Say, fellows, if there were two hundred railroad tracks out there, and on each track, every moment, passed a freight train carrying fifty cars, each car holding fifty tons of water (maximum load for the largest tank car), the two hundred trains, with their ten thousand cars per minute would not be more than sufficient to carry away the water as fast as it tumbles over Niagara Falls. With crushing and destructive force that mighty volume plunges downward into a great stone bowl which it has carved out for itself, so deep that if the Woolworth Building were set down in it not more than half of it would show above the top of the Falls. Engineers have estimated the total energy of Niagara Falls at sixteen million horse-power!
Fellows, I think of the life of Saul, afterward known as the Apostle Paul, as somewhat like Niagara River. The great river flows majestically, uninterruptedly, more than half of its length, having a fall of not more than twenty feet in twenty-two miles. Then suddenly something happens. Something tremendously tragic and startling happens. It plunges headlong over a precipice. Here is power gone mad.
Saul, the Pharisee, the scholar, the zealot—the colossal mind—sweeping everything before him like an irresistible tide, riding upon the crest of power, haling men and women to prison, breathing out threatenings and slaughter and making havoc of the church, fell headlong to the earth, as a blinding light burst forth from heaven and the voice of the Lord sounded in his ears—the "still small voice," yet mightier than the roar of any cataract.
"Who art thou, Lord?" "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Saul's conversion was complete. Convert means to turn about. It means an entire change; not to be robbed of one's powers, but to have those powers diverted into another and entirely different channel.
Look again at the Falls—that great destructive mass tumbling over the cliff, beating rocks to pieces and slashing gigantic gorges in its course. What is happening? Science is harnessing the power of the cataract and with it producing light and heat and power for the cities of Canada and the United States. Darkness is dispelled, warmth takes the place of chill, the wheels of industry are humming, and men and women are enabled to live and make bread for their little ones, because of the conversion of a mighty force into life-giving usefulness.
Fellows, some people seem to think to accept Christ as the Master of their lives means to take away or paralyze their powers—to deprive them of some special activeness they possess and which they shrink from giving up. Bless you, there could not be a worse mistake. To accept Christ means to have those same powers, even though they might have been devoted to evil, now turned into channels of finest, highest service—the kind of service that really satisfies the cravings of the human heart. I see a boy who, because he is of an intensely sociable disposition, seeks the companionship of a gang of fellows around the loafing places and pool-rooms in the evenings. Touched by the spirit of Christ, those social qualities will be even more enthusiastically devoted to winning other young people into Christian life and service. I see a young fellow with an unbroken will, glorying in his freedom, as he sees it, to resist the counsels of wiser ones against his evil habits, cigarettes or any other destructive thing that may have gotten into his life. That same will-power, that same stubbornness, touched by the power of Christ becomes the rock-ribbed steadfastness that has enabled men to put through great achievements for God. I see a boy who can invent much devilment and get himself and others into an almost incredible amount of trouble and sorrow. It might be the judgment of some that "killing is the only thing good for him," but touched by the spirit of Jesus, that boy becomes a veritable genius for doing effective things to promote the Kingdom of God—and no fellow in the community happier than he. He verily throbs with the joy of living.
No, fellows, you don't turn a river back up-stream to convert it; you simply harness it, and its powers flow on, but for good and not for destruction. If you want to be a power that blesses wherever it touches, and dashes back into your own heart the spray of the salt and the tang of the fresh morning air, hear to-day the Voice of your Master, and quickly answer: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
Read Acts 9:1-19.