This world is averse to everything we believe and everything we know. We pray that you would guide us, give us strength, enable us, equip us as we consider your word and the message and the truths that it contains in Jesus' name, amen. I think my PowerPoint is going to be brought up to the screen in a moment. You know, on Thursday, I met a cute girl.
And when you meet a cute girl, you've got to avoid going, you know, just, just, okay, and don't go, oh, it's, you know, I met her for the first time and today she's seven days old. And her name is Poppy Estelle Grey-Sanson and she is Grandchild number five. And she kind of took my breath away. She kind of took my breath away.
God is good and I love to see, you know, my son following the Lord, his mother following the Lord, and serving the Lord and bringing up a child in the fear of the Lord. This morning we thought a bit about a couple of things. A brother shared about what can be called a shaman. A shaman is a generic word that would apply to what you might call an English warlock that word shaman applies around the world.
And we in North America have a strange kind of sick fascination with the occult. And if you are channel surfing or anything, you will see that it's true. There is a widespread endemic fascination with evil spirits and horrible things and the occult. These things should be things that the Christian knows nothing of, toward the end of the book of Samuel I have been speaking about Saul.
Saul degenerated to the point where he consulted a witch. And the same chapter 29 will tell you that he himself had expelled them from the country and he degenerated to the point of going looking for one. That's how far gone he was toward the end of his kingship. Brother shared this morning about a shaman.
And he shared how the shaman had become a believer. Well, imagine that. A man who plays with the occult, with plays with evil spirits coming to Christ. And you can see from the title of my message that, you know, if you were to think about, okay, who in this community, who around here would be the least likely person to become a Christian?
Okay, the shaman. The shaman who is playing with Satan, that guy is very unlikely to become a Christian. And from a human point of view, that is absolutely true. Now the reason I say that I, with Canada and our attitude is, we sort of have a playful, almost attitude toward it.
Not elsewhere. Not elsewhere in the world. Elsewhere in the world, they know that these are dangerous and real things. The local spirit purveyor came to my wife's place of business on let Gian Haryono in Northsum.
And they lost control of the evil spirit that they were trying to sell the services of. And it began to move something that should not be able to move by itself. And they got scared and they ran out of the business. They were playing with spirits and the spirit was doing that to that thing.
And it began to move. They got scared. Well, if they're playing with spirits and they got scared, how scared you should you be? How far away should you be from this stuff?
Right? Horrible, horrible stuff. People have a playful attitude towards such things. They should not.
They should not. Emissionary and Malaysia tells the story of, yes, encountering a Muslim shaman who said, I can kill you to the missionary and saw a crow. And said, watch me kill the crow. He killed it dead from a distance.
Killed it from a distance in front of the missionary. These things are not to be played with. These are horrible, deeply evil things that are very powerful as the rest of the world knows all too well. These are not things to be played with.
We talked about a bit about fear this morning. You want to be afraid of something? Be afraid of that. Don't go near it.
Don't go anywhere near it. Such people may be thought of from an ordinary point of view as being unlikely conversions. But I want to ask this question this morning. Can anybody point out what is fundamentally wrong with my title?
From a theological point of view, there is something fundamentally wrong with my title. Why is that word wrong? Why is it wrong to suggest such a thing? Well, there's that.
Anybody else would like to offer a thought on the inappropriateness of the speaker's title? Erica is actually dead on. In the sense that everybody's conversion, if you like, is unlikely. Every single person.
We read last night from Matthew 3. John the Baptist says to the Pharisees and Sadducees, the most religious people in the society. You brood of vipers. What?
These are the most religious people in the society. We thought they were the best guys. The guys coming along telling us they're the worst guys. The most dangerous liars.
We are all unlikely. The guy standing before you. Is it likely that he gets saved? It is actually impossible outside of the grace of God.
Extremely unlikely. Everybody's unlikely. Erica's right. It shouldn't be just five.
It should be every single person who ever got saved is unlikely. So what do I do with my title? I have five men who seem to be beyond God's reach. Five men who are actually not beyond God's reach.
I was just getting too complicated. So my five, I didn't advance it. There. My five unlikely converts this morning.
The first one, one might say, is an insignificant person. The second one is an isolated person. In a sense. The third one is an insensitive person.
A very hard heart. You're thinking about your Bible and who these people are going to be. Good. Stretch your brain with your Bible knowledge.
An insulated person. Acts 16. An incredulous person. We're talking about coming to faith.
That doesn't beat all. Someone who doesn't believe who ends up believing. That's the work of God. That's the work of Christ.
That's what can even happen. What can even happen? So we are going to be reading some scriptures this morning. And you know that even your New Testament tells you in your church is read the Bible.
So there's no harm in this. I might be reading a bit of the Bible this morning. Well, from what I understand, that is not harmful for you. Who is this insignificant person?
A thief on a Roman cross. In Luke 23. A thief on a Roman cross. The Persians invented crucifixion.
The Romans found that they liked it because it made a public display. Perhaps not unlike hanging someone from a rope. And the body is swinging or the body is pinned in the case of the Roman gibbet. The body is pinned to that wood, to that timber for all to see.
And death is slow and agonizing. And the soldiers who did these executions for the Romans throughout their empire, sometimes they would do a thousand people at a time if there was a rebellion. And line the road with people who had been crucified. The Romans took it from the Persians and turned it into a science.
You might say. So that for a person to be up on a cross near town, in this case a little bit north of Jerusalem, the little north of the wall, it was nothing new, nothing particularly significant. If you had a taste for horror, you maybe would go and see the person being nailed. But it was nothing new.
The Romans did this in the thousands through their empire in space and time around the Mediterranean. So this man, the thief, was just another one. Is he likely to get saved? I wouldn't put money on it.
I wouldn't put much hope on it. But, as we know from Luke 23, the thief on the cross, next to the Lord Jesus, repented as his death approached, as his very death approached. Let's read about it. Luke 23 is 39.
One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at him, the Lord Jesus saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other answered in rebuking him said, do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation, and we indeed are suffering justly? For we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.
And he was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom. And he, Jesus, said to him, truly I say to you, today you shall be with me. In paradise, saved as it were at the last minute. Was this thief a significant person in the society?
Nobody ended up with the fate of thousands of others on a cross. And as death approached, he realized that he thought, you know, this person near me, crucified beside me, is an innocent man, contrary to what the other thief was railing about. And I deserve the death that I am now experiencing in all my agony. And all he could say, we have kind of formulaic prayers, don't we, in our minds, with people who want to be saved and what to pray.
And I think, I have to say that in large measure, it doesn't matter. You have a prayer here that has the complexity of this. Remember me, think of me, think of me, Lord Jesus. Not a very complicated prayer.
Not from an intellectual, not from a socialite, not from a person of money, from a petty criminal that the Romans dealt with in their usual way. And the complexity of the prayer that he comes up with is, Jesus, remember me, remember me. He had that heart of acknowledgement of who this Jesus was and this heart of faith that Jesus was more than the man on the cross, and that he would be in power in his kingdom and that the possibility existed, that this highly unworthy person, me, the thief, might be with him possibly in that kingdom. He's right, it turns out, that thought and that prayer saved his soul, because the Lord Jesus immediately responded.
You will, you will be with me. Here's another one. We read a Philip, a couple of chapters before this, becoming a deacon. We read of him in Acts 6, becoming a deacon and serving.
He was a man of hospitality. He lived in Caesarea. And at one point in his service, the Lord said to him, go head toward Gaza. A young lady was in my office two days ago talking about Gaza and the injustice of the place and so on from a Muslim point of view.
And Philip was instructed to go. And we think of this chariot, and a command is given toward the end of the account that the chariot should stop. And you don't see this man with the reins in his hand. So it seems to me that this is a pretty fancy chariot, and this man is a man of means.
And he has left his country of Ethiopia, which was considered to be the uttermost part of the Roman Empire to the south of Egypt, and what would now be northern Sudan. And he has made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and now he's heading back home on his Cadillac chariot. And somehow Philip hails him and catches up with him and gets up with him. He realizes that it may be that this unit bought a souvenir of his trip to Jerusalem.
He bought a section of the Book of Isaiah. He might have bought the whole Book of Isaiah as a souvenir. A very precious book to the Jew. They find Isaiah 53 very uncomfortable.
They don't want to read it. It speaks of the suffering servant of the Lord Jesus. He's reading this. So we have a long passage.
Let's go for it. So when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem when we're preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert road.
So he Philip got up and went, and there was an Ethiopian eukic, a court official of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians. I might mention that that is a necessary repetition of a word. The word Candace is like the word Caesar or Pharaoh. It means queen.
A court official of Candace of the Ethiopians who is in charge of all her treasure. He was the, he was a cabinet minister. He was a treasure. And he had come to Jerusalem to worship and he was returning and sitting in his charity and was reading the Prophet Isaiah.
Then the spirit said to Philip, go up and join this chariot. Philip ran up quite a feat of running and heard him reading the Isaiah. Isaiah the Prophet said, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, well, how could I, unless someone guides me?
And what is he reading? Isaiah 53, which even Jews of today have trouble understanding. And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the scriptures that he was reading was this.
He was led as a sheep to slaughter. And as a lamb before, it's sure, is silent. So he does not open his mouth. In humiliation, his judgment was taken away.
Who will relate his generation for his life is removed from the earth? The unit answered Philip and said, please tell me of whom does the Prophet say this of himself or of someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. And they went along the road.
As they went along the road, they came to some water and the unit said, look, water, what prevents me from being baptized? And Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he ordered the chariot to stop.
And they both went down into the water. Philip, as well as the unit, he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of Lords of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the unit no longer saw him, but went on his way, rejoicing. And according to Ethiopian tradition, he became a major missionary outreaching to all of the people of Nubia and North Sudan and Ethiopia.
It's a wonderful account. It's a great thing on Friday night that men like John Wells put the word of God in people's hands, put it in their hands, so that they can read it. It puts me in mind of this unit with a scroll. What is this?
This is something special. I wish I understood it better, turning him into a seeker, into a serious seeker. God's word does not return unto him void, but it accomplishes the purpose that he said it to. And when the word of God is provided to people, whether they know that they need it or not, and they read it, it can have a very powerful effect on them.
I have seen it. It's a kind of miracle. Your conversion is a kind of miracle. And I shouldn't say kind of, it is a miracle.
The salvation of your soul is a miracle. The working of the word of God and your soul to bring you to Christ through the spirit of God is a miracle. And the word of God is powerful to accomplish that. Put it in people's hands.
Share it with people. Who's my insensitive person? Well, this is kind of an understatement. Can you imagine a person as hard toward the gospel and the church and the truth of Christ as Saul of Tarsus?
Very learned man. This is a rather fuzzy portrayal by Karachi Anabali, painted in 1604 of the stoning of Stephen. And you know that, I think there's a laser pointer here. I don't know where it is.
Oh, it didn't do. You know who wears where is Saul? In the picture. Where is he in the picture?
Sitting with the garments. Bottom right. Interesting that Anabali has Paul going. Some of the commentators that I've been reading, you know, Blake Lock points out that Paul refers to this event eight times.
I didn't know that. Paul can't get over this event. He can't get over that he was there. Isn't it interesting that he is not one of the ones throwing?
That started. Was he there throwing? No. I'm standing over here.
And then the rest of them, in their mania. Okay, there's a reliable guy. He's one of us. Throw the code over there.
We sometimes, you know, I don't know, stoning, stoning. We sometimes perhaps imagine that something the size of your fist and you throw it like a baseball and it's going to hurt. And just do it enough times and the person will perhaps pass out from pain and injuries to the head. But as you can see in this portrayal, some fairly direct stuff going on with some pretty big stones.
Crushing, killing. I would suggest that none of you would be able to watch. You wouldn't be able to watch a crucifixion. You wouldn't be able to watch a man being nailed and lifted up.
You wouldn't be able to watch a man being stoned. If you have a normal human emotional state, normal human psychology, you would not be able to watch. Too horrific. But we read at the end of the previous chapter that we have that Paul was there.
And he saw it all kind of, you know, the approval aspect of it. Horrific. You don't think of such a person coming to the Lord, do you? Well, he was carrying letters to Damascus.
And the Lord Jesus said, why do you kick against the pricks? That must mean that the Lord has been dealing with him and he knows it. And the Lord refers to the fact that he knows it. That pricking of the conscience must have been so deep.
The memory of that horrific sight of that stoning must have been so awful in his memory. It never left him. But on the road to Damascus, the Lord Jesus reveals himself to Paul in Acts chapter 9. I am Jesus whom thou persecuted us.
You know, ultimately the person of Christ and the exposure of your inner person to the person of Christ is the most powerful thing that inevitably is going to lead you to him. This person of Christ is so powerful and glorious and awesome that if you in your soul were actually exposed to that and to him, his personhood, you would crumble up. You would concede. You would stop fighting too.
Maybe you haven't helped kill anybody lately. But you have a conscience. And as God deals with your conscience, you know that if you are not saved, that there are lots of things that have never been properly dealt with. And they come back to you and they come back to you and they come back to you.
The Lord Jesus needs for your soul to be exposed to his personhood. And in that way, you can be forgiven. You can come to know him. Not as a being that you would be terrified of, which actually by rights you should be.
You should be. But actually to come to know him and to love him and to enter into a personal relationship with him. A Muslim was in my office on Friday, different Muslim. And he was saying how his significant other had died at the age of 24 in the hospital.
His girlfriend, his, I don't know what to say these days. His fiance, even a word, she was coming up from Nashville, Tennessee and came in and was in Toronto and they were going to meet. And my Muslim friend was going to go and see her and he never got to see her. She died.
She died in the hospital. And it shook him up very deeply. And he said, it's made me think more about God. And we began to talk about whether God is a person and whether the personhood of God is present.
And I said, well, it's a fact. It's a rich truth in the Bible. He said, oh, yeah, it's in the Quran too. Actually, I've read Muslim scholars commenting on the fact that God is not a, you cannot know God.
You cannot know God as a personal God. Muslim scholar is making this statement. You can, what God is unknowable. God is like a force and God's ways and his, his, his person.
These are not things that any individual person could ever come to know. That's the Muslim scholar speaking, citing the Quran to support their, their views. That's certainly not the Christian view. God is a person that you in your personhood created in the image of God can enter into a relationship with that person.
That is unique to the Christian faith. We aren't going to read that one, but you know that this band became, a chosen instrument as it says two thirds of the way down. And that after he regained his sight, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and he began immediately to proclaim Jesus. 180 degrees from the most scary guy that the Christians knew to the greatest ally that the Christians ever had in a very, very short time.
Suddenly the entire Old Testament made sense. His mind did a huge 180. And he began to proclaim Jesus even in the synagogues that he is the Son of God. As it says at the end of verse 20, not somebody that you would pray for.
I am convicted, which is usually what happens anyway, by my own message. In preparing a message, every single speaker can say, actually, I'm not sure I should get up and say this because I think this is mainly for me. And this is another case in point in my life. I think about the people that I might pray for.
And I sort of go, okay, well, that person is getting closer. I should pray more for them. And that Justin Trudeau fell out. I have no idea what's going on in his mind or heart.
He is completely bizarre to me. Maybe I don't pray for him today. It's thinking quite in an earthly manner. It's thinking quite in a human manner.
Highly unlikely people can become Christians. Doesn't say pray for the ones that seem close. Don't waste your time on the ones who don't seem so close. And now we come to a man.
It's interesting. I was researching on the history of the town of Philippi named after Philip II of Macedon, Father of Alexander the Great. It's at the top of the Aegean. Thessalonica is a little bit to the West.
And Troy draws us to the East. The Trojan horse idea, the Trojan horse in there. That's not far away to the East. And there's a character in here that came from that place to this place.
And it was a place where, interestingly enough, veterans, if you had served in the Roman legions, maybe in Gaul or somewhere, and it came time for you to retire. I have a feeling that some of those veterans who fought with shields and spears and swords and super dangerous stuff that's very physical, not fighting at a distance. I don't think they retired at 60. I have a feeling they probably retired after a couple of major campaigns that they managed to live through.
They would retire at Philippi. The emperor said that's a good place for you veterans to retire. And that it had become a place like that. And it may be that this jailer got a government job because his father was a veteran.
And you're a jailer working for the Romans in Philippi. And you think about a jail. You occasionally hear about some stupid American or some stupid Canadian who gets involved in the drug trade in Malaysia or pick your place turkey and gets caught. Oh my goodness.
It ends up in one of these incredibly terrible prison cells. This isn't Dorchester, friends. This is a deep, dark, horrible hole that you are condemned to. Paul and Silas in there in Act 16.
And there's an earthquake. And the archaeologist at Blake Law talks about what Ramsey visiting this area and also Turkey. About the earthquakes. Turkey gets a lot of earthquakes.
Greece gets a lot of earthquakes. And there were earthquakes even in this area in the mid-1800s. And Ramsey, the archaeologist talks about the capricious things that earthquakes can do. Sometimes you get an 8.
An 8 in 1985 did huge damage to Mexico City, Richter scale 8. But a lot of earthquakes are tremors and they do funny little things. You find your house slightly rearranged. And it talks about these cells and the system of barring the door was very simple.
You just have a bar. The door doesn't open because there's a bar. And it's held up. And the door opens.
It comes apart a bit. Door swings open. And the shackles and things would be in between the blocks. And then the pin comes out.
The door is open. Not connected to the wall anymore. It comes out. And we know the account.
He heard them singing. Who sings in this kind of a whole? Not ordinary people. But about midnight Paul and Sias were praying and singing hymns.
Nobody does this. Of praise to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly they came a great earthquake.
So that the foundations of the prison house were shaken and immediately all the doors were open. And everyone's chains were fastened when the jailer woke. He was sleeping. And saw the prison door open.
He drew his sword. It was about to kill himself. Supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice saying, Do not harm yourself.
For we are all here. And he called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear. He fell down before Paul and Siles. And after he brought them out he said, Sir, what must I do to be saved?
You obviously have something that I don't have. And I want it. What must I do to be saved? They said believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you'll be saved. You and your household. He was a man of leadership. He was ahead of his house.
And he had his own personal credibility. And he communicated the word. And his household was saved too. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together.
And with all who were in his house. And they took him that very hour of the night and washed his wounds. And immediately he was baptized. He and all his household.
And he brought them into his own house and set food before them. In the jailer's house. And rejoiced greatly. Having believed in God with his whole household.
That seems like a really unlikely event. Except it's historically a fact. It's historically true. Someone who's down in some dungeon gets saved.
You know, Paul wrote about his chains. He wrote about being in jail. And the restrictions that that represented. I really don't know how you and I would feel if we were stuck there.
It's like, I'm, this, Philipp, I was the second missionary journey. And you know, you're thinking, what's going on? Am I not supposed to preach the gospel? Why am I not out preaching the gospel?
What's going on? I'm in this dark stone dungeon, damp, cold. I'm not preaching the gospel. Or am I?
Or can I? Oh, you can. Making use of every opportunity. They prayed out loud.
They sang out loud. They talked about the Lord together. Everybody's listening. Captive audience.
Take advantage of it. It's great to have a captive audience. And it results in salvation. And it's quite likely that that household became part of the church that we read about that Lydia had come, become part of.
I don't know if you've ever connected those people. My daughter's name is number three is Lydia, a seller of purple. And she was originally from Troas, another name for Troy. And she had figured out how to make purple, apparently, from something called Matter Root instead of Morax shells.
And purple and blue are rare in nature. Red, iron is common in nature. Green is usually indication of copper. Blue is sometimes an indication of cobalt.
But you have this entrepreneurial woman, this rich woman, this woman of influence. And guess what? Before you know at the end of the chapter, basically she's fellowshipping with a guy who used to work in the jail. People from all walks of life, fellowshipping because of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And now my fifth one. This one is maybe the one that's the hardest to get your head around. Somebody who walked with Jesus for three years who saw miracles, who heard the most amazing teaching that had ever been spoken, and saw a miracle after miracle after miracle. But in fact, we read it this morning in the breaking of bread.
Thomas. We always like to say doubting Thomas. That's a tough one for him to live down. That's 2,000 years later.
We still say we've talked about poor doubting Thomas. Well, let's see what happens here. This is a portrayal, an artistic portrayal by Benjamin West. There's one thing I...
Thank you. I love, as my wife knows too well, I used to love to go to all these museums, especially the classical art museums. That's interesting. In terms of giving human beings inspiration in their hearts to pay something, most of it is from the Bible.
Most of the things you see in museums are from the Bible. These are the most thrilling and exciting and amazing things in all of the human history and imagination. It's the things in your Bible, in your Bible. But I don't like Mr.
West's portrayal of the Lord Jesus. He's way too white. It's interesting that in antiquity, we read about censuses. Is that the plural of censuses?
And how people are documented. And there are ancient papayrai about these censuses and describing people. The other day, somebody, I went to the bank to sign something, and the Mandarin-speaking Chinese girl who remembered my wife, because as I took out my photo ID, the family picture showed, and she goes, I know her. I've been married to her for nearly 40 years.
That's my wife, those are the kids. Oh! And she wants photo ID. And in this day and age, you've got facial recognition.
You might even get recognition. You're in China. You know who you are from the camera on the street. And all of the technology that's associated with photo ID and so on.
And in those days, if you had a scar, if you had a scar, they wrote that down. So your medium height said, I've won Egyptian woman, had a long name. She's a medium height, 60 years old, honey blonde hair, and a scar on her left shoulder or something. How many women have honey blonde hair or medium height?
Too many. So if there's a scar, let's write that down. That helps her to be different. I've lost most of the skin of the left kneecap due to a motorcycle accident when I was 18, and I've had a beautiful scar along here from the detonation of a shotgun shell cap.
So I'm very unique. I'm very unique. And Thomas is kind of in the back of his mind. Look, there's no way.
I, identification, identification, I want identification. I want to put my hand where that hole and the Lord Jesus appeared. I don't think we read that he did that though. So that's another thing that I doubt about Mr.
West's portrayal. It's not there. He said though, he said though, what did he say? What did he say?
My Lord and my God. That's what he said. That's the place where everybody needs to get to. That's the place of recognition that everyone has to come to.
That the Lord Jesus is fully divine and that he rose from the dead. That he died for your sins and that he rose from the dead and that your Savior lives. That person, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Nazareth lives for you. He's alive.
He hung in that cross. He shed his blood. That spear went into his side. Water and blood came out.
He died dead for you. He was put in a stone tomb and he rose from the dead on the third day. That's reason to say, my Lord and my God. That is the place we all need to come to in our hearts and in our souls and our minds, recognizing who the Lord Jesus is.
What are some lessons I've taken a bit too long? Here they all are. Five lessons. Five people.
Five people that maybe you wouldn't be praying for. God's love can reach the condemned and dying for people in this assembly who know people who are in hospital beds. God's message can speak to the searcher like the unit. Does he have a message in his hand?
God's personhood can break the hardest heart that human inner man needs to be exposed to that person. God's sovereignty can penetrate the darkest hole. That horrible prison. That miserable jailer had his miserable job.
God's sovereignty can send a believer there to sing and to pray for that man to hear that. God's patience can change the skeptics mind. I was marvel at the life of the Lord Jesus. How many times if I was the Lord Jesus, I would have said to the disciples, look, you guys are hopeless.
You're just not getting it. You're not understanding what and you're arguing about who's going to be first. This is the last thing that should be on your minds. But he was always patient and loving and continuing to teach them.
Even people that said it cannot be that he rose from the dead. It just can't be. But God dealt with that too. God deals with these things.
God can deal with anything. With anyone. Some questions for you. Does God need me in order to save people?
No. But is there anything more meaningful than helping another person find God? I'd say no. Thirdly, I think almost everybody here has saved and knows the Lord.
If you yourself don't know the salvation that is in Jesus Christ, what's it going to take? What's it going to take for you to be brought to your knees to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? I hope that we've gone through those. I hope that it does not take a catastrophe in your life to bring you to him.
I hope that God will deal with you in love and in mercy. And that if you don't know him, you will submit to him and believe in him and trust in him and come into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Shall we pray? Father, we thank you for our time in your word.
Help us to reflect well on the significance of how these people were saved. Help us Lord to pray for everyone and anyone as your spirit leads us. We pray that you would use us and make us your instruments. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.