Acts 9:3-5 – As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
And he said, “Who are You, Lord?”
Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
The strange thing about being spiritually blind is this, you think you can see but you just can’t, you are blind to the things of God until your eyes are opened by the grace of God. Saul of Tarsus had been trained from his childhood in the scriptures at the feet of the greatest minds in Israel. That didn’t help, his eyes were blinded and his heart was closed to the gospel until the day of his encounter on the Damascus Road. In that moment of time the light of the gospel burst into Paul’s world, he was no longer blind but he could now see. This message of a personal encounter with God was at the foundation of all that Jonathan Edwards preached during the Great Awakening. Here is something he said about having a personal sense of the reality of God.
“There is a twofold understanding or knowledge of good, that God has made the mind of man capable of. The first, that which is merely speculative or notional. . . . The other is that which consists in the sense of the heart: as when there is a sense of the beauty, amiableness, or sweetness of a thing. . . . Thus there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. . . . When the heart is sensible of the beauty and amiableness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension. . . . which is a far different thing from having a rational opinion that it is excellent.”
So Paul was drastically and permanently changed that day. He saw Jesus for himself and his world was changed. So many people, like Paul, stumble through life in a state of spiritual blindness having no idea about spiritual things. That can change. All it takes is one moment with Jesus and the blazing light of glory shining out from Him will bring you out of darkness into light.
