Nine months after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon we are still mystified by the calculated hatred and passion of these young hijackers. We still can’t figure out why they hate us so much. What is about their culture, their religion, their upbringing, their environment that would so fill them with anger and frustration that they would willingly sacrifice their lives in a holy war. How could 19 men spend months and years in training, enjoying the luxuries of life in America, and then hijack large passenger planes filled with unsuspecting people and thousands of gallons of jet fuel and deliberately crash those planes into huge office buildings, knowing that not only would thousands of innocent people be killed but they would lose their lives as well? Every time there is a suicide bombing in Israel or a news story about some terrorist activity, we puzzle at the fanaticism of these young people and their hatred and cruelty and their single-minded passion for their cause. We can’t understand how anyone could be so angry that they would willingly sacrifice their lives and do such inhuman things.

          There was a young man born on the southern coast of Turkey and educated in Jerusalem years ago who came out of that very same mold. Things have not really changed that much in that part of the world in 2000 years. When you see those terrorists or hijackers in the news, think Saul of Tarsus. He was the same kind of angry young man, filled with hatred, seething with passion to terrorize a whole city if he had to, to defend God in a holy war. In Acts 8 we read that Saul did all he could to destroy the early Christian church, dragging men and women off to prison. Later on in chapter 22 he admitted that it wasn’t just a short prison term for those first Christians that were jailed, they were killed. In chapter 9 we read that Saul was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

          Judaism had never had a better champion. No one could rival Saul’s zealousness and his passion for the spiritual heritage of his people. He flung himself into observing the law and the traditions with unmatched enthusiasm. But such boundless zeal was surely headed for disappointment. The harder he tried to be righteous, the more he realized his own shortcomings. Doubt and disillusionment had already begun to creep in. Was he perhaps on the wrong track after all? Had he accepted a challenge that was beyond his strength? Was the religion of Mt. Sinai a yoke of bitter bondage?

          Perhaps it was the beginning of those doubts that made Saul try even harder to wipe out those blasphemous followers of Jesus. Perhaps it was the “when unsure of yourself turn up the volume” syndrome. We don’t know what was going through Paul’s mind as he terrorized the early church, but it is certainly conceivable that he was trying to suppress these faint doubts by shouting even louder.

          In any case, Saul was not just a first century Pharisee who was upset at this new religion. He was so filled with anger and hatred that he organized a campaign of terror against them. A first century Osama bin Laden! He had to uphold and defend the God of his forefathers and the law of Moses. He had to protect God from the blasphemy of these infidels!

          So let’s now read the familiar account of the dramatic event that happened to this man of violence as he traveled to Damascus to continue his holy war against the infidels: (read Acts 9:1-9). Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus is certainly one of the most dramatic and important events of the New Testament. Imagine Osama bin Laden becoming a Christian on the road from Kabul to Kandahar. It would be just as improbable and just as shocking.

          As we think about and try to analyze this amazing event, one of the clues is a statement that Jesus made to Saul. It is not in this account in chapter 9, but it is in the account in chapter 26, when years later Paul recounts this story to King Agrippa. Paul says that he heard the voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” It gives us the picture of a recalcitrant animal which is being yoked to the plow and as it kicks out at the man behind it, it only hurts itself in the process. It is a telling picture of Saul’s heart and mind as he made that long journey to Damascus. It was hard for him to kick against the goads.

          One of the sharpest and most stinging goads was, as I’ve mentioned, his own growing sense of the failure of Judaism. Whatever else his religion had done for him, it had not brought him peace with God, and he was beginning to feel that it never would. But he had to fight against that feeling. To toy with it would be treachery. Hence the fury of his attack. The wild campaign might dissipate the shadows. But the shadows persisted. The harder he kicked, the more the goad stung.

          Another goad that Saul had to reckon with was the lives of these Christians. Their bravery under persecution, their absolute conviction that they had found the truth, their calm confidence and peace of heart, their love for each other, their unconquerable joy; all of these things could not but have made a deep mark on Saul’s heart. Had they indeed found something, some power, some peace, some joy, to which he himself, for all his seeking and striving, was a stranger?

          Another goad which must have hurt Saul every time he kicked against it must have been the very life of Jesus himself. We don’t know whether Saul as a young Pharisee in Jerusalem had ever actually seen Jesus. Certainly he had spoken to all kinds of people who had seen him. The Pharisees had kept a watchful eye on Jesus all through his ministry. Even if his Pharisaic associates had given him a one-sided and prejudiced version of the facts, that could not have entirely prevented something of the majesty and nobility of the real Jesus Christ from shining through.

          Perhaps the most painful goad, which hurt Saul every time he thought about it, was the death of Stephen. Remorse over the brutality of that deed must have haunted Saul. Stoning was a hideous form of execution done at close range by an angry mob. Saul was probably the one who gave the signal for the brutal violence to begin. Saul could never forget Stephen’s face, that when he stood before the Sanhedrin to begin his defense, his face was like that of an angel. Nor could Saul forget how Stephen faced his death before that hideous crowd, asking God to forgive his murderers. Those words must have rung in Saul’s ears along with Stephen’s dying breath, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God…Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Saul undoubtedly tried to repress that memory, but it was hard to kick against that goad.

          These then were some of the inner conflicts which were agitating Saul’s mind as he set his face toward Damascus. But we cannot explain Saul’s dramatic conversion as some kind of natural psychological process. Certainly the inner conflicts paved the way, but God met Saul on that road in supernatural fashion and transformed his life.

          For Saul who became Paul, his conversion was far and away the most vital and formative and surprising influence of his life. Three times, in fact, in the book of Acts, this same story is told. Not only here in chapter 9, but again in chapter 22 as Paul makes his defense before the crowd in Jerusalem, and again in chapter 26 as Paul tells his story before King Agrippa. It was not the great missionary journeys or the dozens of churches that he started or all the great letters that he wrote of the other incredible accomplishments of his life which were important. No, it was that fact that Jesus Christ met him in the midst of that raging fury and transformed his life. Decades later he wrote to Timothy, “I am the chief of sinners, but I received mercy.” It was still a marvel to him.

          How could Christ reach such a murderer? He reached him by surrounding him with light, for light always overcomes the darkness. Saul was so consumed with anger and bitterness and fanaticism that his life was filled with chaos and darkness. Years later he wrote to the Corinthians about the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ and he said: “For it is the God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

          To me, says Paul in effect, it was God saying, “let there be light” and there was light. Saul’s conversion was the birth of light and order and purpose, the ending of chaos and bitter darkness. It was certainly the watershed event of his life and of the early church; and Saul’s conversion remains for us today one of the most inspirational and foundational events in the proclamation of the gospel.

          Perhaps the biggest question that it raises for us today is whether Saul’s experience should be taken as normative for all Christians. Certainly there are Christians who have had very dramatic conversion experiences. Some of you in this sanctuary can point to that Damascus road experience when Christ met you in the midst of anger or despair or rebellion and you made a 180 degree turn in your life.

          But what about the most of us who grew up in a Christian family, who received from childhood the message of a loving Heavenly Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and who have been so trained in the ways of the Christian faith that we have no personal knowledge of the thick darkness of sin and paganism? How can we manage to experience redemption and justification? There are some, no doubt, whose whole nature rebels against going through such a conversion process—not because they are unrepentant, but because they are deeply sincere and honest. They feel themselves to be God’s children, just as Jesus taught his disciples. They do not feel called upon to travel the long difficult road of conversion through the valley of despair in order to become sons of God, as though that were something new and fresh.

          Is then Paul’s redemption-theology so influenced by his own dramatic conversion that it is out of harmony with the life experience of many Christians today? No, it is not, for no one can save themselves. Whether we have been carefully nurtured in the Christian faith or we are the most awful pagan sinner on earth, we are still totally dependent on God for our salvation. We can’t earn our way to heaven no matter how wonderful our Christian background, and no matter how honest and sincere we are. Every person has to accept Jesus Christ as the Savior for their sins. Every person has to commit their life to Jesus Christ. That’s what makes us a Christian. It isn’t going to church. It isn’t growing up in a Christian family. It isn’t living a life of goodness. It is confessing our sinfulness and putting our faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. It is not how dramatic our encounter with Christ that’s important, it is how decisive our response has been.

          Certainly Saul’s conversion was very dramatic, but if it is totally out of harmony with our experience and we have never moved from darkness to light, then I would have to ask, have you ever really committed your life to Christ? Have you ever confessed your sins and received God’s forgiveness? Have you invited Christ to be your Savior?

          God took an angry, murderous, fanatical terrorist and transformed him into the greatest Christian missionary and theologian of all time, who wrote over half of the entire New Testament. God can transform us as well, and use us to change our world for his kingdom and his glory.