On My Way to Rome

sacrifice his own life for Him?" How could a young man so full of life, abandon his future and destiny to promote this Jesus as our long awaited Messiah? I did not sleep very well at all that night. The days events continued to replay themselves over and over again in my heart and in my mind. How could he say that our hearts and our ears must be circumcised? "Blasphemy," I say, "blasphemy!"

  Our Law requires that we be circumcised on the eighth day after our birth, by having our foreskin remove. How could I have my heart and ears circumcised anyway? It's impossible for my heart to be cut away and I still live.

  All that night I tossed and turned in my bed looking for answers to questions that made no sense to me at all. That night men devoted to Stephen carried his body away and buried him. They made great laminations over his dead body. That night I made up my mind. I was going to ensure that this new movement of human origins was going to be overthrown and come to nothing. And I was going to be the one to destroy it.

  I hated Jesus of Nazareth with a passion. I thought He was an imposter. I told Cassius, "I was Saul, Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee, son of a Pharisee, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew, and an enforcer of the Law of Moses. I was the protector of our ancient traditions, a guardian, a Praetorian Guard as it were just like you."

  Brighter than the Midday Sun. #8

  I was on my way to the synagogues in Damascus, a city in the Province of Syria with letters in my coat pocket from the high priest in Jerusalem. These letters granted me permission to detain and arrest both men and women who were followers of Jesus Christ. My desire was to bring them bound in chains back to Jerusalem and humiliate them there before the high priest and his counsel. Christ's followers were merely a band of crazy disciples who embraced a dangerous ideology. They called themselves the "Way" as they claimed to be divinely enlightened and illuminated with truth by God Himself. However to me they were a mockery to everything that I stood for. They were an embarrassment to my core beliefs that I obtained from the Law of Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets.

  I went about breathing out harsh threats of slaughter against the disciples of the Lord Jesus. They were a menace and I wanted to blot them out, along with their idiotic philosophy. While I journeyed along the road with my companions, as I came near to Damascus, suddenly there shone all around me a bright light from heaven. This light was brighter than the midday sun in all its glorious splendour. Immediately I fell to the ground in humility and embraced its dust, in an empty attempt to cover my feeble humanity. I could taste the dust of the earth in my mouth as it dried up all my saliva. The dust was a fearful reminder that I was a mere man in the presence of a sovereign God and that we had been created by Him from mere dirt. The dust had found its way up my nose and into my eyes. That's when I realised that I'd been blinded my entire life by the dust of the ground. My fallen human nature had prevented me from seeing the truth.

  Then I heard a strong bold voice call out my name from heaven, "Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?" Shaken and stunned to my core I asked trembling, "Who are you Lord?" The voice replied, "I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against My will." The glowing glory that shone from the face of Jesus Christ went to work deep down inside me, deep into my heart of hearts. His divine power began to dissolve my wicked murderous heart as it began to pierce my spirit.

  Astonished and in awe my entire body now trembled uncontrollably while I lay upon the ground. With a shaky voice and exempt of courage I asked, "Lord, what do you want me to do for you?" The Lord replied and said unto me, "Arise and go into the city of Damascus and it will be told of you there what you must do further." Damascus was an ancient Syrian city that was fortified with houses upon its walls. It dated back before our forefather Abraham. The men who journeyed with me stood speechless. They heard the sound of someone's voice that was speaking to me from heaven, but they couldn't see the person who was speaking.

  "Rise up and stand upon your feet," echoed the powerful voice of the Messiah again from heaven, "for I have appeared unto you for this very purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of these things which you have seen of me here today, and of things that I will reveal to you in the future concerning me."

  I arose from the ground just as He had commanded me. But when I opened my eyes I couldn't see out of them. It wasn't the dust that was preventing me from seeing. So great was the heavenly vision and so bright was the face of the Messiah that it had blinded my natural human sight. I couldn't see the men that I was travelling with. My earthly vision had been altered eternally by Christ Jesus Himself. From that moment on, I could no longer see things as a mere man and from an earthly perspective. I began to see things through the eyes of the Holy Spirit of God, from a heavenly perspective. It took blindness to end my blindness. I'd been so blind about Christ and His followers. I'd been so blinded by the Law of Moses and the traditions of my forefathers. My travelling companions had to lead me by the hand to ensure that I reached Damascus. My spiritual eyes had finally been opened to the truth.

  For three days I was without my natural sight. I did neither eat nor drink during those three days as my heavenly encounter with the Messiah had struck me to the core. Yet deep down inside my heart I had a real Shalom - peace. I knew that the loss of my eye sight was only temporary, yet it carried powerful spiritual significance. My silent darkness was teaching me a valuable lesson. I was to never again walk by sight but I was to walk by faith. Leaning my entire personality upon God and putting my confidence in Him and in Him alone.

  It was during those three days of darkness that my understanding became enlightened. The eyes of my heart were flooded with pure heavenly light as I was filled with the spirit of wisdom and revelation. I came to the realisation that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ had chosen me and set me apart even before I was born. When I was still in my mothers womb, He had woven me together intricately and forged it into my DNA to be His chosen servant. He had called me by His divine grace, His undeserving favour and blessing, to be an apostle and carry the torch of the glorious gospel of light to the non-jewish world. It was pleasing and fitting for Him to unveil and reveal His Son in me, so that I might proclaim Him among the Gentile nations with boldness and passion.

  In my dark blindness I could hear the echoes of history shouting as my understanding became awakened with the illuminating light of the Messiah. It was the dust of the ground that had taken my sight away on that Damascus road. It was because I followed after my human flesh and it's dictates that Almighty God had caused my blindness. Once upon a time it was that very same dust of the ground that had restored the sight of a blind man. I had heard about how the Messiah, had restored a man's sight by putting mud in his eyes.

  One day as Jesus was passing by, he saw a man who had been blind from his birth. His disciples asked him, saying, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind without any eyes?" Jesus looked up and stared directly into their curious faces and answered, "This man nor his parents have sinned, but he is blind that I might demonstrate the wondrous working power of God. And that the healing power of God should be made manifest in him." His disciples were shocked and overtaken by the Masters answer. It didn't make any sense to them. Why would God allow a man to be born blind, so that he could use that man to demonstrate His power in him. Jesus was undisturbed by their thoughts and continued, "I must work the works of Him who sent me, while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world."

  After He had spoken these things, He spat on the ground. Yes, He spat on the ground! He made clay of the spittle as He mixed His saliva with the dust of the ground. Then He did the ridiculous, He anointed the eyes of the blind man, smearing them with the clay. Pressing it into his empty eye sockets. Then Jesus boldly commanded him and said, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam."

  So the blind man went on his way and washed in the pool just as he had been commanded. The man returned seeing. He had received his sight. When the water at the pool touched the mingled clay it turn
ed that dirt into a set of eyes. If Almighty God in the Garden of Eden could have turned an entire clay statue into flesh and blood. Thus creating an entire man from mud, then just creating eyes must have been an easy task for Him.

  I knew what it was like to now walk around in darkness. I now knew what it was like to grope around in the dark not knowing where I was and being completely disorientated, not knowing which direction I was facing. Not knowing what time of day it was. I now had to rely upon my hearing and my touch for the first time. I was totally blinded on the outside while I became all seeing on the inside. The words of Jesus had become true when he said, "I have come into this world, to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind." Jesus had told the Pharisees when they became hostile with Him, assuming that He was saying that they were blind. "If you were blind you wouldn't be guilty of sin," Jesus replied, "but because you say I can see your guilt of sin remains." I thought I could see and that's the reason why I