We have read this evening in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 9, a story of a very, very wonderful event. That wonderful event was a man's conversion. We know who the man was. I wouldn't like to think that there was anybody in this audience this evening who have not heard of the Apostle Paul. I am tempted to ask anybody to put their hands up but I'm not going to ask them to do that. I don't want you to do it. If you've not heard of the Apostle Paul, this is a deplorable thing. Most deplorable indeed because we were a once Christian country Some of us learned early to recite the names of the twelve apostles and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel and other brain stretchers of that kind. That was a good thing too because it began to make us acquainted with the Bible. It's a good thing to have a good memory so long as you put into that memory things which are worthwhile, things which are worth remembering, that which is going to do us good throughout life. Well, this man was the Apostle Paul. We were talking about him here last week, and so many of us were not present then, but we noticed that he had two names. He was sometimes originally called Saul, and later on he was called Paul. I'm indebted to one or two friends in the congregation who offered me some help subsequently as to the meaning of the different words and the possible reason why Saul of Tarsus became better known as Paul the Apostle. Into that we will not enter this evening. I'm glad at every token that Some of the things we say are taken up and acted upon. I would it were so this evening. Now this man Saul of Tarsus or as we know him better as Paul the Apostle was one of the greatest men who ever lived. He was never wealthy. He had a good education. as education was in those days, I'm not so sure but one was very superior to the education we have now. Because at least in those days they taught them to think for themselves and they gave them plenty information to store in their memory from which they could draw in the future and learn so many lessons and mature in their minds. Very important that. different ideas of education abroad in the land today and only just this week we've had an example of a school down in London Way and I'm terribly sorry to know that it's adorned with the name of the William Tyndale School. I don't know whether they're going to close it or what they're going to do with it but there are some people who had ideas about that school or rather about education, which seemed to go all wrong. People are always wanting to try something new, you know. I think that they know better than anybody else. And they know so much better that a lot of people are leaving school in these days who are not able to read or write or even calculate. I saw a letter in a very responsible public organ That is a journal, only this last week, in which a note was being made of the fact that special classes were being opened, I think it was down London Way, for school leavers who could not read or calculate. And this letter from a responsible person wanted to No, what were they learning all the time they were at school? That when they leave school, they begin to learn to read and calculate. Something wrong, isn't there? Must be something wrong. No, it won't do. I'm sorry that this kind of thing happens, and much worse than that, at the William Tyndale School because of the name William Tyndale. You know, William Tyndale helped to give us this Bible in English. And he paid for it with his life. He lived about 450 years ago. And he was a scholar. Was it Oxford or Cambridge? Doesn't matter, don't interrupt me now. Makes no difference, it was a good university anyway. Well, it was Oxford or Cambridge, though I think it was Oxford. Anyway, he decided that It was time that the people of this country had the Bible. They hadn't got a Bible up to that time because the Bible was not translated into English. At least 200 years before that, in the early 1300s, there was a man named John Wycliffe who had translated the Bible into English but in the course of 200 years the language had changed somewhat. In any case, The authorities had burned most of John Wycliffe's Bible. There were very few of them left. And that was in the days when there was no printing. And they had to write out all the Bibles by hand. Just think of it. How long do you think it would take you if you started at Genesis here and went right through to Revelation? Some people find it rather irksome even just to read it. If they had to write it all out, I wonder what they would think. Makes you wonder, doesn't it, why do people want to produce the Bible, to translate it into English? Why should they go to this great trouble before the days of printing to write it all out? It must have taken them months to do it. Months to do it. It takes some people in these modern times three or four years to read it. And I don't know who the persons are, but I would guarantee that there are people who have lived in this congregation this evening who have lived in this world at least 40 years and haven't got through the Bible once yet. I don't think I have anybody in my mind because I haven't. I'm just going by the law of averages. That's a terrible thing, isn't it? This Bible, the greatest book in the world. People don't want to read it, or even to come to hear about it, to understand about it. Well, William Tyndale, you know, he came forward and he said, now in the days of printing, everybody in England ought to be taught to read, and to read the Bible. But there's no Bible for them to read, so I will translate it. And he first of all translated the whole of the New Testament first. And they had to get it printed on the continent of Europe because it was banned from printing in England. And then he translated one or two of the books of the Old Testament. But before he could finish his task, the hand of the law was laid upon him. The long arm of the law. What was his crime? His crime had been to give the people the word of God in their own language. in their own tongue, wherein they were born. And he was away in Belgium, on the continent of Europe. When he was betrayed, someone knew where he was. He was there hard at work in a back room, translating more and more and more of the Bible, when that terrible knock came to the door. There were his enemies. They found out where he lived. He was betrayed, taken away, and burnt at the stake. You know, this is a book worth reading. More men died because of this book than any other book that was ever written, or any other cause that was ever fought for. There must be something about this book that the devil doesn't like. Yes, indeed. And so to honour William Tyndale, they built a school for him in London, named after him, William Tyndale's school. Now we see that it's got into the wrong hands. And the school that was named after him is now in the headlines, but only as a disgrace, and not for what it ought to have been. God has never been short of good men, and great men, and women too. Here's one of them, Saul of Tarsus. Now how did he become the man he became? Same way as William Tyndale, he was converted. Converted. Now what is that? Well, the man talking to you this evening from this desk has been converted. I suppose I look more or less the same shape and size of any other man of my years. So what is different about a man when he gets converted? Well, I'll tell you. He begins to live. All right, how old were you when you were converted? Someone asked me. Well, I was seventeen. When I was, I was 17. Well, if I began to live there, what was I doing during the 17 years previously? Well, I was dead. How can you be dead and go to school and travel around and do various things? I was earning my living at 17. And before that, too. Well, there's more deaths than one, you know. And the Bible speaks about being dead in trespasses and in sins. Oh, say someone, you must have been a character indeed to be dead in trespasses and in sins. Indeed I was. But not quite so bad publicly at any rate as you might imagine for one dead in trespasses and in sins. Because my parents brought me up on the Bible. I went to church. I sang in the choir. Not very far from here neither, West Derby Parish Church, away there in the village. Yes I was a choir boy there in cassock and surplice. I suppose I looked as innocent as any other choir boy looks. But I can assure you we choir boys weren't innocent at all. And some of us were just rotten. Now don't include me amongst that because through no fault of my own I was brought up with a kind of a tight rein on me. And I hadn't broken out, you see. But I had it all within me, a potential to break out. But there were others who weren't so advantaged as I was, and I can assure you they weren't very nice to know. Even though they looked fine, in a collar and a black bow tie, and a quite surplus, and a beautiful long cassock underneath. They looked as innocent as the morning. but they weren't innocent. No, no, I suppose boys are just about the same today as they were then. I talked to a good many of us this evening and we're not innocent, are we? No. Dead in trespasses and in sin. No, we may not have gone very far either. No, some of us might be quite respectable as things go, but still we're dead in trespasses and in sin. What on earth can that mean? Well, you know, one sin will put you in hell. One sin will separate you from God for all eternity. Adam committed one sin in the garden and he was cast out from the presence of God. Because a holy God cannot countenance sin. And sin has an effect. That lie that we tell that curse word that we use, that thought of evil which passes through our mind, that intention that we have to deceive, that anger, that sudden wrath, that disobedience in the home. Yes, it's all sin. And it shows us the fact that we go on doing wrong things. It shows us that we're in a condition of being dead in trespasses and in sins. The Apostle Paul, about whom we're speaking, or supposed to be speaking, said in a certain place, when I would do good, he said, evil is present with me. He speaks about Rouse's experience in the former days when he thought that he was righteous. He was a religious man. He went to church. He was an educated man. He could read the Bible and did read it. But he was not neglected by it except that it kept him respectable. At least that was something. To be a respectable member of society is no bad thing. but you're still dead in trespasses and in sin until you're converted. The Apostle Paul, though he was a man of fine mind, very high and noble and lofty intellect, he was conversant with all the learning of the day, nevertheless he says of himself, he says, I was alive without the law of God once But one day the commandment came to me and I died. That is, he suddenly discovered that he was dead. Suddenly discovered that he was a sinner. Because if we do dead works, and all sins are dead works, this shows that we are dead until we are converted. Now Paul, I said, was a great man, but like William Tyndale, He had to pay the price of having been converted. There's always a price about having been converted. Sometimes a great price, sometimes a lesser price. Paul lost his life in the end. He was executed in Rome. We don't know how he was executed, whether he had his head chopped off, whether he was thrown to the lions, or what else it was, but it wasn't a very nice end for a man to come to. and he was brought to this end, not because he was a bad man, not because he was a breaker of the human law, not because he was opposed to Caesar, not because he was a rebel against authority, not because he wasn't a respectable member of society, but because he was a Christian. That's why he had to die. Very few of us are ever likely to end up on the block and have our head chopped off. Or be otherwise put to death, merely for the fact that we are Christians. But you know, Paul said when he was converted he died. That's a strange wasn't it? He was dead before he died. But he died in a new sense when he was converted. He said the commandment of God came. He means the commandment of God God commands which way we should live and which way we should go. And Paul thought he was in that way when he suddenly discovered he wasn't. So he found out that he was a dead man. He was dead to God and dead to true righteousness and peace and truth. And he began to look over his life and he says, yes, it's certainly true. There he was, as we have read this evening, on the road to Damascus. on the road to a little lodging in a house in a street which is called Strength. And Damascus, which is one of the oldest cities on the face of the earth, is there to this day in Syria, away there in Palestine. And there is still, I am told, a street going through the midst of Damascus which is known as Strength. the straight street. Just to think of that, two thousand years ago it was there, not swept away. They didn't rip the insides out of cities in those days like they do now. They built them to stand and to stand for ages upon ages. What changes, you older people, we have seen in Liverpool, in our time, even in this last twenty years. They tell us now that changes have not been for the good. Although the planners got busy, you know. Oh yes, they had their architects round them and they said, we'll have this street pulled down and run this way instead of that way. And they made all these alterations in Liverpool and now nobody knows where they are in many cases. You can't find your way around. All the old landmarks are gone in the large area of the central part of the city. And we now know that a lot of it was a huge mistake and it cost a huge amount of money to make the mistake too. But away there in the East things don't change. The street which is called Straight, where Paul lived, is still there. Still authentic. You go there, you'll still find it. And there are still some places in this country which stand. I've been in John Knox's house in Edinburgh. He lived there. over 400 years ago. One day I went into the John Knox house in Edinburgh, just over the way from St Giles Cathedral. He was one of the great reformers of William Tyndale's day, you know. He escaped with his life. They would have put him to death. He did serve two or three years rowing on the galleys in France where they'd been sent as a convict. for what he believed to be true in the word of God, but his life was spared and he got out of his predicament and he became one of the greatest men that Scotland ever knew. Well, I was in his house where he died, in the very room where he died. John Knox, a great hero of mine, a great hero indeed. So having the place to myself, I knelt down in the little room where John Knox died. The warden wasn't there and the general public wasn't there. I didn't hear any steps on the stairs. I thought I would like to say a prayer in the room where John Knox died. And so I did. You may say, well, that was a little superstition on my part. Well, I assure you that it didn't do me any harm. And I do trust it did me instead. some other people I prayed for a little bit of good. And so Paul lived for a little season in the street which is called Strait and he was blind because he'd seen a light on the way which so dazzled his eyes that they burned his eyeballs and he couldn't see. Never look at the sun or you'll lose your vision. except through smoked glasses. Many a person has lost their vision, even in childhood, by trying to look at the sun. It was too strong for the eye. You mustn't do that. A bright light shone upon Paul. It was above the brightness of the noonday sun. And he couldn't help but look and see. He couldn't see any more for the glory of that light. fell down on the ground as one who had been smitten, as indeed he was smitten. And he heard a voice saying, crying from heaven, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And you know Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians, to bring them to compel them to blaspheme, to bring them before the courts, the ecclesiastical church courts, to get them condemned, some of them to death, some of them to jail, some of them to banishment, some of them to poverty, whatever it might be. It was hard to be a Christian in those days. It seems rather easy now. Maybe that's why a lot of people don't want to be Christians. Maybe it was harder We'd find people more concerned about it. But you wait a while, it may be very hard yet. And there's a sense in which it's always hard anyway. It is not easy to be a Christian. You've got to be different, you see. You're not the same that you were. You were dead, and now you're alive. Alive in a new sense. Alive unto God. Your eyes have been opened. And you see the truth. You see something which you never could see before. You see yourself and you don't like what you see. You see something of your own black heart as I saw mine. And I saw it was a new life that had to be. I had to be different. And I couldn't make myself different. And so I had to trust. And this is what happened to Paul. So the voice came into the darkness of his soul. Why persecutest thou me? He began to wonder, who am I persecuting? Who are you, Lord? Who art thou? I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. Oh, how he hated that name of Jesus. How he hated the name because, you see, he thought that Jesus of Nazareth was a fraud and a deceiver. and a liar, one who pretended that he was God, or the Son of God, or the Messiah which Israel was expecting. And now he had been crucified and slain upon the cross. A story went round that the third day he rose again from the dead. And Saul said, I'll put a stop to this. And so he went out with the authority of the chief priests and others of Jerusalem and the Jewish council to arrest all those who profess the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and to bring them to Jerusalem that they might be condemned either to prison or to death or banishment or whatever it might be and to think that all the time he was going the wrong way and didn't know it I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest, the voice said. And the voice came from heaven, and he knew in a flash. The scales fell from his eyes. Whereas he was blind, now he could see. Although these eyes were blind, the eyes of his mind and of his soul, they could see, because he was a man who knew his Bible. The Bible at that day was all the books of the Old Testament. The New Testament hadn't been written. But Paul was writing one of the chapters then in his own conversion. And all the Bible came back to him in a flash. All the Bible that he knew. And he thought of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. It came home to him so suddenly. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. He thought, is it after all of Jesus of Nazareth that these words are spoken? I, Paul, was not in Jerusalem at the time that He was crucified. I am what you call a foreign Jew. I was born and brought up elsewhere. My parents belonged to one of the foreign countries where they were traders or something. That's where I was born. I just come to Jerusalem at the time of the holidays, the holy days, the feast days. But I went to the synagogue in my own town. I listened to the word of God being read. I remember the 53rd chapter of Isaiah being read and many another passage too. And now it all comes home to me. It all fits in suddenly and points to Jesus of Nazareth and his death upon the cross. And here am I fighting against him, fighting against myself, fighting against the God of heaven. And nobody who does that can ever win. And there are those of us here young and old this evening We are fighting against ourselves. We are fighting against God. We are fighting against everything that is worthwhile for us. Fighting against our own salvation. Fighting against our own eternal life. Going on fighting. Not realizing that it's against Jesus of Nazareth. Against the Lord God Almighty. Against your Shepherd, Saviour, Friend. I guess the only one who can do you good, the only one who can save you, the only one in whom you have any real hope at all, is this one who died and rose again. Because the only man who is worth believing in, who ever lived upon this world, is the man who can overcome sin and death. I'm possibly nearer death than these young fellows in the front row who are listening to me so well. I'm very thankful for that. A great compliment to the preacher. and other young fellows here. It's likely that I'll die long before you. But be careful, be careful. I've buried a lot of people younger than myself in my time. I wouldn't like to bury you as well. No, no. I've had my time in this world and if God gives me any lengthening of time, I hope I make good use of it. Let me tell you this, that however long or short our days may be in this world, the only real friend you'll ever have is the man who tells you, the one who tells you how you can overcome death and live forever. This is what we're doing tonight. This is what the Apostle Paul found out. Oh, but you say, he died long ago. You told me he had his head cut off or something. He didn't live forever. Yes, he did. You can only live together in that place where everlasting life is, and that's not down here below. For when we leave our body behind us, our spirit will go on to the God who made us and redeemed us. And if you were His down here below, you'll be His there forever, and you'll live forever. Because our Lord Jesus Christ has overcome death and brought life and immortality to life through the gospel. That's worth having, isn't it? And sin is always tied up with death. And death with sin. In the day that thou sinnest, God said to Adam, thou shalt surely die. And sin and death go together. And the fact that we've got to die shows that we are sinners. What about Jesus Christ of Nazareth? He died too. Was he a sinner? No. He was the only one who could atone for our sins by reason of the fact that he had no sins. And therefore he could die for my sins because he had no sins of his own to die for. And freely gave up his life as sacrifice for me and for you. And that's why you've got to believe in Him. That's why your only hope is in Him. That's why you've got to be converted. Ah, that's the big word. You say, well, you haven't told us what it is, being converted. Paul was converted. Well, converted, put very simply, is just this. New life. A life you never had before. New life. New life. I well remember the day as Paul remembered his day. I well remember the day. when it happened with me, the good man who spoke to me that night about my soul as I am speaking to you and said, is the Lord Jesus Christ your Saviour? Does your heart belong to Him? Is your life His, given to Him? I didn't like to say no, but I said, I hope so, that he knew. That if it had been so, I would have known. And so he spoke to me about my soul, about my sins, and sent me home to ponder. And that night was the night of my conversion. For I pondered, and I prayed, and I asked God to save me. I confessed my sins. I said, I didn't use these words, but this is what I meant when I came to God, that hitherto my life has been my own. It is not my own any longer. It belongs to you. And for you, I must live. For you, I must die. And you, I must serve. Ah, that's confession. Oh, that's what saves your soul, is it? No, no, it isn't. The blood of Christ saves the soul. But it brings us to conversion. The blood of Christ does its work by cleansing you from sin when you confess them and say, Oh Lord, I want to live a new life. I don't want a license for giving just so that I can go away and do the same things again. I might do the same things again, but that belongs to my weak and sinful condition. But that's not what I want. I want new life. I want to be righteous. I want to be cleansed from my sin. I want a new heart. I want a new mind. I want to live for God and not for the devil. I want to live forever and not in eternal death in hell's consuming flame. There I do not wish to go. I want here and now to be converted, like Saul of Tarsus was converted. His first word of his conversion was this, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? You know, when you start saying that you've been converted. And it's the hardest thing on earth to say. It's not an easy thing to say. It wasn't easy for Saul of Tarsus. because he pretty well knew what the answer was going to be it was that he should turn around from persecuting the Lord Jesus and persecuting the disciples of the Lord Jesus and become one of them himself and so expose himself to all the hatred all the talk all the ridicule all the mocking all the foolish and silly laughter of his former friends and associates. You're leaving us, are you? For what? You've got good prospects. You could be a wealthy man. You could be a famous man. And so you're leaving us. And for what are you leaving us? The Apostle Paul said, For nothing that this world can give me, but for eternal life in the only one in heaven and earth who can provide it for me. who loved me so much that he gave himself for me and I'm seeing that, says Paul, for the first time. Paul, you're a fool to leave all your prospects in this world behind you. No, he says, you are the fool for you've no prospects at all in the world to come unless you take the way that I take. So he gave all the world and all it contained just to belong to Christ and Christ alone. And some of you young fellows are going to do just that. I'd like to think it was tonight, for some of you are as old as I was, when it happened in reality to me. And you're at no better age for it to happen. And you're going to go home tonight and you're going to think about it. You're going to remember all these words. You're going to remember that we said, or said in effect at any rate, and we're saying it now, that he that savours his life shall lose it. But he that loses his life, says Christ, for my sake and the Gospels, the same shall find it unto life eternal. What is your mind? What is your heart about this tonight? Go home and think about it. Tonight pray. If you're not accustomed to praying, pray tonight. You may not have another opportunity. Pray tonight. You've got life tonight. You're still in the land of the living and in the place of hope. You've still got time. You've still got opportunity. Pray tonight if you didn't pray last night. If you're not accustomed to praying, pray tonight. You'll say, I don't know what to pray. Yes, you do. Of course you know. Everybody knows what to pray. You know you've got sins. You can confess them. You know you need help. You can say, Lord, help me. You know you need salvation. You can at least cry, Lord, save me. But will He hear me? Of course He will. That's what He's there for. The one who came all that way to die for me will hear my faintest cry when I call to Him as He did hear my cry. when I said, Lord save me that night and help me about tomorrow because I'm afraid of what it's going to mean for me tomorrow. And it was as though a voice from heaven came down and said, don't fear, just trust, all will be well. I'll see you through tomorrow. And he did. And all the tomorrows that have ever taken place since, and it's been a long time, I'm seventeen to what I am now. I've known two world wars, so I'm getting on, aren't I? Yes, and looking back, there's not a day I regret. There's nothing I lost that I ever hankered after any more. But I have gained far, far more than I ever hoped all looked for and it gets more grand and more glorious and more wonderful and day succeeds day and Christ grows larger and larger and His love is greater and His grace is more marvelous and His service is perfect freedom and I'd sooner serve Christ than anybody else upon the face of the earth that ever was or ever will be. He's the best master. He's the only saviour. And his is the only life that is worth living. I want to sing as we sang a short time ago, Oh Happy Day That Fixed My Choice. And I'm going to ask Mrs Doris Webb to come forward because she's got the music and she's going to play it for us. And we're all going to sing with our might. This wonderful hit, 866.