CHAPTER FOURTEEN
An Empire Builder for God
Had Saul met only a preacher and heard only a sermon on the Damascus road, he might never have been heard of again. But he met Christ! (Sermons and preachers can be avoided—they often are—but Christ can never be avoided.) Right there that day Saul’s philosophy of life was met with Life Himself. This fire-eating religious zealot met the fire-baptizing Lord; and as a result, when Saul was changed, civilization took a turn for the better. (May it please Thee to do this again, Lord, today!) Though in his own sight, a rigid, lawkeeping, blameless Pharisee, Paul soon began to declare himself to be the chief of sinners in the sight of God. No wonder, for he was to the infant church what Herod was to the infant Christ—turning darkest hell into yet darker despair.
A man with an experience of God is never at the mercy of a man with an argument, for an experience of God that costs something is worth something, and does something. Paul’s was not an experiment that day; it was an experience. Yet his encounter with the Holy One that day must have been as terrorizing as it was transforming. He had a blinding vision of the Lord ‘‘above the brightness of the [noonday] sun.’’ Thereafter Paul was blind to all earthly honor. ‘‘They shall not honor me who would not honor Thee,’’ said F. W. H. Meyer. Saul’s collision with Christ suddenly shattered his dream of intellectual kingship and beggared his earthly prospects. Thus stricken, he stepped down yet further to another ordeal with God—the stripping in the Arabian desert (of which things his lips are sealed).
And somewhere this empire-builder for Christ, with his colossal intellect and wonderful pedigree, accepted his Lord not only in substitution, but also in identification—‘‘I died [in Him].’’ (To this truth we all render glib lip-service.) Paul also triumphantly affirms, ‘‘He l-i-v-e-t-h in me!’’ Grasp this truth with both hands. If we so testified, would friends shoot out the lip of mockery at us? This sold-out servant-of-the-Saviour arose from the ashes of his burned-up self to be the New Testament Samson, lifting off its hinges the gates of history, and turning Calvary’s cleansing stream into the foul stables of Asian corruption. Blessed man!
Having found peace with God, Paul made war on all that was godless. He charmed the intelligentsia of Athens on his sweet lyre of the Gospel, ending his song abruptly by grasping the resurrection-trumpet, only to send the Athenians scattering—scarred and scorched by its truth.
But what made this man laugh at the frowning crags of Asia’s barriers? Why did he die daily? What reason is there for his unmatched list of fortitude (II Cor. 11)? Wherein is the rational explanation that he should carry an oversized burden? The answer is not from any wild guess or imagination, but from the well-kept diary of his soul. Staggering as it is, he goes on record as saying, ‘‘[It is] not I, but Christ liveth in me’’ (Gal. 2:20). Ponder it! He does not declare that he believes in the virgin birth, or that he is sure the Lord rose again from the dead—though of course, he believed this—but ‘‘Christ is now living in me!’’ From the sickening depth of depravity (‘‘no more I . . . but sin that dwelleth in me,’’ Rom. 7:17), he is now asserting from the height of spirituality, ‘‘Not I, but Christ liveth in me’’ (Gal. 2:20). Precious exchanged life!
Paul’s was an exemplary life. He was not a guidepost, but a guide. Listen to him, ‘‘Those things which ye have heard and seen in me, do’’ (Phil. 4:9). He was indeed a ‘‘living epistle.’’
Paul’s was an exceptional life. Would anyone be stupid enough to claim that Paul’s self-abnegation is ours? Is it not rather true of us, ‘‘All seek their own’’? He was exceptional in that he wrote so many epistles, and founded so many churches. But read the list again in II Cor. 11. Is he trying to outsuffer the martyrs, or make a safe claim to be listed with the saints? Not a bit of it! Place, pedigree, and privilege are but dung that he may win Christ, and by his abiding obedience be found in Him. He was exceptional in suffering, which was often by the choice of others, but exceptional in prayer, too, which was by his own choice. If more were strong in prayer, more would be suited to suffer. Prayer develops bone as well as groan, sinew as well as saintliness, fortitude as well as fire.
Paul calls the Holy Ghost as a witness that he could wish himself ‘‘accursed’’ for his brethren (Rom 9:3). Madam Guyon prayed almost an identical prayer. Brainerd and John Knox were ‘‘men of like passions.’’ When, brother, (or where), did we ever hear such a prayer offered in a prayer meeting? We cannot have big results from our small praying. The law of prayer is the law of harvest: sow sparingly in prayer, reap sparingly; sow bountifully in prayer, reap bountifully. The trouble is we are trying to get from our efforts what we never put into them.
Paul’s was an expanding life. Many of us, alas, are happy to get the scraps that are left over from another man’s ministry. But Paul built upon no man’s foundation (I Cor. 3:10), for his brain was not so steeped in dogma that it became an ecclesiastical machine, merely grinding out the mysteries of metaphysics. He spent no wearying hours speculating upon Daniel’s image. Neither did he hide away in some spiritual laboratory dissecting truth or labelling theological capsuls, nor yet complimenting himself on his ability to polish words for future creeds. The reason for this is as clear as the noonday.
Paul wrote no ‘‘Life of Christ’’; He demonstrated it by his ‘‘I am a debtor’’ (Rom. 1:14). If humanly possible at all, his soul’s honor was pledged to erase that debt. The cost might be prison, for it were better that he should be ‘‘the prisoner of the Lord’’ for a few years than that his fellow men should be the devil’s prisoners in hell forever. Paul was committed to a complete and costly consecration: ‘‘Henceforth let no man trouble me’’ (Gal. 6:17). Paul was sold out to God. Every beat of his heart, every thought of his mind, every step of his feet, and every longing of his soul—all were for Christ and the salvation of men. He upset synagogues, had revivals and riots—either one or the other, sometimes both. (We seem to have neither.)
Though his revival party let him down—‘‘all men forsook me’’ (II Tim. 4:16), he dropped into the ‘‘everlasting arms’’ and went on. He escaped assassination; but with his daily bread he had daily death, for he said, ‘‘I die daily’’ (I Cor. 15:31). Magnificent misery his!
The fruits of the Spirit were upon Paul; the gifts of the Spirit operated through him. He held citywide revivals while he patched tents to pay expenses! My brother preachers, aren’t we a chicken-hearted group by the side of Paul?
Sometimes he almost starved! Yet when the table was full, he fasted. He wished everyone blessing, yet could wish himself accursed. With his revolutionary living and riotous theology, this ‘‘spectacle before men,’’ this Christian filled with the Holy Ghost, is the redemptive counterpart of the fanatical devotee of the political religion of atheistic Communism. ‘‘People consumed by the inner fire of the Spirit are the counterpart in human life of the smashed atom which releases cosmic forces.’’
Paul, transformed, transported, and soon to be transplanted, reveals that we all could be ‘‘like him.’’ Hear him as he stands before Agrippa—‘‘I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day were both almost, and altogether as I am, except these bonds.’’ He does not say that he wishes all would write as he has done. Nor does he say that all would found churches by his example. Paul does not say ‘‘as I did,’’ but, ‘‘as I myself am’’ (I Cor. 7:7). The Spirit that filled Paul can so fill us that we, like him, can be identified with Christ in sacrifice if not in service.
Where will this end with you, my brother? I do not know. (Neither do angels or men.) But where it all begins is in an Exchanged Life whereby we no longer live—but Christ Lives in us. Paul lived gloriously and died triumphantly because in sacrifice and suffering he identified himself with Christ. So can we live and die, if we but will.