11/15/2018
Do you pray for those around you who are sick, or lost? Do you wait on the Lord in prayer for those who are unrighteous, and don’t know enough to pray for themselves? Do you peel back the sin in your mind’s eye, and pray for the sinner beneath? Can you bring yourself to love the sinner while detesting the sin? does God punish the sin, or the sinners?
“I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.”
Isaiah 8:17 ESV
Just as a heartbroken mother prays for her sick child without ceasing, so should we pray for the lost souls around us. What kind of doctor, knowing the cure for a disease would withhold it from a dying man? We know the cure that saves the spiritually lost and dying... do we wait in prayer for them, and out of love lift them up? I was reading Andrew Murray this morning and loved these words he wrote...
“We May be walking in the full light of God’s approval, while God is hiding His face from His people around us. Far from being content to think that this is the punishment they deserve for their sins or the consequence of their indifference, we are called with tender hearts to think of their sad condition and to wait on God on their behalf.” - Andrew Murray
I have mentioned this to you before, but during my commute to work each morning it is my habit to pray for those in the cars, and buildings, around me. I don’t know them, and yet I pray for the Holy Spirit to draw them to God, and to change their lives by opening their eyes to acknowledge that He is their God, and that His Son Jesus Christ is their redeemer... their savior. Then I pray that as they come to believe this they will confess it and accept them by faith as such. How can I drive amongst them each day knowing full well the cure that will save them, and not administer it?
Who then do we hate? Who do we abandon? These are two very different questions. We know that God is love, but we also know that He hates sinners, so how do we reconcile this? Listen to these words...
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
1 John 4:8-10 ESV
God is love, and He loved us even while we were in sin; while we were sinners. He sent His Son to save us in the midst of our sinning. So what about scripture (and there are several examples) that says He hates sinners?
“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”
Proverbs 6:16-19 ESV
How can God love us and hate us at the same time? Is this possible? When I was a teenager there was a boy in my high school who hit me in the arm every time he passed me in the hall. I am not talking about a little tap, but a strong blow that would hurt for quite some time... I grew to feel hatred for that boy. Then one day he hit me, and I hit him back... we began to fight. When the fight was over (and unlike Jacob wrestling with the Angel all night, most fights between boys don’t take long) he never hit me again, and we became friends. We had become reconciled.
Listen to this passage...
“Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow; but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter. Give them, O Lord — what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels.”
Hosea 9:13-15 ESV
Does this sound familiar? Is it similar to the boy who hit me, and the hatred that grew in me? Sure it is, and I’ll bet you have a story similar to this too. But in the midst of this hatred there was love. Sometimes our hatred blinds us to it, but it is there nonetheless. If we read further in Hosea we find that something remarkable happens... God’s hatred is overcome by His love. Listen...
“How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. They shall go after the Lord; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.”
Hosea 11:8-11 ESV
Knowing this, and knowing that God sent His only begotten Son to save us, even as we were sinners, from wages of sin... sent Him to redeem us; how can we give up in our prayers for the sinners around us?
As I continued to read Andrew Murray this morning he said something more that I thought worth repeating...
“The more you see self-confidence in people around you, not knowing they are poor and miserable and blind, the more urgent the call is for you who profess to see the evil and have access to Him who alone can help, to be on your knees waiting on God.” - Andrew Murray
Even as God’s hatred subsided for Ephraim, so should ours for those around us. Even before Jesus had washed us clean of our sins, and even as He hung on the cross suffering on the verge of death, these were His words for those that by any right He should have hated...
“And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And they cast lots to divide his garments.”
Luke 23:34 ESV
If God forgave us through His Son Jesus, then who are we to withdraw our prayers and hope for those sinners around us? Judgement and punishment are God’s. Only He is fair, and perfect in it’s distribution, so we are to pray, and He is to gather, and judge. Our prayers are heard by God, but the sinner might refuse His wooing call. Who are we to know the one who will answer Him “Here am I”, over the one that will turn away? So we pray, we spread the gospel, and God goes about harvesting His crop from amongst the field of tares.
Are you praying for the lost souls... the sinners? Can you put aside your hatred of sin and unrighteousness and pray for those who are nothing more than a reflection of you before you accepted God’s grace and forgiveness?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for your mercy and grace; I thank you for your Son Jesus Christ who suffered, died, and was resurrected that I might experience your grace, and forgiveness through His obedience to your will. Thank you Holy Father for not carrying your hatred for me, the sinner, to my grave, and into the pit of fire... the second death. Hear me Merciful Father as I pray for those around me who need that same mercy from you. Hear me Father as I cry out for you to call their name and draw them to you. Hear me Father as my prayers rise before you for those who know not what they do. You are great, and your mercy goes before you in glory. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you who reaches out with forgiveness to all those who would ask and receive. Your glory knows no bounds for your love is endless, and your grace flows ever from it.
Rich Forbes