Dear Friends,
One of the great events in the life of the Christian Church was, surely, enacted on that day when our Lord Jesus Christ led that man Saul of Tarsus to Himself after dealing with him to the conviction of his soul on the road to the city of Damascus.
How sovereign the workings of the Lord appear in that whole encounter on the Damascus road as the Omnipotent power of the ascended Christ shines out of heaven and around that arch-persecutor of the Lord's redeemed people in the earth. Oh, yes, there is a human instrument brought into the picture in the form of that man Ananias who is to eventually speak to Saul and, as we might say, “lead him” to the Saviour. And yet, even the Lord's employment of that human instrument, in itself, simply sets before us the great Omnipotence of our God, and presents us with a principle of the Lord's workings that we lose sight of at our peril.
The situation is this, you remember: Saul has been convicted of his sin and has been led in his blinded state into the city of Damascus where he is to be for three whole days, neither eating or drinking. At the end of that period, the Lord's set time to favour Saul of Tarsus has come, and he chooses out his instrument for the task. Who is it to be? And so, we read these words, “And there was a certain disciple at Damasus named Ananias.” Ask who that man was, and apart from this time in his life where he encounters Saul of Tarsus, we know nothing about him. And yet, what a lot we are taught, or reminded of, with regards to our God. For in this choosing out of this unknown man for such a task as this we see how often the Lord is pleased to use the “ordinary” to perform the extra-ordinary; how He is so often pleased to take up the apparently foolish, or despised, or insignificant when it comes to the performances of some of his greatest works.
What a high degree there is today in the churches of what we might call, “Napoleonism.” It was the famous soldier, you remember, who coined the phrase, “God is with the big battalions.” Oh, he gave a certain amount of lip service to a belief in God and how God would undertake for him; but Napoleon's real hope lay in his guns and horse and infantry; the big battalions – that was the real assurance of success. And how that attitude prevails yet – and even among the professing people of God. “Oh yes,” many people say, “we believe that God can use the little things” etc. And then, they turn all their energies on mustering together the “big battalions” of method, and presentation and slickness, and with-it-ness, in order to fight the Lord's fight in our day. There is never any excuse for laxity, or laziness, or carelessness in the things of our gospel work. But, there is to be a constant remembrance that we are absolutely shut up to the Lord's ways and the Lord's thoughts which may only be discovered and realised through a relentless recourse to His Word.
Put it to the test in your own heart in this case before us. Choose out the man to lead Saul of Tarsus to Christ. Who might we have chosen? First choice might well have landed on Philip. Here was an outstanding evangelist, just hot from a successful campaign at Samaria; and what a “personal worker,” as well – see how he has just dealt with that Ethopian Eunuch. No, no, someone would say, Philip was only “one of the seven” – he wasn't an apostle; this conversion of Saul of Tarsus is something for an apostle; don't use the Vicar if you can get the Arch bishop! Peter is obviously the man for the job – get Peter. Not Peter, someone might thunder, Peter is just liable to put his foot in it and we'll lose this fish. John is the man, young John; No, no, not John – he's better kept for the young folk. Let's get Matthew; this man Saul of Tarsus, you see, is an intellectual – you need somebody who can speak his language – he's far too intelligent to be able to understand ordinary speech – and, at least, Matthew has had some education – he's a tax collector – a civil servant – get Matthew. But no, says the Lord, let's send Ananias of Damascus for the job. Who? Ananias of Damascus! And with one fell swoop, our Saviour lays in the dust all our Napoleonic reasoning.
Now the case of Ananias of Damascus doesn't stand in isolation my friends. It's not just a particular incident that has no general application, for the word of God is full of the same kind of workings on the part of the Lord. Where would one begin and end with this principle of God's workings? What about Jericho, or Gideon, or David slaying Goliath with a sling and stone? They, and numerous other incidents tell the same story of God's ways and mind being so far different from what man conceives. But, the greatest manifestation of all of this principle of God's working is to be seen in the cross itself – and through the very “foolishness” of the preaching of that cross in every age. On the cross, the Lord of all the earth, through death, destroys him who had the power of death, and in so doing, shows forth the great fact that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” And that cross of Christ, viewed in this fashion, is one of the greatest tests of our faith.
We make much of the phrase – “The offence of the cross.” But there is abundantly more to the offence of the cross than simply relating a few texts or facts about a man called Jesus of Nazareth dying on a cross for the sins of men. The true offence of the cross is the humble bowing of our proud and stubborn wills to the ways of God and the laying “in the dust life's glory dead” under the crushing truth that God chooses the foolish things of man's estimating for the explicit purpose of confounding his pride. Ananias, nor Jericho, nor Gideon, nor David's sling stand in isolation: each and every one of them points forward to, or back to that “little hill” on which the crisis of the world was to be enacted. And for as long as God permits His church to remain on this earth that church is absolutely bound to the principle displayed there.
Could God not have saved His Church through the “big battalions” of heavenly power? Surely, yes – “Knowest thou not that I could summons ten legions of angels?” But, God chooses the cross – with all the stigma surrounding it – and sets His seal upon the ways of the Lord in the midst of the earth. Let it never be forgotten that the devil loves to see the Lord contradicted; let us be careful, then, that our behaviour and practices and methods and hopes don't sometimes do that very thing.
This Page Title – Pastor's Letter – A Test for our own Hearts (November 1974) The Wicket Gate Magazine "A Continuing Witness". Internet Edition number 107 – placed on line March 2014 Wicket Gate contact address – Mr Cliff Westcombe cw@wicketgate.co.uk If you wish to be notified when each new edition goes on line please send an e-mail to the above address Magazine web address – www.wicketgate.co.uk |