I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.
About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’ “ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. “ ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.

It is said that the most powerful attack on an enemy comes from inside. It is also true that the most powerful witness to a group of people is one who has fallen for the same lies and fears, or been entrapped in the same darkness they have.

In this world, whether it be the Muslims in the Crusades or the Christians in the Crusades, the Nazis planned extermination of the Jews, the killing of the Uhgar people in China to harvest their organs, or child sex trafficking of innocents, much evil has been done. When someone comes out of this evil and follows Jesus wholeheartedly, they become a light of The Light of the World for all those who are still slaves to sin. This is the type of powerful testimony Nicky Cruz’s transformation has had, as told in the book The Cross and the Switchblade.

In this book, a young pastor named David Wilkerson decided to reach out to the gangs of New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. He met Nicky Cruz, who was the president of one of New York’s most powerful gangs, the Mau Maus. Nicky says of himself at the time: “You can get high on sex. You can get high on alcohol. You can get high on drugs. I was high on hate and violence.”

Nicky became a Christian, went to Bible School and took a job with Teen Challenge as its director in Brooklyn, NY. He founded a group called TRUCE that seeks to transform tough, urban communities, and he has shared his testimony all over the world. The book The Cross and the Switchblade has sold over 50 million copies.

Paul was this type of insider for the Christian church. This is why his witness was so powerful and his persecution so heavy. He had been at the pinnacle of Jewish legalism. He had crushed the opposition to Jewish legalism, The Way (the early Christian church). He arrested them and threw them in jail — men and women. After he became a Christ-follower, he knew all the arguments. He also knew the particular truths that would expose those arguments as evil and against the lordship and love of Jesus.

So here, as he begins his address, he relates to the Jews and shares what he has in common with them. He lights the way to The Light of the World, just like Nicky Cruz did later for his gang brothers in New York City.

Am I using the gifts God gave me and the sin he has freed me from in order to light the way for others to The Light of the World?

Lord, thank you for these two great examples of lights in our world, Paul from over 2,000 years ago, and Nicky Cruz from 75 years ago. May I, too, be a light to light the way to you, not caring as much about my embarrassing sin as I care about rescuing people from eternal death!