July 11, 2004

John W. Fowler

From the 9th chapter of the Book of Acts you have the conversion of one of the greatest missionaries of Christianity, the Apostle Paul, who is better known as Saul of Tarsus. Beginning with Acts 9:

Do you know someone whose life would be so different if they had a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ? It may be someone whom you have been praying for so long that you have just about given up. You begin to believe that my time would be better invested praying for someone else, caring for someone else, spending time with someone else because I am just about to the point of believing that they are just not ever going to become a Christian.

Well, I want to share with you that there is hope, because if Saul of Tarsus can be converted, anyone can be converted.

Acts, chapter 9 gives us the story of a man who was the greatest persecutor of the Christian faith becoming the greatest missionary of the Christian faith. The story is called “Saving Melissa Kalara” in Guideposts, by the officer who was in charge of the Vice Squad in St. Petersburg. One morning they had had a drug bust and, as usually was the case, he was more concerned with the drug dealer. But then they said, “Sarge, this lady over here says she knows you.” And he wasn’t really that concerned with the crack cocaine addict that the dealer had sold to and he looked in the back of the car and here was this skinny, pale, emaciated young woman. He looked at her driver’s license and then when he saw the name Melissa Kalara his eyes got real wide. He did know her. He had known her as a three-year old neighbor growing up. He remembered her when he played with her brothers. He remembered that her Dad had the local gas station where a lot of the teen-agers would hang out. He remembered a very happy family, a happy little girl.

He wanted to ask her, “Melissa, what happened?” But he asked her, “Is there anything I can do for you, Melissa?”

She said, “No, not unless you can get me some rock or cocaine.”

She was very hardened by the streets. But he couldn’t help believing that God wasn’t through with her. Oh, he had been on the Vice Squad for seven years so his heart was kind of hard, but then he kept remembering the little girl who was his neighbor on the swing. He would see her on the streets. He would try to make eye contact or talk to her. She didn’t want anything to do with him.

One day he was sharing about the problem of prostitution in one of the local civic clubs. He actually had one of Melissa’s picture on the slide and two ladies came up after that meeting and said, “You know, we are interested. We have a recovery home in New York specially to get prostitutes off the street. We’d be interested in Melissa.”

He said, “No, this one doesn’t want help. I think you’d want somebody else.”

“Well, OK, but here’s our card in case you change your mind.”

So, a couple of months later Melissa was arrested, but this time the charges had piled up and she was looking at some hard time. She asked to speak to Tim again. She actually let out an, “I think I need help.”

So, he was kind of hesitant, thinking that, well, an addict will tell you anything. But he got that card and called those ladies. They came down from New York. They came to court. They testified. They convinced the judge instead of sending her prison to send her to their home.

They said, “We went to jail and Melissa invited Christ into her life and we believe it was sincere.”

Well, there was some scoffing in the courtroom but then one of the ladies said, “Well, how are we to know what is in someone’s heart?”

Melissa went to that home; she is doing well today. Most people would have given up on someone like this. But Tim and these ladies were doing kind of what Jesus does, didn’t they? There is no one that Christ gives up on.

What happened to Saul on the road to Damascus? Well, Saul was, if you talk to any Jews of his day, they would think, “Oh, he’s one of the leading Rabbis. This man is brilliant, a student of Gamaliel. He is a Pharisee of Pharisees — great family, great teacher, leader.”

He thought he was doing the right thing. He was there when Stephen was stoned to death, the first Christian martyr, approving of it, looks like he had a lot to do with it. They are putting his clothes at Saul’s feet. He is off persecuting Christians. He wants to go to Damascus. Can you imagine walking a hundred and forty miles just to persecute Christians? That’s wanting to do it pretty bad. But on the way, as oftentimes happens when someone is running away from Christ, his life changed. There was this great light, the Bible says, and he hears these words:

So many people today are seeking and they don’t realize it, but that’s a question:

And the answer is, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,"

The New King James Version says that Paul says, “What do you want me to do?” and then says, “Get up and go to the city and you will be told what you must do.”

That is one of the great changes that takes place in conversion. Before conversion we do what we want to do. We go where we want to go. But when we have a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, it is no longer just what we want to do, what road we want to take. It is, “Lord, what do You want me to do?”

What is conversion? A lot of people have defined it. I call it a life-changing, faith encounter with Jesus Christ. It happens different ways. You talk to couples about how they met, fell in love, and I like to do that. There is a lot of variety of stories about where they met and how long they courted and the engagement, but still it comes down to they felt they loved each other and they wanted to get married and spend the rest of their lives together. People come to Christ on different time tables, different ways, but when they come to Him, they know that they know that they have encountered the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus described it this way. In John, chapter 3, he was explaining it to Nicodemus, the religious man. He said, “Well, Nicodemus, it’s just like being born all over again.” Or there’s the woman at the well who was having a religious discussion with him in John, chapter 4. He said, “Well, this is like a well and there is water there that will never run dry.”

When Paul was describing it in the letter to the Romans years later, four verses of scripture describe exactly what happens in conversion: In Romans 3:23, where it says that, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that means that regardless of how someone comes to Christ, somewhere along the line, someone realizes: I have a sin problem; I need a Savior.

The second verse is Romans 5:8: God showed his love to us while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us.

Someone along the way, too, we realize: God loves me. He didn’t just love the world — He loves me. He loves me so much He died on the cross for me.

And then, what will happen: Romans 6:23: The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is Eternal Life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That by faith…(tape change)

. . . In Romans 10:9 it says it this way: If we confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Which essentially means we don’t go around the rest of our lives worrying about: Well, I think I’m saved; I hope I’m saved. We know we’re saved. We have that blessed assurance. It has nothing to do with how much we mature as Christians or anything else. We know that Christ has come into our lives and changed us.

His name was Charlie. I can still visualize him at the alter praying. I’m not even sure if I invited people to come to the alter that day. Charlie just came anyway at the end of the service. Charlie was praying. Charlie gave his life to Christ. He was in his seventies. Charlie in that small community had been a notorious sinner. What I mean by that is, he sinned and he was real good at it and everybody knew it. He had that reputation. So, it was wonderful when — and I only knew him as an older man, having health problems but, believe you me — he gave his life to Christ. Now I like to think that it was the preaching and maybe it had a little bit to do with it. I like to think it was the choir and I’m sure that helped. But you talk to Charlie, I tell you, the primary reason he was a Christian was because he had a Christian wife. Miss Lily prayed for him and lived the faith, and he would tell you in a heartbeat, “If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead. There would be no telling what would have become of me.”

But still the greatest means, I believe, of evangelism, the greatest reason that people are converted, is a living example of a Christian, and oftentimes it is the family. For Paul — Saul, as he was known before his conversion — the biggest reason that he was a Christian was: He was around persecuted Christians. That means that he was around Christians who really took their faith seriously. I mean, he was around people like Stephen, who were forgiving people who were killing them. He couldn’t help but be impressed by their examples. Do you know that people going through very difficult times is one of the greatest opportunities to share your faith. Oh, you may not be talking about it, but, believe you me, people observe how you handle adversity. They observe how you handle the difficult times because they come to all of us. But when we know Christ we have a power; we have a love that helps us to cope and to get through those times. When other people see it, it truly makes a life-changing difference and they begin to think: What do they have that I don’t have? What they are really asking is: What do they know that we don’t know?

And who was Ananias? Well, you see, God doesn’t want just a convert; He wants a Disciple. So when someone makes that faith commitment, He makes sure that there is someone in their life who is going to help them along the way. Ananias was one of those that Paul was going to arrest. So he had a vision. I mean it would take a vision to get you to do this.

And Ananias said, “Well now Lord, are we talking about the same Saul? The Saul that I know persecutes Christians. He puts them in jail. He arranges their stoning. I mean…..”

“Yes, this is the one. I want you to go. He is a chosen instrument of mine and I want you to go pray for him.”

How important it is when people make that commitment because there are other Christians who will welcome them. And what does he do? He prays for him and something like scales falls off his eyes and he says,

And not only can Paul see again, physically, but he sees with the eyes of faith. His life has been changed.

Paul would have other encouragers, especially Barnabas. When Paul would come back to try to join the Disciples, not everyone was so sure that this was genuine; they were a little nervous about being around him — but not Barnabas. Barnabas took time with him; taught him the faith; loved him; encouraged him in the faith. In the latter part of his life, Paul would spend time with Timothy. He spent time with John Mark even though at one time he kind of gave up on John Mark. But as he got older he realized: You know, there were people who really went out of their way for me; I am going to do the same. And he did. And he loved them.

Do you know someone that you need to encourage in the faith today? Encourage them. They are a seeker; they have questions. And they may be making the first baby steps in the Christian walk but they need someone to help them to learn how to put this faith into practice.

His name D. L. Moody. He was the Billy Graham of the nineteenth century. He grew up in New England on a farm. His dad died when he was young. His mother was left with seven children on the farm. It was a hard life. They were very, very poor. In fact, they would carry their shoes and their stockings to church and then when they would get inside of church they would put them on so they wouldn’t put any more wear on their shoes than possible. To me, that’s pretty poor, if that’s the case. At age seventeen he had had enough of farm life and he decided as a country boy to move to the city, to Boston. He finally got a job with his uncle in a shoe store — Horton’s. He was a good salesman. He went to Sunday School, but being in the city, he was a little bit shy. He wasn’t very educated. Well, he really wasn’t educated at all, to tell you the truth, at that time. And he didn’t speak up in Sunday School but he was very interested and the Sunday School teacher caught on to that and he began to speak up more. Edward Kimball felt led to go search him out at the shoe store. And here is what he said Mr. Kimball had to say about this:

And Moody went on to be one of the great evangelists of all times. He knew what it was to have a life changed; he wanted to see others have that life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. What is conversion? It is a life-changing faith encounter with Jesus Christ. And it is discovering the love that will leave you never the same.

At sixteen years old, William Featherstone gave his life to Christ back in 1862 in Montreal. He describes it well what happens when we are converted. He penned these words:

And the last verse:

Saul, better known by his Gentile name Paul, would go on to become a great missionary. He made three great missionary journeys. Especially when he was in prison, he wrote almost half of the New Testament. He ended up dying for his faith, beheaded, under Nero’s persecution.

Who would have thought that this great persecutor of the Christian faith would become a great promoter, evangelist, missionary of the Christian faith? Let us pray.