.
You might see in the Christians Saul was persecuting – their serenity when in danger, their peace of mind, their faith in God, as they saw him in Jesus, you might see that as God goading Saul.
And now on the road to Damascus, although Saul is blind, you might say that paradoxically, his eyes have been opened for him to see the truth about Jesus.
And from that moment, Saul ceases to do what he wants to do and does what God wants him to do.
He stops kicking against the goad.
There are those of us who were taught about Jesus at our mother’s knee, and who were brought up within the church, and who consequently knew Jesus as Saviour, and never kicked against the goad.
And, there are those of us who rebelled against the constraints that we thought came along with that life.
And we kicked against the goad.
I would rather we came to Christ after seeing His love expressed in others.., than having to be goaded into it.
But who knows what will bring a person to the point of acceptance?
John Wesley was the father of the Methodist denomination. It is estimated that over the course of his lifetime he rode horseback 250,000 miles in preaching the gospel. If you’re counting, that’s enough distance to circle the earth ten times!
One night, as Wesley rode across Hounslow Heath near London, a robber jumped in front of him, grabbed the horse’s bridle, and shouted, “Halt! Your money or your life!” Wesley, who was far from rich, politely obliged by removing the few coins he had in his pockets.
He even invited the robber to examine his saddlebags which were filled with books. Disappointed in the meager haul, the robber turned away to leave.
Wesley called the man back, saying, “Stop! I have something more to give you.” Puzzled, the robber walked back to him. Wesley then bent down from his horse and said, “My friend, you may live to regret this sort of life. If you ever do, I beseech you to remember this: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.’”
Upon hearing those words, the robber scurried away into the night. Wesley, for his part, offered up a heartfelt prayer right then and there that God would burn his words into the robber’s conscience.
Years later, at the close of a Sunday night service in a large building for a large congregation, a stranger stepped forward and asked to speak with Wesley.
It was the man who had robbed Wesley on Hounslow Heath so many years earlier. The man had long been a Christian and was now a wealthy tradesman in London.
Wesley remembered his first meeting with the man and was delighted to see him a second time. With virtual reverence the man took Wesley’s hand, kissed it, and said, “To you, dear sir, I owe it all.”
Wesley, recalling what he had said to the man that night so long ago, softly replied, “No, my friend, not to me, but to the precious blood of Christ which cleanses us from all sin.”
That man obviously had had within him a yearning for something.
He had been doing what he wanted, rather than what God wanted him to do. And it had not been fulfilling.
His life had been useless, and if God had indeed called him, he had turned his back, refused to listen, and kicked against the goad, you might say.
But when he met Wesley, and experienced God’s love in him, and when Wesley told him briefly about the cleansing blood of Christ, something -, we don’t know when – it may have been a long time – but something – opened his eyes, and his heart, and changed his life.
Did Wesley’s words sit there in his mind, percolating, nudging, goading him?
Until he surrendered?
When I was about ten years old, some evangelists, a family from America visited a church nearby. My aunts took me there to see them and hear them preach. They were husband and wife and two daughters and somehow my family got to know them well, and the younger daughter aged fourteen was billeted at our house for a time.
Johanna was her name and she was truly a preacher’s daughter.
I remember her saying that to be saved we have to accept Jesus as our Saviour. And I asked her, ” What about those who never get to hear about him ?”
She said, ” Somehow, in some way, during their lifetime, God makes sure that everyone is given that choice.”
I still have a hard time thinking that everyone, everywhere is given the chance to know Jesus, and turn their life around.
Looking at the state of the world today ,it would seem that people are certainly given the choice to go the other way, doesn’t it?
It’s up to us to recognise that moment, the moment we are called, and to do what God wants us to do, rather than what we want to do.
It’s up to us, as Ananias did, to accept the call to offer Him to others.
To do so without condemnation. Without judgment.
And allow Him do His work in them.
Who knows?
Maybe there is some notion at the back of your mind, percolating, gently nagging, something you shrug off as not convenient to look at now, but which God wants you to do?
Is goading you to do.?
And are you kicking against it?
Amen