Conviction on the Road
Luke 24:13-35
On the road to Emmaus, as we travel home, don’t miss the significance of the resurrection. We can be transformed and secondly we can be convicted. Look at verse 32. When Cleopas and his companion realize that it is the risen Lord who is with them he vanishes. They turn to each other and say,”Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” Isn’t this true to life? We usually don’t understand what is happening to us until we change. Then we look back and we see the conviction of our hearts.
One of the greatest voices of the church was St. Augustine. He lived between the 4th and 5th centuries in Rome and was a Bishop. After Rome fell and faded into dust it was largely Augustine’s writings that kept Christianity alive and made it the most influential movement that the world has ever known. It is remarkable that between the 8th and 12th centuries his writings were more widely read than any other. And that was 400 to 700 years after his death.
But he was not always a saint. Before he was converted at 29, he lived to fulfill every lust and pleasure. But Augustine had one great quality that saved his pitiful life – a praying mother. She never gave up on him until one day he stopped long enough to listen to the voices around him. Augustine had just heard a sermon by Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.
We are told in public speaking and preaching classes not to read long quotes but I’m going to use something that Augustine wrote. These two paragraphs shaped the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people throughout history. He is looking back on the conversion to Christianity and the convictions of his heart. Here’s the quote:
“One day, under deep conviction: I cast myself down I know not how, under a certain fig- tree, giving full vent to my tears, and the floods of my eyes gushed out….So was I weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighboring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting and oft repeating, “Take up and read; Take up and read.” Instantly, my countenance altered , I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such h words, nor could I remember ever to have heard the like.
“So checking the torrents of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find…Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius (his friend) was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle, I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh…’ No further would I read, nor needed I for instantly at the end of the sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.”
Convictions do not always lead to conversion, but transformation cannot happen unless we are first convicted. We may not recognize the conviction at first but on the road to Emmaus don’t miss the significance of the resurrection: It convicts us. And that convection can change us and the world around us.
Questions to Ponder
Have you been convicted of some sin in your life?
Have you always been a saint?
Do you have or did you have a praying Mother?
In Your Service,
Terry Phillips
