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CONNIE: Have you had an “Aha Moment” lately? A time when everything comes clear, and you understand at last? Join us today as we consider the apostle Paul’s “Aha Moment.” Our topic: “Getting off the Scales.”

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for 75 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko. Welcome to our broadcast, as we continue our look at the life of the apostle Paul, and his spiritual journey.

CONNIE: Now Lonnie, you’ve titled your message today “Getting off the Scales”—it almost sounds like a program about losing weight or something.

LONNIE: Well, in a sense it is, because we’ll be talking about a time when Saul—later known as Paul—lost some weight in a spiritual sense. But we’re really focusing on that very special moment in his life when the scales literally came off of his eyes and he began to see things in a whole new light, after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

CONNIE: As we prepare for that message, we’ve invited a special guest to join us—Pastor Ron Halvorson has been a pastor and evangelist for many years, but his life didn’t begin that way. In fact he started out in one of the rough neighborhoods of New York, and his life was headed downhill until . . . well, we’ll let you hear it in his own words in this interview with Lonnie:

LONNIE: Ron Halvorson, welcome to our studios.

RON: Very happy to be here Lonnie.

LONNIE: Ron, I just heard you preach within the last 24 hours and I’m telling you, you moved my heart, you’re a modern apostle Paul, and you have moved thousands. But your life was not always on this side of the tracks so to speak.

RON: that’s true. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. I was a street person and I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and I was a gang leader, a polish rebel with a cause, I was a rebel without a cause. My Damascus road was actually in Brooklyn in a place called Coney Island, and that was one of the centers of crime. As a teenager I was a juvenile criminal and the neighborhoods were ruled by the gangs in the hood and I was a part of that scene and that life. I had no hope, no cause, and no life!

LONNIE: In many ways it’s a miracle that we are even talking right now. That you even survived.

RON: It’s a miracle. Every time that I wake up in the morning I pinch myself because it is a miracle, that out of that hole of sin and iniquity God would reach down and pluck me out of there…For instance, I was 17 years old and illiterate, I was the vice-president of a beach gang called the comas, one of the most notorious gangs in Brooklyn at the time. I lived in the total gang life, with the switchblade in my pocket, running the streets with no destiny and no future.

LONNIE; Many of our listeners right now are behind bars. 10% of our Bible school are prisoners. They have grown up in this environment and they are listening to you right now. What was yours “ah-ha” moment just like the apostle Paul, what turned your upside down Ron?

RON: One thing that happened is I was playing hooky from a school that I was going to in Brooklyn and I went to this Christian school where a friend of mine was witnessing for Christ and trying to share his faith with me, and it was a moment where the preacher said something, one word or another just changed my life and I received Christ as my personal savior at that moment. At that moment God accepted me and I turned around, I was blind before that but God gave me sight. God had to make Paul blind to give him sight, then I saw things differently, my life was totally changed. God took the switchblade and gun out of my pocket and He took hatred out of my heart. I got a bible in my hand, but I couldn’t read so I snuck off to the library and tried to learn to read on my own.

LONNIE: What was it that the preacher said? What was that word? What was it about God’s message that just turned you around?

RON: I think that in my heart I felt lonely. I felt just empty, that no one really cared about me and I think the one thing that he said to me is, there is a God and a universe who cares so much that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, and that this Christ so loved the thief on the cross, that He died. Then it just dawned on me, here I am a thief on the streets and I thought if Christ could die for a thief on a cross, then maybe He could die for a thief in the Brooklyn streets. That’s really what turned me on, and really opened the door for me.

LONNIE: and you are a very successful evangelist. But you didn’t just leave New York City; you have been back to the Hood haven’t you?

RON: Right! I ministered for five years in the inner city, and I ministered for drug addicts in South Bronx and in Harlem and various sections in New York, and I did evangelistic series and led thousands in New York City to Christ. So I did go back to work in my old neighborhood and that was kind of a nice thing to do, it was exciting. I went back there and worked with theses people, and really enjoyed it.

LONNIE: You became a minister of the gospel but you had a passion for reaching out to people who had or have lived like you use to, and like the Apostle Paul did. He had a debt to God for Him helping turn his life upside down. Tell us a little bit about your spiritual journey and what it has done for you since.

RON: First of all, everything I have I owe to Christ, because my education…I went of to collage and to the university, I became a minister, I started to preach, I preached around the world, and have been on every continent preaching. I have two children who are preachers, a boy and girl, so my whole life is full, and has meaning. The future has meaning and Christ has promised His return and that gives me meaning, so all the fullness of my heart I owe it to God.

“One Day Jesus”, Steve Darmody, from Friends CD, Track 7 (#CD0181) TIME: 3:20 with 10-second lead, 10-second tail count 3:00

CONNIE: That was Steve Darmody singing “One Day Jesus,” and as always, if you’d like to know more about the music and musicians you hear on our broadcast, we invite you to stop by our web page at VOP.COM and click on the link to “Music Heard on the Broadcast.” And while you’re on the web, be sure to check out some of the other features at VOP.COM

LONNIE: The theme of that song and of our entire program today, is how God works in our lives to bring about spiritual growth. And we’d like to offer you a book from our sister ministry, It Is Written, that has the same focus.

CONNIE: The book is called Truths That Change Us Inside, and in it Mark Finley and Steven Mosley share biblical truths that have helped millions to have a better life.

LONNIE: The book is full of personal testimonies from people who have found principals for successful living in the Bible.

CONNIE: We’d like you to have a copy of this book as our gift—as a sort of supplement to today’s topic. So get a pencil ready, and we’ll give you the toll free number you can call to request a free copy of Truths That Change us inside. Ready? Here’s the number: 1-800-872-0055.

LONNIE: We’ll be sure to share that number again at the end of our broadcast, along with our mailing address so you can contact us.

CONNIE: But right now, let’s listen to Lonnie’s message for today, “Getting off the Scales.”

Getting Off the Scales

“Aha Moments.” You know what they are, don’t you? When you’ve been pondering a problem long and hard—maybe a few hours, perhaps days, or even weeks. The problem seems unsolvable, and eventually you just give up. But somehow, somewhere in the back of your head, some of those gray cells keep working on it. And then one day you wake up, and the solution is as plain as the nose on your face.

You’ve just had an “Aha Moment!”

Historians tell us that back in 1581 a young medical student at the University of Pisa in Italy had one of those moments while he was sitting in church. As the service dragged on, young Galileo Galilei’s mind began to wander, and he leaned back and gazed up at the ceiling.

One of the lamps was swinging back and forth, and Galileo began to observe it carefully. It aroused his curiosity, because he noticed that as the pendulum swung in shorter and shorter arcs, it still took exactly the same amount of time to complete each swing.

That simple observation changed the world. Because it opened Galileo’s mind to further questions about the physical world. His later experiments would revolutionize the way we understand almost every aspect of the universe.

Galileo Galilei is called the father of modern science because of his curiosity, and because of those wonderful Aha Moments that led to fantastic insights about the nature of God’s creation.

Maybe your Aha Moments haven’t been quite so earthshaking as Galileo’s, but there’s a Bible story of just such a moment that can have an earthshaking impact on your life.

Come, let’s turn to our Bibles, to the story of one of the greatest thinkers of all time, and let’s experience his Aha Moment right along with him—and let it shake our world up a little.

If you were with us last week, you know that I spoke about the Deacon Stephen, and how his life and death gave a testimony that that deeply affected a Pharisee named Saul. He couldn’t stop thinking about how Stephen’s faith in Jesus had been so great that when men seized him and dragged him out of town to stone him to death, he was unafraid. After Stephen looked up into heaven and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God, death no longer held any terrors for him.

The image of Stephen dying so courageously for his faith in Jesus was a picture that Saul could not get out of his mind. And when, a few years later, he was on his way to Damascus and a light shone from heaven and a voice spoke, he soon realized that it was Jesus Himself that was speaking to him. Jesus said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14, NRSV).

Kicking against the goads—Jesus used a familiar image for what Saul had been doing. Anyone who traveled the roads in those days knew exactly what Jesus was talking about, because they had watched oxcart drivers and donkey cart drivers using a pointed stick to prod their animals along in the right direction. You can see it in your mind’s eye, can’t you—a donkey driver dealing with a reluctant animal—poking at him, while the donkey stubbornly uses his hind legs to kick at his tormentor? That’s what Jesus said Paul was doing—being like that stubborn donkey!

Jesus knew that Saul had been thinking long and hard about Stephen, and about other Christians who had stood up for their faith despite threats and torments. And the testimony of these faithful witnesses was pricking at his conscience. But he was kicking against it.

But Jesus had a great work for Saul to do. And so the Lord Himself intervened in Saul’s struggle. The light shone from heaven. The voice spoke from heaven. And it knocked Saul right off his feet. “While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice,” he testified years later (Acts 22:6, 7, NRSV).

Suddenly the light shone on Saul. But this was not his Aha Moment. The lights did not go on in his life. Actually, they went out! Because when he got back on his feet, he found himself in total darkness. He had gone from seeing a great light to being completely blind. His companions had to lead him into town by the hand. It would be three days before he would see the light of day again.

Three days of darkness.

Do you remember when I spoke about Abraham’s journey to Mt. Moriah? It was a three-day journey of darkness. But it led to the light.

Paul sat in darkness in Damascus for three days.

We can only imagine the thoughts that must have been going through his mind. Why has Jesus chosen to speak to me? What does this mean for my ministry? What about my future? Can God ever forgive me for what I have done? Will I ever be able to see again?

Sometimes we have to go through deep darkness to get to the place where we can see the light.

And as Saul was spending those three days in darkness, Jesus was preparing the light to shine into his life. Acts 9 tells us “Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, ‘Ananias.’

“And he said, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ ”

“So the Lord said to him, ‘Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying. . . .’ Then Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. . . .’

But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel’ ” (Acts 9:10, 11, 13, 15, NKJV).

What an honor Ananias received! To be the light bearer to the man the Lord had called to take the light of the gospel to all the world.

Imagine the courage of Ananias, this man of God. Walking right into the lions’ den. Right up to that house on the street called Straight in Damascus. The house where the greatest enemy of the church was staying. Just because Jesus has appeared to him in a vision and told him to go and find that enemy of the church.

And here’s what happened next:

“Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized” (Acts 9:17-18, NKJV).

Talk about an Aha Moment!

In an instant, the scales fell off Saul’s eyes, and he not only saw the light of day, he saw the light of the gospel.

And amazingly, the man who had set out to persecute Christians suddenly wanted to be a Christian himself.

As soon as he received his sight, “he arose and was baptized!”

Why?

Because not only had he gotten the scales off his eyes, he’d “gotten his I off the scales!”

Let me say that again, and then explain what I mean by it: not only had he gotten the scales off his eyes, he’d “gotten his I off the scales!”

Here’s what I mean: As a Pharisee, Saul had been striving very hard to be good enough for God. Good enough to pass muster in the final judgment and be granted eternal life in heaven. He wanted his good deeds to outweigh his bad deeds so that the scale of God’s justice would tip in his favor. Later, in his letter to the Romans, he described the mindset of his fellow Pharisees like this: “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:2-3, NKJV).

Why was Saul baptized as soon as his eyes were open—as soon as the scales came off?

Because now—for the first time in his life—he was ready to throw himself upon the grace and mercy of God. From the first time in his life he realized that he needed forgiveness for his sins—that no matter how hard he tried, he could never be good enough to pass muster in the judgment. He needed to have his sins washed away.

He was ready to get off the scales and float weightlessly in the mercy and grace of God. And in that Aha Moment, his life was transformed. “And immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying ‘He is the Son of God’ ” (Acts 9:20, NRSV).

He got the scales off his eyes, and he got off the scales. From now on, he would let Jesus stand in his place in the judgment. He would accept the perfect righteousness of Jesus in place of his own good works. He was not longer “ignorant of God’s righteousness,” and so he no longer needed to try to prove his own righteousness by his works.

How about you, friend? Are you still on the scales? Are you still trying to make sure your good deeds outweigh your bad so that God will have to let you into heaven?

Get off the scales. Get back to basics. Get the scales off your eyes, let the light of the gospel shine in. Look to Jesus—the only One whose righteousness is enough to merit heaven. And let Him come in and fill your life with His light and His goodness.

I guarantee—it’ll be one of the greatest Aha Moments of your life!

“Open My Eyes”, The Ambassadors, from Singin’ At Meetin’-Time CD.