Have You Traveled These Roads Bravely?
II Cor 54
Introduction:
The highways of the 1st century were very extensive and widely traveled. Rome was a great builder of roads. Some of these roads that we read about in the Bible are tied up with spiritual experiences that are just as important today as they were in Bible times.
I. There is the Road to Damascus
A. Acts 9:1-8 tells us that Saul of Tarsus was traveling this highway when he
experienced a great spiritual awakening. He and his men left Jerusalem that morning to go to Damascus to arrest Christians. At midday a light, brighter than the sun, enveloped them and they fell to the ground. Out of the light a voice said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” “Who art thou Lord?” “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” “Lord, what do you want me to do?” Acts 26:16 gives us in Paul’s words what his commission was to be. The Lord said, “Rise. Stand on thy feet. I will make thee a minister, and a witness of the things which you have seen and the things in which I will appear unto thee. To open the eyes of the Gentiles and to turn them from darkness to light, to turn them from the power of Satan to the power of God that they may receive forgiveness of sings and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me.”
B. The Road to Damascus is the road to spiritual awakening. Saul had an overwhelming experience. In 1st Corinthians 15:8 he wrote that he had seen Jesus. In 15:9 he called himself the least of the Apostles because he had persecuted the church of God. In Acts 26 he called himself a murderer. In 1st Tim 1:15 he called himself the chief of sinners. But after meeting the Lord on the Damascus Road, his life was so transformed that he could write. 2nd Cor 5:17, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” Saul had been converted. Like Wesley, his heart had been strangely warmed. He had been born again. His sins had been forgiven.
C. Fortunate is any one who can remember a Damascus Road experience. IT need not be highly dramatic, like the experience of Paul. It need not be like the experience of the professional diver, who working beneath the sea, found a piece of paper between the valves of an oyster shell. He pulled the oyster loose and held the paper up to his eyes. The paper was a gospel tract. As he read it, God spoke to him. He came to the surface a converted man.
It may be as simple as the publican who went into the temple and cried, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” Jesus said that he went to his house justified. Conversion needs to be real enough for us to sing, “O happy day that fixed my choice on thee, my savior and my God.” The importance of conversion is not the manner but the fact itself. No 2 persons find God in just the same way. The important question that needs to be answered is, “Have you traveled the road to Damascus? Did you meet Jesus? Were you converted?”
II. In Luke 9:51 there is the road to Jerusalem which Jesus traveled. “And it came to pass
that when the time was come that he
A. ...Should be received up, He steadfastly set His face that He should go to Jerusalem.” For Jesus it was a rough road with a cross at the end. The road to Jerusalem stands for complete dedication to God. Despite the cross Jesus said to the Father, “Thy will be done.” And the way of dedication became the way of victory. Because of His dedication we have been redeemed and the redeemed are enjoined to be like their redeemer, to walk the same spiritual highway called the Highway of Holiness in Isaiah 35:8 and the way of the upright in Proverbs 16:17. The Epistles of Paul have much to say about holy conduct. According to both Old and New Testaments, God’s standard for His redeemed is holiness.
B. But although holiness is so necessary to our Christian experience, it cannot be earned, it cannot be purchased, it cannot be attained. From beginning to end, God is the giver and we are the receivers. We are redeemed because Jesus died for us and saved us from the guilt of our sins. We are made Holy because Jesus is able and willing to save us from the power of our sins. Holiness is the gift of God in and through Jesus Christ.
C. But God can bestow this work of grace only upon the soul that is fully dedicated to Him. This involves the surrender of self to God. Self is the greatest burden in life that we have to carry. Self is the most difficult thing that we have to control. We must hand over to God Self with its weaknesses, tensions, worries, trials, and errors. Full surrender on our part is necessary to remove the difficulties and hindrances out of he way that God may bestow His gift upon us. In order that a lump of clay be fashioned into a beautiful creation of art, it must be entirely abandoned to the potter and lie passive in his hands. Or as it is absolutely necessary that the doctor be obeyed if he is to have opportunity to help us. So God must have the whole case put in his hands. Perhaps abandonment is a better word than dedication or consecration, but either way it means an entire surrender, of the whole being, spirit, soul, body, to God to use as He sees fit.
D. We surrender self. We open our hearts to the cleansing power of God’s Holy Spirit, to the bestowal of the gift of holiness, and by Faith accept the gift. Faith is an absolute necessary element in the reception of any gift, material or spiritual. We accepted Christ as our savior and believed that He saved us from the guilt of sin. Now we receive Christ as our sanctifier and believe that He saves us from the power of sin. As we once trusted Him for forgiveness, we here and now trust Him for righteousness and holiness. This faith is a present faith. We must come to the now belief, and say by a present appropriate faith, “Jesus breaks the power of cancelled sin now.” A future faith is powerless to accomplish practical results. Satan trembles and flees when the soul of the believer reaches out to claim a present deliverance and reckons itself to be free from sin’s power.
E. To sum it up, you are a Christian. You love God and long to please Him. You realize that you have an up and down Christian experience, you make resolutions but fail to keep them. You long to be delivered from the power of sin. Often in despair you wonder if Jesus can help you. He can, if you abandon yourself fully to him and accept His deliverance by absolute truth. Now. Open your life to the cleansing power of His spirit now. Believe now that he has delivered you from the power of your sins, as He once delivered you from the guilt of your sins. Entire abandonment and absolute faith if definitely taken and unwaveringly persevered in will certainly bring you out into the green pastures and still waters of a life controlled by God.
F. The road to Jerusalem may lead to a cross but God is able to sustain us and give us victory.
I read of a woman who had a very heavy burden to bear. It took away sleep and appetite and endangered her health. One day, when the burden was especially heavy she noticed a Gospel tract on a nearby table entitled, “Hanah’s Faith.” She began to read it, little knowing that it was to change her whole manner of thinking. The trat told of a poor woman who had been given victory over a life of sorrow. She was telling a friend about it and the friend said, “Hanah, I don’t see how you could bear so much sorrow.” Hanah said, “I didn’t bear it, the Lord bore it for me.” Yes, that is right, we should take our burdens to the Lord! “I took my burdens to the Lord and left them there. Some Christians take their burdens to the Lord and bring them back. If my worry comes back I take it to Him again. I do it over and over until I have perfect rest from my worries.”
G. After reading the Gospel tract this woman resolved to try it. She could not change the circumstances of her life, but she took them to the Lord and handed them over to His management. Then she believed that He really took charge of the worries and cares she left with Him. As often as the anxieties returned, she took them back and the result was, that despite the cross she was kept in perfect peace. She felt that she had learned a practical secret and from that time on she turned her burdens, trials, and anxieties over to the divine burden bearer as fast as they arose. She ceased to fret and worry and her life became sunshine and gladness. Have your traveled the road to Jerusalem since you met the Lord on the road to Damascus?
III. Converted, cleansed by His spirit, and set apart for His specific purpose, there remain two
important roads all Christians should travel. The road to Jericho and the road to Gaza.
A. In Luke 10:29-37 we read of the poor fellow who was beaten and robbed by thieves as he journeyed to Jericho, and left to die beside the road. The road to Jericho is the road of human need. Three men came down that road that day and met an opportunity for kindly service. A priest, who was a man of the cloth, and later a Levite came along and passed by on the other side. They were both professionally religious but not personally religious enough to lend a helping hand. It remained for the Good Samaritan to lend a helping hand, to bind up the man’s wounds, to care for him at an inn, to make provision for his future need. The good Samaritan was a type of the Lord Himself in His compassion for mankind. There is still suffering on the Jericho roads of this life. We must meet the needs of suffering humanity with the compassion of our loving Lord.
B. There is also the road to Gaza on which Philip met and talked with the Ethiopian. He told him the good news of Jesus and won his confession of faith.
Philip was a layman, not a minister. In California a man once conducted what he called road-side evangelism, as he hitchhiked rides. He found that when he rode with a man two hours or more one in four accepted Christ. We, too, must share our faith on the road of life.
Along the highways of Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia one sees signs reading “Repent” “Prepare to Meet God” “Jesus is Coming Soon”. These signs are the work of a West Virginia coal miner who makes them in hi spare time and places them along the highways. His message has won many to Christ.
The great commission is still in effect. We are to go up and down the highways and byways of life, preaching the Gospel to every creature.
Conclusion:
In the New Testament somebody is always going somewhere. In the New Testament times and down through the ages men, women, boys and girls have experienced spiritual awakening, have followed the highway of holiness, have served the needs of humanity and shared their faith. Let us go and do likewise.
