'Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in
me first Jesus Christ might show forth all
long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should
hereafter believe.'--1 TIM. i. 16.
The smallest of God's creatures, if it were only a gnat dancing in a
sunbeam, has a right to have its well-being considered as an end of
God's dealings. But no creature is so isolated or great as that it has a
right to have its well-being regarded as the sole end of God's dealings.
That is true about all His blessings and gifts; it is eminently true
about His gift of salvation. He saves men because He loves them
individually, and desires to make them blessed; but He also saves them
because He desires that through them others shall be brought into the
living knowledge of His love. It is most especially true about great
religious teachers and guides.
Paul's humility is as manifest as his self-consciousness when he says in
my text, 'This is what I was saved for. Not merely, not even
principally, for the blessings that thereby accrue to myself, but that
in me, as a crucial instance, there should be manifested the whole
fulness of the divine love and saving power.' So he puts his own
experience as giving no kind of honour or glory to himself, but as
simply showing the grace and infinite love of Jesus Christ. Paul
disappears as but a passive recipient; and Christ strides into the front
as the actor in his conversion and apostleship.
So we may take this point of view of my text, and look at the story of
what befell the great Apostle as being in many different ways an
exhibition of the great verities of the Gospel. I desire to signalise,
especially, three points here. We see in it the demonstration of the
life of Christ; an exhibition of the love of the living Christ; and a
marvellous proof of the power of that loving and living Lord.
I. First, then, take the experience of this Apostle as a demonstration
of the exalted life, and continuous energy in the world, of Jesus
Christ.
What was it that turned the brilliant young disciple of Gamaliel, the
rising hope of the Pharisaic party, the hammer of the heretics, into one
of themselves? The appearance of Jesus Christ. Paul rode out of
Jerusalem believing Him to be dead, and His Resurrection a lie. He
staggered into Damascus, blind but seeing, and knowing that Jesus
Christ lived and reigned. Now if you will let the man tell you himself
what he saw, or thought he saw, you will come to this, that it was a
visible, audible manifestation of a corporeal Christ. For it is
extremely noteworthy that the Apostle ranks the appearance to himself,
on the road to Damascus, as in the same class with the appearances to
the other apostles which he enumerates in the great chapter in the
Epistle to the Corinthians. He draws no distinction, as far as
evidential force goes, between the appearance to Simon and to the five
hundred brethren and to the others, and that which flashed upon him and
made a Christian of him. Other men that were with him saw the light. He
saw the Christ within the blaze. Other men heard a noise; he heard
audible and intelligible words in his own speech. This is _his_ account
of the phenomenon. What do _you_ think of his account?
There are but three possible answers! It was imposture; it was delusion;
it was truth. The theory of imposture is out of court. 'Do men gather
grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?' Such a life as followed is
altogether incongruous with the notion that the man who lived it was a
deceiver. A fanatic he may have been; self-deceived he may have been;
but transparently sincere he undeniably was. It is not given to
impostors to move the world, as Paul did and does.
Was it delusion? Well it is a strange kind of hallucination which has
such physical accompaniments and consequences as those in the story--not
wanting confirmation from witnesses--which has come to us.
'At midday, O king'--in no darkness; in no shut-up chamber, 'at midday,
O king--I heard . . . I saw . . .' 'The men that were with me' partly
shared in the vision. There was a lengthened conversation; two senses at
least were appealed to, vision and hearing, and in both vision and
hearing there were partial participators. Physical consequences that
lasted for three days accompanied the hallucination; and the man 'was
blind, not seeing the sun, and neither did eat nor drink.' There must be
some soil beforehand in which delusions of such a sort can root
themselves. But, if we take the story in the Acts of the Apostles, there
is not the smallest foothold for the fashionable notion, which is
entirely due to men's dislike of the supernatural, that there was any
kind of misgiving in the young Pharisee, springing from the influence of
Stephen's martyrdom, as he went forth breathing out threatenings and
slaughter. The plain fact is that, at one moment he hated Jesus Christ
as a bad man, and believed that the story of the Resurrection was a
gross falsehood; and that at the next moment he knew Him to be living
and reigning, and the Lord of his life and of the world. Hallucinations
do not come thus, like a thunderclap on unprepared minds. Nor is there
anything in the subsequent history of the man that seems to confirm, but
everything that contradicts, the idea that such a revolutionary change
as upset all his mental furniture, and changed the whole current of his
life, and slammed in his face the door that was wide open to advancement
and reputation, came from a delusion.
I think the hallucination theory is out of court, too, and there is
nothing left but the old-fashioned one, that what he said he saw, _he
saw_, and did not fancy; and that which he said he heard, _he heard_;
and that it was not a buzzing of a diseased nerve in his own ears, but
the actual speech of the glorified Christ. Very well, then; if that be
true, what then? The old-fashioned belief--Jesus who died on the Cross
is living, Jesus who died on the Cross is glorified, Jesus who died on
the Cross is exalted to the throne of the universe, puts His hand into
the affairs of the world as a power amongst them. Paul's Christology is
but the _rationale_ of the vision that led to Paul's conversion. It was
in part because he 'saw that Just One, and heard the words of His
mouth,' that he declares, 'God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a
name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow.' I do not say that the vision to Paul is a demonstration of
the reality of the Resurrection, but I do say that it is a very strong
confirmatory evidence, which the opponents of that truth will have much
difficulty in legitimately putting aside.
II. Secondly, let me ask you to consider how this man's experience is an
exhibition of the love of the living Lord.
That is the main point on which the Apostle dwells in my text, in which
he says that in him Jesus Christ 'shows forth all long-suffering.' The
whole fulness of His patient, pitying grace was lavished upon him. He
says this because he puts side by side his hostility and Christ's love,
what he had believed of Jesus, and how Jesus had borne with him and
loved him through all, and had drawn him to Himself and received him. So
he established by his own experience this great truth, that the love of
Jesus Christ is never darkened by one single speck of anger, that He
'suffereth long, and is kind'; that He meets hostility with patient
love, hatred with a larger outpouring of His affection, and that His
only answer to men's departures from Him in heart and feeling is more
mightily to seek to draw them to Himself. 'Long-suffering' means, in its
true and proper sense, the patient acceptance, without the smallest
movement of indignation, of unworthy treatment. And just as Christ on
earth 'gave His back to the smiter, and His cheeks to them that pulled
off the hair'; and let the lips of Judas touch His, nor withdrew His
face from 'shame and spitting'; and was never stirred to one impatient
or angry word by any opposition, so now, and to us all, with equal
boundlessness of endurance, He lets men hate Him, and revile Him, and
forget Him, and turn their backs upon Him; and for only answer has,
'Come unto Me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.'
Oh, dear brethren, we can weary out all loves except one. By
carelessness, rebelliousness, the opposition of indifference, we can
chill the affection of those to whom we are dearest. 'Can a mother
forget? Yea, she may forget,' but you cannot provoke Jesus Christ to
cease His love. Some of you have been trying it all your days, but you
have not done it yet. There does come a time when 'the wrath of the
Lamb'--which is a very terrible paradox--is kindled, and will fall, I
fear, on some men and women who are listening now. But not yet. You
cannot make Christ angry. 'For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me
Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, _for a pattern_'--for
the same long-suffering is extended to us all.
And then, in like manner, I may remind you that out of Paul's
experience, as a cardinal instance and standing example of Christ's
heart and dealings, comes the thought that that long-suffering is always
wooing men to itself, and making efforts to draw them away from their
own evil. In Paul's case there was a miracle. That difference is of
small consequence. As truly as ever Christ spoke to Paul from the
heavens, so truly, and so tenderly, does He speak to every one of us. He
is drawing us all--you that yield and you that do not yield to His
attractions, by the kindliest gifts of His love, by the revelations of
His grace, by the movements of His Spirit, by the providences of our
days, by even my poor lips addressing you now--for, if I be speaking His
truth, it is not I that speak, but He that speaks in me. I beseech you,
dear friends, recognise in this old story of the persecutor turned
apostle nothing exceptional, though there be something miraculous, but
only an exceptional form of manifestation of the normal activity of the
love of Christ towards every soul. He loves, He draws, He welcomes all
that come to Him. His servant, who stood over the blind, penitent
persecutor, and said to him, '_Brother_ Saul!' was only faintly echoing
the glad reception which the elder Brother of the family gives to this
and to every prodigal who comes back; because He Himself has drawn Him.
If we will only recognise the undying truth for all of us that lies
beneath the individual experience of this apostle, we, too, may share in
the attraction of His love, in the constraining and blessed influences
of that love received, and in the welcome with which He hails us when we
turn. If this man were thus dealt with, no man need despair.
III. Lastly, we may notice how this experience is a manifestation of the
power of the living, loving Lord.
The first and plainest thing that it teaches us about that power is that
Jesus Christ is able in one moment to revolutionise a life. There is
nothing more striking than the suddenness and completeness of the
change which passed. 'One day is with the Lord as a thousand years'; and
there come moments in every life into which there is crammed and
condensed a whole world of experience, so as that a man looks back from
this instant to that before, and feels that a gulf, deep as infinity,
separates him from his old self.
Now, it is very unfashionable in these days to talk about conversion at
all. It is even more unfashionable to talk about sudden conversions. I
venture to say that there are types of character and experience which
will never be turned to good, unless they are turned suddenly; while
there are others, no doubt, to whom the course is a gradual one, and you
cannot tell where the dawn broadens into perfect day. But, in the case
of men who have grown up to some degree of maturity of life, either in
sensuous sin or crusted over with selfish worldliness, or in any other
way, by reason of intellectual pursuits, or others have become forgetful
of God and careless of religion--unless such men are in a moment
arrested and wheeled round at once, there is very little chance of their
ever being so at all.
I am sure I am speaking to some now who, unless the truth of Christ
comes into their minds with arresting flash, and unless they are in one
moment, into which an eternity is condensed, changed in their purposes,
will never be changed.
Do not, my friend, listen to the talk that sudden conversion is
impossible or unlikely. It is the only kind of conversion that some of
you are capable of. I remember a man, one of the best Christian men in a
humble station in life that I ever knew--he did not live in
Manchester--he had been a drunkard up to his fortieth or fiftieth year.
One day he was walking across an open field, and a voice, as he
thought, spoke to him and said, naming him, 'If you don't sign the
pledge to-day you will be damned!' He turned on his heel, and walked
straight down the street to the house of a temperance friend, and said,
'I have come to sign the pledge.' He signed it, and from that day to the
day of his death 'adorned the doctrine of Jesus Christ' his Saviour. If
that man had not been suddenly converted he would never have been
converted. So I say that this story of the text is a crucial instance of
Christ's power to lay hold upon a man, and wheel him right round all in
a moment, and send him on a new path. He wants to do that with all of
you to whom He has not already done it. I beseech you, do not stick your
heels into the ground in resistance, nor when He puts His hand on your
shoulder stiffen your back that He may not do what He desires with you.
May we not see here, too, a demonstration of Christ's power to make a
life nobly and blessedly new, different from all its past, and adorned
with strange and unexpected fruits of beauty and wisdom and holiness?
This man's account of his future, from the moment of that incident on
the Damascus road to the headman's block outside the walls of Rome, is
this: 'If any man be in Christ he is a new creature'; 'I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me.' Christ will do that for us all; for
long-suffering was shown on the Apostle for a pattern to them who should
hereafter believe.
So, you Christian people, it is as much your business as it was Paul's,
to be visible rhetoric, manifest demonstrations in your lives of the
truth of the Gospel. Men ought to say about us, 'There must be something
in the religion that has done that for these people.' We ought to be
such that our characters shall induce the thought that the Christ who
has made men like us cannot be a figment. Do you show, Christian men,
that you are grafted upon the true Vine by the abundance of the fruit
that you bring forth? Can you venture to say, as Paul said, If you want
to know what Jesus Christ's love and power are, look at me? Do not
venture adducing yourself as a specimen of His power unless you have a
life like Paul's to look back upon.
For us all the fountain to which Paul had recourse is open. Why do we
draw so little from it? The fire which burned, refining and
illuminating, in him may be kindled in all our hearts. Why are we so
icy? His convictions are of some value, as subsidiary evidence to Gospel
facts; his experience is of still more value as an attestation and an
instance of Gospel blessings. Believe like Paul and you will be saved
like Paul. Jesus Christ will show to you all long-suffering. For though
Paul received it all he did not exhaust it, and the same long-suffering
which was lavished on him is available for each of us. Only you too must
say like him, 'I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.'