2 Corinthians 7:2-16 ‘Restoring love'

 

Supposing you were a doctor with unlimited resources.  You go to a remote tribe with a vaccine that can cure a sever illness that has ravaged their community.  But they treat you with suspicion and will not approach you.  In fact, worse still, they think their own tribal medicine is sufficient and are too proud to ask for your help.  How do you feel as you watch them die?

But supposing that some do come to you for help.  You have unlimited resources and so no shortage of medicine.  Surely it makes you happy to treat them.  After all you have come that they may have life.  Those same people come back every time they get ill.  Surely it always pleases you to help them.  You never get tired of treating them. 

Dane Ortland uses this picture to show the delight God takes in forgiving us.  He quotes the Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, who says that ‘Christ gets more joy and comfort than we do when we come to him for … mercy.’  Our joy in being forgiven is not as much as His joy in forgiving.  When someone lovingly addresses sin in our lives or we speak loving correction into the life of others we are pointing them to the path of joy.

Background

There was someone in the church at Corinth who was committing a serious open scandalous sin.  Paul had told the church to discipline this man.  But they would not.  Maybe the man was difficult and defensive, they were afraid.  Maybe they thought they were being open and tolerant in accepting the man as he was.  The truth is that they weren’t encouraging him to repent.  They were supposed to help bring him to his senses in order that he would come to Christ for restoration.

Paul had written to them about this, in a letter we do not have.  They changed their mind.  Titus has just told Paul the good news that they disciplined the man and that he had repented.  That is the purpose of church discipline!  Paul is over the moon!  You see Christians can’t treat each other with emotional detachment. That is our first point.

These Corinthians have a great hold over Paul’s happiness or sorrow.  ‘… you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together’ (4).  They can bring him encouragement (4).  They can bring him joy (4).  He also fears for their spiritual well-being (5).  He feels downcast or depressed when they refuse to walk closely with Jesus (6).  They have even caused him to cry (2:4).  Paul does not exercise professional detachment because they are not his job, they are his family.  How is our love for God’s people? 

Paul calls them to respond to his love with love.  ‘Make room in your hearts for us …’ (2).  He wants them to love him like he loves them!  Love longs to be received with an open heart!  Our security is to be in the love of Jesus.  We seek to impress Him even when that might lead to others being unimpressed.  But love is not indifferent to others.  Love can never say, ‘I couldn’t care less what they think!’ 

What impresses me most about Paul’s love for the Corinthians church is that there is lots of grace and forgiveness in it.  He had always acted towards them with the best of intentions and they had responded to him with hostility, yet he didn’t become bitter.  He didn’t give them the cold shoulder.  In love we are to pursue those who have wronged us.  Sometimes we will have to put a distance between ourselves and them, but we will still be bringing them before God in prayer.  I remember in a pastoral care class in theological college where someone pointed out that it is difficult to keep hating someone you are sincerely praying for.  Let’s put that to the test!

One of the emotions that the Corinthians stir in Paul is godly pride (4).  Godly pride is rooted in seeing God at work in people.  Parents, remember to rejoice in what really matters.  The apostle John writes of his spiritual children declaring, ‘I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth’ (3 John 4).  Their grades and trophies will not follow them into the next word.  They have little long-term significance.  Teach them that the along thing that matters is how they walk with Jesus.

This leads us to our second point: Christians must care about the spiritual well-being of others.         

I think that one of the reasons we talk so much behind people’s backs is that we haven’t the courage to talk to their faces.  We can be frustrated with someone’s behavior but we won’t tell them.  We don’t speak to them but we speak to everyone else about them.  That is not loving because it doesn’t give them the help to change.  It doesn’t care about their spiritual health.

Paul had commanded the church to address a man about an area of serious sin in his life.  Perhaps this man was defensive and angry.  So, they were afraid to discipline him.  But that is not vulnerable love.  Love seeks the spiritual well being of others.  They were to confront him so that he might repent and that this stain on the reputation of the bride might be removed. 

Now we don’t have to address every issue, for love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).  But sometimes issues have to be dealt with.  When this is the case we must speak the truth in love.  I remember asking John Samuel, former pastor of Grosvenor Road Baptist, how to address a person about their attitude.  He advised me to let them be in no doubt that I love them.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend (Proverbs 27:6).  We might not be living in open scandalous sin but we all have areas in our lives where we need to change.  We can be blind to our own faults.  How are we at seeking correction?  Are we defensive and angry when people point things out to us?  May God give us the maturity to welcome such help.

Now we come to our final point: Love is rooted in the welcome of Christ.

The Corinthians finally changed their minds and addressed the man about his sin.  They disciplined him and it had the desired effect.  He returned and received the welcome of Christ and His people.  Now Paul gives us one of the most important verses in the Bible on how repentance works.  ‘For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death’ (10).

Worldly grief is the pain of being caught.  It feels shame for being exposed.  It regrets the loss of face and people’s disapproval.  It gets frustrated with the consequences of what we have done.  It is rooted in pride.  It doesn’t really care that we have wronged God and there is no aching to change.

Godly sorrow recognizes that we have sinned against the immeasurable love of God and have hurt people.  In results in God-given repentance—a change of heart that shows its reality in changed actions.  It leaves no room for regret because it is not so worried about the fact that we have lost face but delights that God is so wonderfully forgiving.

Sometimes people will tell you that they can’t forgive themselves for what they did in the past.  I think the real problem is that we are refusing to live in the joy of God’s forgiveness.  We are living with regret.  We feel they let ourselves down.  We are being proud.  In His great sovereignty and mercy God uses even our past failings for our good and His glory.  Think of what Jesus said to Peter: ‘But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers’ (Luke 22:32).  Peter denied Jesus and repented.  He was not to spend the rest of his life filled with self-pity over what he had done, but was to remind people of the wonderful grace of God.

One Sunday I preached on this text and mentioned that God does not want us to live with the self-pity of pride.  I went up to a friend who I know who struggles with deep regret.  I said to her, ‘remember God wants you to let go of your regret.’  She looked at with me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘I am consumed with regret.’  I realized though that her regret was not rooted in pride, it was rooted in love.  A small lapse on her part led to devastation for someone she loved.  I think I had been simplistic.  How can she deal with her regret?  She needs to live in the light of God’s forgiveness, she also needs to hope in God’s sovereignty.  John Piper writes, ‘There is nothing. There are no circumstances. There is no past or present act that I’ve ever done that God can’t weave into a tapestry that is good and beautiful.  That’s the kind of God we have.’  I think that we need to deal gently with those who have such regrets.  We need to ask God to help them trust that He will bring His good purposes to bear.  We need to pray that through the ministry of the Holy Spirit they might experience peace. 

Love is rooted in the welcome of Christ.

Conclusion:  To love is to be vulnerable

C. S. Lewis writes, ‘To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.’  The love that is spoken of in these verses is a love that rejoices in the spiritual well-being of others, will speak with others about how they live and be open to the loving correction of others, and delights in the welcome of Christ.  It is a vulnerable.  If we care for each other we are giving people the opportunity to make we rejoice or depressed.

The fact that the Corinthian Christians themselves repented by being willing to address the behavior of someone in their church refreshed the spirit of Titus.  It also demonstrated that Paul was right to believe that the Corinthian church was truly a work of the Holy Spirit.  Their willingness to obey brought rejoicing to them all.

Do you want to bring joy to Jesus and His bride?  Do you want to bring joy to those Christians who have invested in you?  Do you want to experience joy for yourself?  Then be living a life of repentance!  That repentance longs for goodness to be seen in our lives and the lives of all God’s people.  It longs to delight the bridegroom (Jesus) and His bride (the church).  Let’s not rival each other but delight in what God is doing in His people!  Are we causing joy in heaven and in the church by our willingness to repent and change?  I think a healthy Christian prayer life has loads of ‘I’m sorry’ and even more ‘thank you for your mercy and grace’.

Let’s love Jesus by loving His people.  Let’s the church in heaven and on earth rejoice as we live lives of repentance.

Acts 10: A Saviour for all

 

I was listening to the radio a few weeks ago and an expert was speaking about group dynamics. He explained that people readily place themselves in tribes and that these tribes can be very arbitrary. For example he took a group of people and asked them about favourite colours. He then observed that in the following discussions people sided with those who agreed with them about colours. He even divided people into tribes on the basis of whether they thought a bundle contained more or less than a hundred matches. People are tribal. It is a part of the problem with humanity. I have no doubt that the troubles in the north had little to do with real religion. It was about people despising those who were not a part of their group. Tribalism, shows itself in racism, sectarianism, the snobbery of the rich, the inverted snobbery of the poor and ageism. The problem is not loving those who have things in common with us but hating those who are different. The Jews of the first century were deeply tribal. Prejudice was raw and unashamed. The apostles lived among a people who had a morbid dislike of those who were not Jews (Gentiles). Some rabbis forbade Jews from helping a Gentile mother in childbirth because that act would bring another Gentile into the world. There was a local proverb that taught that Gentiles only existed to fuel the fires of hell. Such attitudes are so far removed from what their faith actually taught. Israel had been elected to be a light to the nations. Amongst her heroes were a Canaanite like Rahab and a Moabite like Ruth. Their major prophets looked forward to a day when people from all over the world would come into a living relationship with God. Yet the Jews had become narrow and sectarian, and were out of touch with the heartbeat of the God they claimed to know. 1. Everyone needs a Saviour Our passage begins with a very noble Gentile. Cornelius is a man of some influence, a centurion. While those who worked for the occupying forces were hated this roman soldier was actually respected. He is what the Jews would have referred to as a god-fearer: he had not undergone the Jewish rites of passage but he had an allegiance to their God. He is conscientious with his household, generous towards the poor and he prays continually. However, this devoutly religious man needs to be forgiven. We know this because earlier in Acts the apostle Peter spoke of the name of Jesus, by which all people need to be saved. Then near the end of this passage we see Peter explain to Cornelius that everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness through his name. Good people like Cornelius need to be rescued from their sin. A man wrote to the Church of England newspaper, the Church Times. He explained: ‘Dear Sir, I am a country solicitor and was, at the time of my conversion some 18 months ago a churchwarden. I had been a churchgoer for most of my ... in theory at least, I appeared to have all the right qualifications for calling myself a Christian; but I have to say that I have serious doubts as to whether I truly was one ... Now by the grace of God I have joy and peace when before they were lacking. Why? Because I have been "born again".’ God is kind: he restrains our evil so that no-one is bad as they could be. God is no fool: he sees that even our best actions are tainted with self-centredness and pride. God is holy: he warns people of what our sins deserve. God is love: he sends his Son to die for a guilty world. God is merciful: he desires that all people would be rescued from condemnation. Everyone needs a saviour and that saviour is to be offered to all types of people. 2. The Saviour is for everyone Cornelius was not the only person who gets converted in this story. Peter is converted too. God deals with Peter's prejudices against the Gentiles. You see God sent an angel to Cornelius but the angel did not share the gospel with him; it was Peter who got to share the gospel with him. God could have had Peter arrange for the gospel to be sent in a message via Cornelius' servants but God wanted Peter there in person. You see God knew that Peter had to witness this conversion. Peter had to learn that God does not have cultural and ethnic favourites but accepts everyone who fears him. For Peter it began with a vision. He is praying on the flat roof of the house in which he is staying. It is midday, the day after Cornelius met the angel. The vision is of a sheet descending with all sorts of animals on it. 'Rise Peter, kill and eat.' Peter protests, these foods are unclean, but the voice responded, 'What God has made clean, do not call unclean.' You may know that Jews don't eat pork. Actually the Old Testament forbade eating many sorts of meat. The purpose of these food laws was to distinguish God's people as being different. But since the Day of Pentecost all of God's people have the Holy Spirit. Now what marks God's people as separate, or holy, is not what we eat but what is in our heart. The Holy Spirit produces his fruit in our lives. He enables us to be truthful, gentle, self-controlled and kind. He makes us think and behave more like Jesus. He makes us different, which is what it means to be holy. The animals on that sheet pointed Peter to people he considered unclean. He had failed to see that God had a plan for such people. These were people his culture had taught him to despise. Who might we be tempted to dislike? Who would we rather that God had nothing to do with? What would be on the sheet if he was calling us to share the gospel with those we call unclean? Would the sheet contain the rainbow flag of the gay and lesbian community? Maybe our attitudes towards gay people has less to do with defending the Biblical view of sex and marriage and more to do with our instinctive fear of those who can appear effeminate, loud and assertive. Would the sheet contain chocolate or peaches reminding us of those with brown skin or those called white? Would the sheet contain the caravan of a traveller, a boat for migrants, the needle of an addict, the bottle of a drunk or the burka of a Muslim? We are called to go to all these people groups with the gospel. The gospel is good news for all. We are to be a people rich in love and devoid of prejudice. When people from different backgrounds become Christians we are to welcome them into our church and homes as brothers and sisters. We are to delight in diversity for we are on our way to a heaven filled with people from every nation, tribe and tongue. One of the ministers of All Souls Church in London claimed that if we are not mixing with people of different cultures it is a denial of the gospel. 3. The Saviour died that we might live Cornelius gathers his family circle and close friends to hear what Peter has to say. It is our desire that our loved ones would be exposed to the message about Jesus. Peter reminds them of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. He tells them that we can either have Jesus as our judge or our saviour. He points then to the offer of forgiveness and life. The Saviour of the world died that we might have life. Notice that Peter speaks of Jesus dying on a tree. That is a strange way to talk about the crucifixion, especially to a Roman soldier. The Romans had developed crucifixion into an art form. Cornelius knew Jesus died on a cross. So why talk of a tree rather than a cross? Because Peter knows that Cornelius is a God-fearer who has studied the Scriptures. The cross could be thought of as a tree. The book of Deuteronomy said 'cursed is anyone hung on a tree.' Peter is teaching Cornelius that Jesus bore God's curse for our sin. Jesus died as a substitute in our place. He was counted guilty so that a holy God could punish our sin in him. As the apostle Paul later puts it, 'God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the rightness of God.' As Peter was still speaking the Holy Spirit fell on those who listened and the began to speak in strange tongues. This is not a description of what normally happens when people come to faith. This is an echo of what Peter and his Jewish friends had experienced on the Day of Pentecost. They are being taught that there won't be two types of Christian. There won't be one experience for the Jews who come to faith and another for Gentile believers. The same gospel speaks of the same Jesus who as risen Saviour gives the Holy Spirit to all his children. Conclusion The gospel message is humbling. It tells generous and devout people like Cornelius that they are actually in desperate need of forgiveness. It tells us that our sin is so serious that nothing less than the death of God's own Son could deal with it, and that is exactly what he has done for us. But racism, bigotry, sexism and ageism are arrogant and proud. They say, 'I am better than other people because of the group I belong to.' God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Therefore bigotry is anti-God. The book of Acts centres on a command of the risen Jesus to take the good news from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts finishes with the apostle Paul in Rome, the centre of their world at that time. For those Jewish apostles they needed to overcome their prejudices if they were to be faithful to Christ's commission. We should honestly evaluate what prejudices we might be tempted to harbour and ensure that they never get in the way if sharing the good news of Jesus with all people

Habakkuk 3: ‘Trusting the God who has proved himself trustworthy’

Joe sits in church with a big smile on his face.  He has a lot to be happy about.  He has a lovely wife, a great job and delightful kids.  Indeed every Sunday in church Joe thanks God for all God has given him. 

But what if everything fell apart?  Supposing Joe goes into work that Monday and finds out that he is going to be a victim of the credit crunch.  He arrives home to tell his wife that he has lost his job only to find that she has left him for someone else.  In the months ahead his misery worsens as one of his children struggles with a debilitating illness.

What happens to Joe’s faith when life hurts?  Does he see any reason for thanking God now?  Can he trust the God who has allowed such terrible things to happen to him?  How can he hold onto his belief in the goodness of God when his world seems to be falling apart?   

This is something every Christian needs to learn.  You see the truth of the matter is life is not always easy.  All we have to do is live long enough and we will experience some kind of loss or suffering.  So how do we hold on to our faith when our world is falling apart?  Habakkuk 3 shows us!

Habakkuk knows that things are going to get very painful for himself and his people.  They are going to be overthrown by the ruthless Babylonians and taken from their land.  He will witness much that will surely give him reason to weep.  Yet as we read through this passage we see that it ends with a great expression of faith.  How does Habakkuk move from perplexity to praise and from fear to faith?

….. God even when life seems perplexing will be helped trust God even when life seems perplexi tell him what is on our heart.

1.  The big picture reminds him that God can be trusted (1-15)

LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.  Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.  Here is a prayer for revival.  It’s a prayer based on the fact that the God who has acted with such power and might in the past can work in similar ways in Habakkuk’s day, and he can work in similar ways in our day!  Habakkuk had asked God to step in and stop the rot that was so evident in his society but he also prays, in wrath remember mercy.  We might look at this corrupt society, we might look at churches that have sold out on the truth and behave in ways that bring dishonour to God’s name, and we might pray that God would put an end to the evil that we see.  Indeed one day he will deal with all evil.  But we also pray, ‘Lord, save many on these wicked people.’  On the day of God’s final judgement we will see his righteous condemnation of the ungodly and we will also have ample evidence of the mercy by which he has saved ungodly people like us.

God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran.  His glory covered the heavens—One commentator writes, ‘His radiance, as he comes, lights up the sky above and is reflected on the earth below . . . the spreading of his radiance throughout heaven and earth is compared to the rays of the sun, diffusing its light far and wide’ (Bruce).  So often our Christian lives are simply centred on ourselves.  We imagine that God exists only to serve our desires and we fail to ponder his magnificence.  We are the poorer for our self-centred spirituality.  Let’s read verses like these and wonder at the glory of God.  Let’s praise God for who he is.  Then, with this in mind, let’s be amazed that this awesome God has time for us; that this holy God values us; that this perfect God takes pleasure in us; and that this sovereign God even works his purposes for our ultimate good.  Let’s remember that the God who owes us no good thing has been better to us than we have ever realised!

Verse 4 seems to be recalling God’s presence at Mount Sinai.  The talk of plagues and pestilence, in verse 5, remind us of the punishments inflicted on the Egyptians in Exodus.  We are told of the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish—when God delivered his people from Egypt the neighbouring peoples were filled with fear.  In verse 8 there is mention of the rivers—remember how God turned the Nile to blood (Ex. 7), parted the Red Sea to enable his people to escape slavery (Ex. 14-15) and parted the Jordan to allow them to enter the promised land (Josh. 2).  Verse 11 talks of the sun and moon standing still in the heavens—this seems to be an allusion to the events of Joshua 10, where we read that the sun stood still and the moon stopped at the defeat of Gibeon.  You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one.  Here God’s people are referred to as his anointed and of course when we hear talk of God’s ‘anointed one’ we think of Jesus (‘Christ’ means ‘anointed one’)—God rescued him from death after he had been crucified and through his resurrection we have life.  You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness—this seems to be a reference to either Pharaoh or the leaders of Canaan, both of whom experienced God’s righteous anger.  In verses 14-15 there is another reference to the destruction God brought upon the Egyptians, who, like the ruthless Babylonians were soon to do, had set out to defeat God’s people.

Do we see what is happening here?  Habakkuk is remembering how God acted in the past!  Indeed as we read through the Old Testament we can see that people often recalled the great saving events of God.  In particular they remembered the events surrounding the exodus from Egypt for the exodus was the great saving event of the Old Testament.   As God’s people recalled it they were reminded that God is both great and good.  He has proved himself to be trustworthy. 

Of course the Exodus foreshadowed an even greater rescue—that surrounding the cross!  We move from perplexity to praise as we recall the great saving events of the past and remember that our God has shown that he is to be trusted.  It’s so important that we sing cross-centred songs, pray cross-centred prayers and think cross-centred thoughts.  As we are reminded of this great saving event of God we can be assured that God is both great and good.  And that is what we most need to know when life leaves us feeling perplexed.

2.  It will all work out in the end, but it will be tough until then (16)

Dreadful days lied ahead for Habakkuk and his people.  They would endure terrible suffering.  The very thought of it causes the prophet to tremble and quiver.  He hates the thought that the Babylonians would think that they have triumphed and give credit to their idols.  Then notice the little word ‘yet’ in verse 16 (there are two great ‘yets’ in this passage).  I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled.  Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.  Habakkuk knows that there will be a day beyond the day to come.  It might look like the enemies of God’s people win yet Habakkuk knows that that there will be another day when God will set the record straight and repay the ruthless Babylonians for their evil.  On that day God will show his wonderful righteous judgement.  Habakkuk waits for that day! 

For us today may be dreadful, tomorrow may be worse, but there will be a day ahead when God will set all things straight.  Ruthless people may seem to have their way but on that day they will be called to account.  Indeed we look forward to a day when the Lord will return to judge the wicked and bring an end to the suffering of his people.  That is the day on which we are to place our hope!

3.  From fear to faith (17-19)

Os Guinness writes, ‘God’s people may not always know ‘Why’, but they can always know why they trust God who knows why!’

Habakkuk knows that there are grim days ahead.  He knows that he and his people will suffer.  There will surely be many tears.  Yet Habakkuk takes a backwards look, at the great saving events of the past, and sees that God has shown himself to be trustworthy.  Let us look at that great saving event of the cross and see that God is indeed trustworthy—even when our circumstances tempt us to doubt it.  Then look forward beyond the troubles of today and tomorrow and see that there is a day ahead when he will set all things straight, indeed we are assured that on that day he will bring an end to all suffering for his people.  It’s with a perspective of past and future that Habakkuk utters one of the greatest statements of faith in the Bible:

Though the fig-tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

(Then comes the second great ‘yet’ of this passage)

yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

Everything appears to have fallen apart yet the believer still has reason to rejoice in our God.  In the distressing days Habakkuk knows that God will be with him.  In the difficult times we can experience God’s strength and ultimately we can prevail in grace—as we pray with honesty, remember the cross, wait with hope and even humbly rejoice.  Habakkuk ends this wonderful little book:

 The Sovereign LORD is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to go on the heights.

 

Copyright note:

Unless otherwise stated all Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE,

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission.

 

Habakkuk 2: The Lord reigns

In the film ‘The Remains of the Day’ Anthony Hopkins plays the role of an emotionally repressed butler, in an English country house in the 1930s, who falls in love with the housekeeper, played by Emma Thompson.  The butler is incapable of expressing his feelings and so the relationship remains stilted and unreal.  One commentator writes about this saying, ‘Often our relationship with God can remain at a similarly superficial and unreal level.  We think that we dare not explode and tell God what we feel about his silences, his decisions and his ways.  But God wants the kind of honesty with which Habakkuk confronted him.  God wants us to trust him with our deepest fears and our wildest feelings . . . God wants us to throw everything at him, not to pretend that we do not think and feel in ways which are, for a certain kind of believer, unacceptable or shocking.’   We have all felt frustrated with life, maybe we have vented that frustration with close friends, but do we feel the freedom to honestly tell God how we feel?  Do we think that we need to pray as if we are tip-toeing around a museum or can we open up with true emotion? 

I am not suggesting that we treat God without reverence.  I am saying that we need learn about prayer from people like Habakkuk, Job and the psalmists.  They were willing to cry out to God.  They brought their aching hearts to him.  They asked ‘How Long, O Lord?’  God is big enough for our questions and gracious enough to listen to our complaints!    

It’s around 600 BC.  Habakkuk lived in Judah, a kingdom that was in unique covenant relationship with God.  Yet these people ignored God’s law—they are like those today who claim to be Christians but won’t submit their thinking to the clear teaching of the Bible.  They were corrupt and violent.  So Habakkuk wanted to know ‘When are you going to step in and stop the rot?’  This first complaint was that God appears to do nothing.  These people are dishonouring his name and God is not doing anything about it.

When God answers Habakkuk the prophet is totally shaken and his second complaint is that God seems to be about to do the wrong thing.  God was not only going to remove the wicked from the land; he was going to remove everyone from the land, and use the ruthless Babylonians to do it!  This flies in the face of what Habakkuk understands about God and he asks more questions, including ‘how could you use such a wicked people to fulfil your purposes?’

At the beginning of chapter 2 Habakkuk is standing like a guard in the watchtower of the city awaiting God’s answer.  Then the LORD replied.

God has revealed his plan (2-3)

God tells Habakkuk to write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.  God reveals his truth to Habakkuk.  Indeed God has revealed himself and his ways right throughout the Bible.  Where our thinking is at odds with the Bible’s revelation we must realign our thoughts.  As we grasp God’s truth in the Bible we are to run with it—God’s words are to be shared.  Sometimes people will tell you something beginning ‘just between you and me . . .’  God’s word is the opposite of that—it is for sharing, we are gossip the gospel, we are to ask God for the opportunity and the courage to share what he was shown to us.    Christian truth is not private truth!

For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.  Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and not delay.  In our instant generation it might seem that God acts very slowly but he does act in his time.  God would stop the rot and judge Judah fourteen years later.  Sixty-one years later he would judge the ruthless Babylonians.  We still await Jesus’ return and the final day of judgement when he will set every matter straight.

We are to trust him (4-5)

God will stop the rot.  He will punish evil.  Indeed, on his day of judgement, he will justly repay people for all the evil that they have done.  Of course, that leaves us with a problem: ‘what about the evil that we have done—what about the fact that we too are guilty of sin?’  Verse 4 gives us the grounds for our hope.

See, he [referring to Babylonia in general and their king in particular] is puffed up.  Being puffed up refers to proud people who rely upon themselves.  His desires are not upright—but the righteous shall live by faith.  In this context faith means trusting God’s promises.  Faith believes something because God says it.  Habakkuk was to know the Babylonians would be overthrown simply because God had said it.  Faith knows there will be a day of judgement because it is foretold in God’s word.  Faith is confident that God will forgive the sins of those who turn to Christ because that is what God has promised.  Faith knows that God’s people will live in a new earth and a new heaven because that has been promised too.

This phrase ‘the righteous shall live by faith’ is picked up in the New Testament (e.g. Gal. 3:11) to teach that God’s people are saved by grace.  Grace is God’s free, unmerited, unearned and undeserved favour.  As we take God at his word, trusting in his promise to forgive those who turn to Jesus, we need not fear the coming day of judgement.  On the cross Christ dealt with our sins and we can now know what it is to be counted righteous.

The New Testament also quotes this verse in describing the sort of life we should live (Heb. 10:38-39).  We are to live a life of deepening trust in God.  We are to continue to cling to his promises and our hope is to be based on his faithfulness even when life is dark and confusing.  We do not have all the answers to all the questions that the pains of life throw up at us but we have been shown enough of God in his word to know that he is good and trustworthy.  We are not promised a life free from suffering and pain but because of Christ we have a living and eternal hope.        

Right throughout the Bible humanity is divided into one of two categories.  These are not categories that are based upon our wealth, our reputation or our appearance.  These are categories based on our relationship with God.  It is about being saved or lost.  It tells us that there are only two ways to live.  In verse 4 it is the difference between being puffed up—that is self-righteous and independent of God’s mercy, or living by faith—being made righteous through faith and depending on God’s mercy.

He will judge all evil (6-20)

Habakkuk complained that God was going to use the Babylonians to punish the people of Judah.  Habakkuk could not understand how God would use the wicked to swallow up people who were less wicked than they were.  It didn’t seem just!  But God shows Habakkuk what will happen to the Babylonians.  He might use them for his purposes but their evil will not go unpunished.  In a series of five woes we hear of the Babylonians fate.  These words are given in the form of a taunt song that the victims will sing when they see their oppressors face what is due to them.  They may describe the fate of a Babylonian empire in the past; they surely also point us ahead to the final day of judgement.  Martyn Lloyd Jones writes, “The principle for us to hold on to is that God is over all . . . Your worldly man may make a fortune by evil business methods and arrive at the top.  But see the end of the ungodly!  Look at him dying upon his bed; see him buried in a grave, and think of the doom and woe that are his destiny!  We should feel sorry for the ungodly that they are fools enough to become drunk on temporal success.  Their end is fixed.’  

Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion.  The Babylonians pillaged and made themselves wealthy by extortion.  Their lives have centred upon personal greed.  But the tables will be turned, their debtors will suddenly arise, they will tremble and they will become the victim.  The plunderer will be plundered.  They will face judgement for the fact that they had treated other people’s lives cheaply in search of personal gain.  Throughout the generations empires have exploited weaker states.  God notices!  Empires have claimed that they would last for ever but in the providence of God they all come to an end.  Indeed in the end it will only be God’s kingdom that will endure for ever!

Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin.  The picture is of a bird building an inaccessible nest.  The Babylonians thought that their empire was untouchable.  While people may think that they will get away with what they have done, no one will!  Even those who think they have covered their tracks will one day have everything exposed.  It may seem that people practice evil with impunity but one day they will face God’s judgement.

Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!  Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people’s labour is only fuel for the fire, that nations exhaust themselves for nothing?  For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea—‘One day God will act in a decisive way in his world, he will remove everything and everyone that refuses to acknowledge him and he will remake his world in perfection . . . One day God will be finally honoured as he ought to be.  Human life will be finally renewed, unspoilt by either sin or the consequences of sin.  One day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’ (Matthew Brailsford).      

Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbours, pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk, so that he can gaze at their naked bodies.  This seems to relate to the humiliation of those that are conquered.  Those who have sought to shame others will find themselves shamed.  The cup from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory.  In the Bible the cup is a symbol of divine retribution.  Remember Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, ‘Take this cup from me.  Yet not what I will, but what you will’—Jesus experienced the cup of God’s wrath that we might be spared it!

Woe to him who says to wood ‘Come to life!’  Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’  In our relativistic age it is improper to criticise someone else’s religion.  The Bible has no such qualms.  The Babylonians idols were nothing.  They were simply worthless creations of human hands.  Before we think of idolatry being something limited to other cultures remember that the Apostle Paul wrote of greed which is idolatry (Col. 3:5).  We live in a highly idolatrous society and we must be careful not to practice this form of idolatry.

But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.  The Lord alone in the living God!  He is God of all the earth.  One day all nations and all people will have to give account to him.  While the corrupt and violent may prosper and triumph that will come to an end!  Silence is commanded ‘so that everyone will consider his awesome nature and realise his sovereignty over all creation’ (ESV Study Bible).  

Conclusion

Habakkuk wanted to know how God could allow the evil Babylonians be instruments of his judgement.  God points out that the he would deal with the Babylonians.  Indeed the Persians overthrew them in 539 BC.  The judgement does not stop there.   There will be a future day of judgement when the Son of God has returned, when all evil will addressed, and when the earth will be filled with the glory of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Imagine it is a cold night in April 1912.  You are a passenger on the Titanic.  Now there were three levels for the different social classes on that boat.  The boat contained a great assortment of people.  But in the coming hours there would only be two categories of people.  There would be the saved and the lost.  Which of those two categories you were in puts everything else in perspective.  Indeed nothing else much matters.  The Bible continuously presents us with an equally stark division.

You see there are only two ways that we can listen to these verses.  

We can be among the righteous that live by faith—admitting our guilt, enthroning Christ as our king, living a life of trusting him and delighting in the fact that Jesus experienced the cup of God’s wrath that we would not be condemned.  You are among the saved!  Indeed aware of God’s coming judgement we are to run with it, we are to share this news with other people that they too might be prepared.  

Or will we be people who know the awful truth of the word woe personally?  We can depend upon wealth, financial security or power but one day we will face the cup of God’s wrath ourselves.  So many people live for the now with no thought of the eternal future!  Those who refuse to turn to God in faith will experience divine retribution for all the evil that they have done.  They are the lost!

May God’s judgement be something that brings us comfort as we see all evil being dealt with, rather than something we experience with trembling as we face the consequences of our evil, having refused God’s mercy!

Copyright note:

Unless otherwise stated all Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE,

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission.

 

Habakkuk 1: How long, O Lord?

 

Habakkuk despairs about the society he lives in and those who claim to be the people of God.  What should be our assessment of our society and those within it claiming to be the church?

I think that western society is essentially sick!  We live in an indulgent society in a world of need; we are a highly-informed society that closes its eyes to global inequality; a society where young people think that drinking themselves silly constitutes a good time—and so we see staggering and puking youth on our news programs; a society that demands its rights and ignores its responsibilities; a society where the unborn are terminated if they threaten to be an inconvenience; a society where our TVs feed us a junk-food diet of trivia and titillation; a society of self-centred relationships with a cheapened understanding of sex; a society that has turned its back on the church! 

But then let’s look at the church that it has turned its back on!  So many churches in the western world can’t handle an unpopular message.  They don’t want to appear intolerant in saying Jesus is the only way to the Father.  They don’t want to be accused of being narrow and so they dilute the gospel’s warning that we need to be rescued from judgement and hell.  Even churches that pride themselves on holding on to the truth can be little communities of fractured relationships and bitterness.  There is no shortage of stories of people who claim to be Christians who have been harsh and uncaring or crooked in business.  The church is supposed to be the light in a dark world but so often it appears indistinguishable from that world, if not at times worse than the world!

So what is God going to do about this sick society and these twisted people who claim to belong to God?  That’s what Habakkuk wanted to know!

It is about 600 BC.  God had acted in line with his promise to make a people from Abraham.  He had made them a nation and given them a land yet they persisted in unfaithfulness and so the nation was divided in two.  Habakkuk lives in the southern kingdom, Judah.  These corrupt people are supposed to belong to God.  Why is he letting them dishonour his name in this way?

Habakkuk’s first complaint—when will you stop the rot? (2-4)

Have you ever wondered about church history?  When I studied a little church history in college I was left wondering whether what I was studying was actually the history of the church.  What I mean is that it was often the institutions that called themselves the church that were caught up in error and persecuted those who preached the gospel.  There were times when what was called the church was unbelievably corrupt and self-serving.  Why would God allow himself be dishonoured by letting godless people claim his name?  Why does he put up, in our day, with the nonsense of a variety of churches from a variety of denominations that simply refuse to submit to God’s revealed teaching in the Bible?  I just don’t know!

Habakkuk brings a similar complaint before the Lord.  He looks at his society and sees violence and injustice.  His society claimed to be a special covenant people of God.  However they ignored God’s law and the righteous suffered.  This is a place where justice is perverted and strife and conflict abound.  ‘How long, O Lord before you will stop the rot?’

I want us to take something from Habakkuk’s example.  Here is a man who feels passionately about injustice.  Here is a man who is stirred by the wrongs committed by those claiming to belong to God because their actions surely dishonour God’s name.  Here is a man who brings his complaint to the Lord in prayer.

How different Habakkuk is from us!  We often get most passionate about things that are trivial—we get worked up if the service is not quite to our liking but don’t care if our relationships are shallow.  We often are apathetic about things that bring dishonour to God’s name but are enraged if our pride is any way dented.  We tend to gripe to others about our complaints and stir up division rather than begin with bringing them to God in prayer and thinking about how he would have us deal with the issue.

As Habakkuk brings his complaint to the Lord he has to deal with a problem that all of us will face at some time if we pray.  Why does it appear that God is not listening?  Why is he slow to answer?  Why is he not responding by doing what I would have him do?  Commenting on this, Marytn Lloyd-Jones writes, ‘If God were unkind enough to answer some of our prayers at once, and in our way, we should be very impoverished Christians.’  One of the hard lessons we are going to learn as we study this powerful little book of Habakkuk is the need to trust God even when all that we see around us makes us question whether God is trustworthy!  

God’s response—He is in control (5-11)

God says to Habakkuk, “Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed.  For I am going to something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”  We had better be ready for the fact that God’s ways are often surprising.  He tells Habakkuk that he is going to raise up the Babylonians, a ruthless and godless people, who will bring terror to the land.  Indeed this happened in 587BC when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and carried the people into exile.  Habakkuk could never have imagined that this would be how God would achieve his purposes.

These verses remind us that God is in control of history.  Evil people do evil things but God gets his way.  As one preacher explains, ‘This is a truth that is often unpopular, but clear in the pages of the Bible: God is sovereign over everything – including evil actions.  Nothing happens in this universe, in history, in our own personal lives, that is beyond God’s control.  Everything ultimately serves his purpose – even evil actions.’  Think of the cross.  That was the classic occasion in which God acted in an unbelievable way.  There evil people got their way and crucified Christ, and so enabled God to save sinful people from our sin.   

Would we rather live is a world that was the subject of randomness or one that is under God’s sovereign control?  That’s not as easy a question to answer as it first seems!  In a world of chance we would have no-one to blame and no difficult questions to ask because there is no reason to anything.  In a world subject to God’s sovereign control we can feel perplexed at what God is up to.  God’s sovereign control over history leaves us with many unanswered questions about this world and our lives.  Yet the challenge is not so much to figure out why things have happened as they have but to respond to our circumstances with trust in God.  This powerful little book of Habakkuk presents us with that mighty challenge!

Habakkuk’s second complaint—how can you use evil people to achieve your goals? (12-17)

Habakkuk’s society was bad but the Babylonians were far worse.  How could God use them to fulfil his purposes?  How could God use evil pagans to punish those who were supposed to be his people?  “O LORD, are you not from everlasting?  My God, my Holy One, we will not die.  O LORD, you have appointed them to exercise judgement; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.  Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.  Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?  Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”  The people would be helpless like fish swimming into a net and the Babylonians would give glory to their so-called god for the catch!

What God has revealed he is going to do flies in the face of what Habakkuk believes about God; it seems unjust, it leaves him utterly perplexed!  Have you ever been perplexed by the things that God lets happen to us and in our world?  Habakkuk had surely wanted God to remove wicked people from the land but God was about to remove everyone.  It would appear that God was giving up on his promise to Abraham and destroying his people.  How can this be?  We will see how God responds when we look at chapter 2.  What we can declare from our vantage point in the here and now is that God did not give up on his promise to Abraham.  He continues to save people from sin and the consequences of sin—that’s what the promise to Abraham was really about.  From the remnant of these people comes Jesus upon whom God’s plan of salvation rests.  Despite appearances his faithfulness is certain!

Conclusion

We finish with a warning: we may have questions about the things that God lets happen but these questions never provide an excuse for refusing to put our trust in him.  Someone may say ‘I can’t believe because . . .!’ Whatever it is won’t let them off the hook on the day of judgement. 

In Acts 13 the Apostle Paul is speaking to the Jewish religious leaders in Antioch.  There he quotes Habakkuk 1.  He is pointing out that their forefathers, at the time of that prophet, ignored God’s warnings, refused God’s grace, and so faced God’s judgement.  He urges them not to make the same mistake: ‘. . . my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you . . . Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you: “Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.”’  In Jesus we can know forgiveness for our sin but a coming judgement awaits all those who refuse to repent and avail of the grace of God in Christ.

So we may look at others in our fallen society and see their sin, but have we realised that our sin contributes to the sickness of this world?  We may look at the hypocrisy of those who claim to belong to the church, but have we seen our own hypocrisy?  Let’s not choose to miss out on the mercy that God offers to us in Jesus Christ!  God’s ways may remain a mystery to us and we might never get the answers to the questions but one day we will see that he has done what is right and that he has been wonderfully gracious and faithful to his promises and his people.  May we be among those who have placed our trust in him!

 

Copyright note:

Unless otherwise stated all Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE,

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission.

 

Acts 9:10-19 ‘Results of conversion’

Sadhu Sundar Singh lived at the turn of the twentieth century.  His conversion was remarkably similar to that of Saul.  He too was a young man who vehemently opposed Christianity until he had a vision of Christ that transformed his life.  When his family members, who were Sikhs, realised that his claim to be a Christian was not just a passing fancy, they poisoned him and sent him away from home.  He landed at the doorstep of a pastor, desperately ill.  The doctor who saw him gave up hope that he would recover.  But as he lay there, he received a profound belief that God would not call him out of the darkness to die without witnessing to his faith in Christ.  So he began to pray with all his remaining powers.  He recovered and launched into a life of witness.  Donning the garb of an Indian holy man, he travelled the length and breath of India barefoot, preaching the gospel.  This earned him the name ‘the apostle of the bleeding feet.’  For his feet, unprotected from the hostile elements, sometimes bleed.  When it latter came to his death his realisation was that he had been saved to tell others the gospel. 

Of course the conversion of the apostle Paul was in some senses unique.  People often speak of how they were brought to faith and say, ‘I didn’t have a Damascus Road experience.’  But there is a number of ways in which it is typical.  In every conversion it is God who takes the initiative; in every conversion the spiritual blind are given sight; and in every conversion a hostile mind is turned to Christ.  As we continue to look at this chapter we also see that every person is saved for service—as Sadhu Sundar Singh realised when he looked back on his life as a Christian and realised that that he had been saved to tell others the gospel.

As we continue to look at Acts 9 I want us to realise that conversion transforms our relationship towards Christ’s people and conversion is surrender to the supreme authority of Jesus.

Conversion transforms our relationship with Christ’s people

For those who missed our last look at Acts we saw that a man called Saul, backed by the religious establishment of his day, was filled with hatred of Christians and was on his way to Damascus to take them and bring them back as prisoners to Jerusalem.  But along the way a light from heaven flashed around him and Jesus addressed him personally.  Following this encounter the blinded Saul was brought to Damascus where he fasted for three days and three nights.  This was probably an intense kind of fast, without eating or drinking.  People engaged in such a fast if they were repenting or seeking God’s face.  Both are appropriate to Saul’s situation.  Saul is earnest—he is not going to rest until what began on the Damascus Road is completed! 

Meanwhile, in Damascus, the Lord spoke to a believer named Ananias.  ‘Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Troas named Saul, for he is praying.  In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.’  Ananias has heard about Saul and all the harm he did to the believers in Jerusalem and knows that he was coming to town to arrest Christians.  But the Lord tells Ananias to go to him.

Look at the first words Ananias speaks to Saul: Brother Saul.  The archenemy of the church, the dreaded fanatic, is now welcomed into the family.  Here is Ananias laying hands on someone who had approached this city hoping to arrest people like him.  Saul receives his sight and is baptised—a sign of being incorporated into the body of Christ.

Is it right to welcome former enemies in the name of Christ?  Is it right that someone like Saul should be accepted into the church?  Is it fair to expect Ananias to think of this man as his brother?  Grace says it is!  Barriers are broken down amongst God’s people when we realise the grace which saved us and the mercy the God keeps showing us.  Saul had no right to expect God’s forgiveness, but then neither does any of us.  Saul would later write, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).  By nature all of us were enemies towards God but through the cross we have been reconciled with him (2 Cor. 5:18) and with his people.

Young people, if you don’t get on with your brother or sister it is not just them that you will hurt—it will sadden your parents too.  Parents when your heart is saddened because you children are squabbling just remember that if you don’t get on with other Christians you heavenly Father is grieved.   It’s the same in God’s family.  He cares for each of us and is saddened when we refuse to love one another.  Maybe we don’t think they deserve our love—is our place in the Christian family based on what we deserved?  Maybe they have a habit of doing things that annoy us—don’t we realise that Christ accepts us even though we continue to fail him?  Maybe they have character traits that they really need to work on—have any of us reached perfection yet?  Next time you are about to complain about someone in the church think about how patient God is with you and see if that transforms you attitude towards them.  Grace transforms community.  Like Ananias we are called to accept former enemies as brothers or sisters.        

Conversion is a surrender to the supreme authority of Jesus

We are saved for service.  It is our great privilege that God has given us gifts to use and has things for us to do.  Before sending Ananias to Saul, Jesus explains to him that Saul ‘is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.  I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’  Sri Lankan Bible commentator Ajith Fernando writes, ‘While Saul encountered more suffering than many other obedient Christians, we must remember that suffering for Christ is a normal part of Christianity and it should come into standard introductions to Christianity for new believers.’ ‘Not to present the need for total surrender to Christ is to present the gospel without a key aspect of Christianity’ (Fernando).  German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book ‘The Cost of Discipleship’, “When Christ calls a person he bids him or her, die”.

Since the summer I have been trying to underline this theme of sacrifice.  Part of the reason is because in our culture we are constantly being tempted towards half-heartedness.  The Christian in school is being told that if you want to be happy then you must fit in, so the temptation is to keep your head down and not tell anyone that you belong to Jesus.  The Christian student is being told (sometimes by Christian parents) that the key to fulfilment is achievement of grades, so study becomes everything, and so there is no good time for church or fellowship or Christian service because they are stuck in the books.  The Christian in the office or factory sees the next wrung up the career ladder and believes that will bring satisfaction, so they become a workaholic who ignores their Christian duty towards their home.  The Christian single is being bombarded with messages that say you need to have a partner to be happy, so if there is no suitable Christian to go out with they are tempted to go out with someone who is not a believer.  The Christian shopper sees the advertisement and the glitz and is fooled into thinking that they need that next purchase.  Then add the temptations to gluttony (whether that is to spend all our time in the fridge or in front of the TV), selfishness and laziness.  Our search for joy is so often misdirected.

But then there are the complimentary themes of God’s glory and our joy.  Everything that we are being told is that we will have joy if we put ourselves at the centre of our world.  God calls us to put him at the centre of our world.  God’s glory is to be our chief aim.  But, as John Piper says, ‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.’  So when I speak of sacrifice I am not trying to rob you of joy.  I am trying to help us realise the place to find our greatest joy.  I am trying to show us the fullness of life that we were saved for.  Half-heartedness will steal the joy that is on offer.  When Saul set out on a life in which he would suffer for Christ’s name he was not been given second best, he was not to be pitied, he did not have reason to regret being confronted by Christ.  Let’s not deny ourselves the joy that is to be found only in wholehearted service of Christ.  At the end of Sadhu Sundar Singh’s life, as he looked back and realised that he had been saved to tell others the gospel, I am sure he did not think ‘oh if only I could have had a comfortable home, a few foreign holidays, and a nice car, then life would have been a delight.’  I am sure he looked back on his life of sacrifice and thought ‘what joy!’  Add to that the heavenly reward for his service.

Conclusion

Ajith Fernando writes, ‘the fact that the worst of sinners could be converted is a sign that the least likely people can be saved.  Such realities should encourage us to dream about, pray for, and work toward the conversion of resistant people and enemies of the gospel.’  I want to finish with the story on another hostile person who was converted—I read about this guy in a sermon.

Peter was a student in one of the best universities in the England.  He was studying law and was extremely bright.  He had everything going for him.  In fact he thought he was the bee’s knees.  He was also very good at arguing.  He was able to argue against anything his Christian friends could throw at him.  He wasn’t the sort that people expected to become a Christian.  He was too set in his ways and too arrogant.  Well one day, after Peter had had several long discussions with friends about Christianity he sat down and read a book about Jesus.  He read all that night.  At the end of that night he gave his life to Jesus.  That might not be a Damascus Road conversion but it is also amazing.  Jesus had met with him and turned him around.  He rescued this bright young law student who thought he was too clever for Jesus.  Now he is a beautiful Christian who seeks to live for Jesus Christ in his office in London.

Thank God that he is still recuing people today.  Thank God that he rescues some of the least likely people.  Thank God that he rescued us—which is amazing, for by nature we were spiritually dead, blind and hostile to God.  Thank God that as his rescued people he has a great desire to use us in his service.

Copyright note:

Unless otherwise stated all Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE,

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission.