Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return: 20. A Prophetic Conversion

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return: 20. A Prophetic Conversion



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 20. A Prophetic Conversion

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A Prophetic Conversion

After making extensive missionary journeys, Paul was led to spend two years in Ephesus, the great centre of Asia Minor. So he touched not only that city, but the whole of the large population of cities and villages of which it was the natural centre. While here, perhaps toward the close of his stay, he wrote to the Christians in Corinth. He seems to have written a previous letter not preserved; they had written asking several questions that were agitating them. This letter is in reply to these questions. It contains eight passages of interest in this present search. There are four incidental allusions woven into the warp of this letter. [Note: 1Co_1:7-8; 1Co_5:5; 1Co_11:26; 1Co_16:22.] Then there are three brief teaching bits which we will look at briefly.

The first of these is in a paragraph [Note: 1Co_3:10-15.] in which he is pleading with them to live pure, earnest, godly lives. Jesus Christ is the foundation stone, but the life we live is the superstructure built upon it. "The day" of the Lord's coming would be a testing time of the life. It would be a fire test,—the fire of His presence. It would not be a matter of service, or work, but of character, of how truly we have lived the Jesus life in our daily life.

Our God is a consuming fire, but He consumes only what should be consumed,—what can't stand the fire. A single moment actually in the presence of the Man whose eyes are as a flame of fire, [Note: Rev_1:14.] at whose feet the Apostle of love, who lived so close to Him, fell as one in a deadly stupor,—a single moment will reveal every bit of dross, and then burn it up, leaving only whatever pure gold of loving allegiance to Himself there may be. Our coming into His very presence in the air, at His coming, will be a testing and purifying, and losing of everything that can't stand the test of His eyes.

The other two teaching portions are in the great resurrection section at the close of the letter. [Note: Chapter 15.] Paul has been answering questions and objections current among these Corinthians, so lately won out of their raw heathenism. In one paragraph [Note: 1Co_15:20-28.] he connects the resurrection of believers with the Coming, and gives an order of events in relation to both the resurrection and the Kingdom. The first item is Christ's own resurrection; then the resurrection of Christ's people at His coming. Then our Lord is to reign as King on the earth until every enemy, including the last one—death—is completely abolished. Then would come the end when the Kingdom would be delivered over to the Father. It is interesting to note the broad sweep of these simple sentences. There are up to the present time nearly nineteen centuries between the two phrases "Christ the firstfruits," and "they that are Christ's at His coming." There is the whole length of the Kingdom time between the words "Christ's at His coming" and "then (cometh) the end."

The paragraph at the end of the chapter [Note: 1Co_15:50-58.] is about the change that will take place in those who are living at the time of the Coming, and who have the warm touch with Jesus that the word "believeth" stands for. Paul has been talking about the resurrection body. The bodies of the believers who have died will be raised, but by the touch of divine power they will be utterly changed bodies, all the limitations gone, and all the powers God meant us to have, in full possession. Then he goes on to speak of the change that will take place in the bodies of the living believers. There must be a change to make us ready for the changed condition of the new, wonderful, resurrection life. We will not all die, but we shall all experience a blessed change in our bodies. The trumpet shall sound, then the dead will be raised, and then in an instant, as quick as the winking of an eyelid, the living shall be changed. And they will answer to the law of their changed condition by rising up into the heavens toward Jesus Christ, the new centre of gravity.

There is one other bit to notice in this letter. It says nothing about the Coming, and might easily be passed over, in searching on this subject. But it contains a word which starts one to thinking. And the light that has come thus far on attendant events makes one a bit keener in the search. It is in this same long resurrection section, at the beginning of it. [Note: 1Co_15:8.] Paul is grouping the appearances of the Lord after the resurrection. And, as the last item in his grouping, he says, "and last of all as to the untimely born he appeared unto me." The old version says, "as one born out of due time." In reading the old version, unthinkingly, one might think that it meant that he was born late, coming into the family of Christ after all of these others named,—"last of all." But the word underneath expresses the thought found in the revision. He speaks of himself as a child who comes to birth before the usual time of full maturity for birth. What does he mean? The word used is an immensely significant and suggestive one. It recalls at once the very unusual way in which his conversion took place.

Paul's conversion stands wholly apart from every other recorded conversion in the Bible, or outside of it. Conversion takes place through some preaching of the Gospel, in print, or by some personal word, or in public address, at some time in child training, or in later years, blest by the Holy Spirit. That is the way marked out by the Holy Spirit for seeking to win men. Paul's was utterly, radically different. It was through the Lord Jesus Himself appearing to him, suddenly, unexpectedly, out of the clear heavens above his head, in such wondrous dazzling glory of light as to make the sun's light throw a shadow, and to blind Paul's eyes.

It is significant that three times in the book of Acts that story is told, in much detail. [Note: Act_9:1-9; Act_22:6-11; Act_26:12-18.] It would suggest a purpose on the part of Him who was guiding the writing of that book. This is the unusual way in which the conviction came to Paul that the Jesus whom he hated, and whose followers he was doing his utmost to hound to death, was indeed the Messiah of his nation, and the Saviour of his own life. This was his birth into a new life. And this was a being born before the time, an untimely birth. What does it mean?

Well, we have already learned that a Jewish national restoration is to come with our Lord's return, and through this there is to come a worldwide evangelization and. worldwide blessing. This clearly implies, and necessitates, that the re-constituted Jewish nation would be a regenerated nation, born again as a nation, by the power of the Holy Spirit, even as its individual members would be, and as any one is today. The change is connected with our Lord Jesus' coming, sometime in the future. This strange unusual conversion of Paul, seems meant to be a prophetic illustration of what will take place when the birth time of the new nation has fully come. The Lord Jesus' appearance in the open heaven, in a dazzling glory of light clear above the shining of the sun, will do for the nation of the Jews what it did for this man Paul.

Paul, the strict orthodox Jew, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised the eighth day, brought up in Jerusalem, the Jew Capital, at the feet of Gamaliel, a Pharisee of the Pharisees,—this Paul becomes a bit of acted prophecy to his own people and to all the Church. In the manner of his conversion, in the thoroughness of the change wrought by the Holy Spirit, and in the character of his after career, he seems to be God's message of what is to take place with his nation some day. His after career was a passionate, undiscourageable, tireless preaching of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles of the world. What would it be were a whole nation of Pauls so sent out by the Lord Jesus!