Sin, Hatred and His Death on Calvary

A.   Isn’t it utterly amazing how sin destroys our ability to think clearly about things!  This takes us down the most irrational road imaginable!  Paul was a highly educated man, a Pharisee, a man who was taught and trained how to think, and yet he sets aside his thinking faculties and goes on a rant against the Lord’s disciple’s.  But my friends, that’s what sin does to people.  Education is no protection against unreasonableness.  Sin makes people take leave of their senses, and do the most foolish of things.  Intelligent people driven, not by their minds, but by their emotions.  Driven by blind prejudice against what they do not like.  And we have them in the church today, you know.  There they are in all their pride and self-righteousness, sitting under the preaching of the Gospel but hating every moment of it.  These clever people, these educated people. And how different are they from Paul and his passionate hatred towards Christians!  None at all.

B.    But look further.  These same hot-heads know enough to hate Christians, but not enough to realise that their hatred is directed exclusively against Lord Jesus Christ.   It is Christ they hate. It is Christ they are opposing.  Look at Paul the Pharisee.  His very breath was burning with slaughter and murder against God’s redeemed people.  This graduate of at least three universities.  Where is his logic, you ask? Where is his reason?  Where is his ability to think?  They have deserted him.  And the same is true of many in church and world today.  Their opposition to Gospel is utterly irrational.  What are they opposing?  And Who are they opposing?  Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  Who was He?  He was a man Who went about doing good.  And they hate Him for that! He taught His discs, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you,” (Mt.7:12).  He healed the sick, lame, deaf, blind, dumb.  And you hate Him for doing that!  And look!  He even raised the dead to life.  You are opposing a Man like that! 

Do you see the sheer irrationality of your reaction and opposition to Christ?  Do you see what it is leading you to do?  Sin drives people mad!  These are the reactions of mad people.  Sane, sensible people would never reject Someone Who did all these good things.  Never.  

C.    But look at the climax of what He did.  He died for you.  He loved you so much that He took your sins in His own Body on the tree, and died for them.  He took in His own Body the wrath of God that your sin deserved – why?  Because He loved you!  And you still persecute Him!  See the awful power of sin!  Sin enables the lost, the blind, the guilty to do those very things.  That’s what Paul did, and why.  And that’s what you’re doing, and why.

But do you know what is really happening here?  You are meeting Jesus Christ face to face, and you don’t like it.  This always happens in true conversion.  That’s what conversion is – a personal meeting with Jesus Christ face to face.  P was meeting Christ, and he did  not know it.  “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”  “Who are You, Lord?”  “I am Jesus Whom you are persecuting.”  In persecuting the disc’s, he was persecuting Christ Himself.  You see, you can’t lay a rough finger on any of Lord’s people and not touch Christ at the same time.  You cannot.   If you touch them, you touch Him.  And you’ll have Him to answer to.  And to answer to Him, you’ll have to meet with Him personally.  Paul was touching God’s people; and in so doing, he was touching God Himself. How foolish!  How mad!  And the amazing thing is, Christ met him on the Damascus Road.  Conversion is always a meeting face to face with Christ.  

Have you met Christ, the Son of God and Saviour of the world face to face?  Are you converted?  Have you been converted?  Have you repented of your sins and come to and trusted Christ as your Lord and Saviour?  Do you belong to Him?  Have you changed kingdoms?  Have you been delivered from the kingdom of darkness and death, and been brought into the Kingdom of light and life?  Have you personally believed the Gospel?  Do you belong to God?  If ever you are to enter God's Kingdom, then you, too, must be converted to Christ.