Born For Battle by Mathews R. Arthur

Author:Mathews, R. Arthur [Mathews, R. Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OMF International
Published: 2011-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

Day 15

The Predictable and the Prophesied

“Hurry! Bring your medicines and come with us!”

In April, 1974 terrorists confronted two missionary nurses with these words. They took them at gunpoint from a rural leprosy clinic in southern Thailand off into the jungle.

The end of a defenseless lamb dragged off by a pack of ravenous wolves is so perfectly predictable that a man would have to be stupid to call in a prophet to find out the details. In nature’s way of balancing things, the sheep is inherently the prey; the wolf, the predator. If we follow natural reasoning, we come up with predictable results.

When we read the words of Jesus, “I send you as sheep into the midst of wolves,” we tend to interpret them according to our natural reasoning. But Jesus was going beyond the natural man’s way of thinking. He was looking at God’s purposed end in the immediate victimizing of the sheep and at God’s prophesied end when the wolves become victims of the Lamb.

God is not careless about the suffering of his sheep at the hands of the wolves. In the prey/predator, disciple/dictator relationship there is a dimension that is shrouded in mystery. Fortunately the Bible is rich in illustrations that unshroud the mystery and help us when we are tempted to prejudge a situation.

A good illustration of the way God sends his sheep into the midst of the bloodthirsty wolf pack is found in the parable of the vineyard owner and the wicked tenant farmers. In anticipation of getting his rightful portion of the fruit, the owner sends his servants to collect. Each in turn is beaten off, stoned, or killed outright. While there is variety in the method of disposing of the servants, the purpose is one — to dispossess the owner and seize the vineyard. In spite of this, the owner’s policy of sending his servants doesn’t change. The predictable end of the servants and the vineyard is not considered a valid reason for changing. Having considered the expenditure of life and the apparent failure of his mission, he persists in sending. He sends, and he sends again, even to the point of calling up his last resort — the son of his heart — and commissioning him.

The explanation of this sending points back to God’s sending of his servants, the prophets. It culminates in the sending of his only Son. The words of the Lord Jesus, “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you,” are his insistence to us that the sending terms have not changed, that the expenditure of suffering has been weighed and considered.

We sigh at the suffering as servant after servant goes into the arena. Human reasoning balks, chokes, and goes into gripping spasms at the ill treatment of the innocent. Why does God keep on sending when he knows perfectly well what the predictable end is going to be? Why doesn’t he switch his policy, to even things up so that the prey is more fairly matched to

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