I have always believed that what the devil means for harm, the Lord will turn to His good. He never wastes time. He never does things by accident.
There was a lady in the waiting room in her 50's. She was a rough looking soul. She asked if she could change the channel on the plasma TV on the waiting room wall. Of course we said she could. She used rather "flowerly" language but she was friendly and I really liked this slender little lady with the long silver hair.
After my daughter-in-law came out of surgery, her mother and father went back to be with her in recovery and my husband and I stayed in the waiting room until they came back out so we could go back in. While they were back there the lady and I started talking about the condition of the world today, how the punishments in this country don't fit the crimes, etc. I made the comment that I was a Christian, and while I knew we needed to forgive those who wrong us, I still felt they should pay the consequences for their crimes.
"I don't forgive," she said. "I"m sorry. I know you all are religious people. I could tell by the way you were talking. But I never forgive. I know that's wrong, but that's between me and God," she said.
"Really?" I said quietly. "But God has forgiven us of so much -- and we have to forgive in order to be forgiven and go to heaven," I said gently.
"I know," she said. "But I just won't." And she began to open up about some of the horendous things that have been visited upon her by men in her life -- strangers, doctors, relatives. It was really a nightmare.
"I don't know why I'm telling you people these things," she said. "You are complete strangers -- this is wierd -- but I just feel like I can tell you all this. Wow, this is really strange," she said. I told her it was the Holy Spirit in us that drew her.
"I'm sick of being lied to," she said. "All that religious stuff is all lies anyway. It's stupid."
"Like what?" I asked. I love these kinds of discussions! I love defending the Word of God! But I was secretly praying for the Lord to give me the right things to say.
"Well, there's this picture," she said. "And it's supposed to be the Lord's Supper, and it's supposed to be the disciples in the picture but it's not -- there's a woman sitting right beside Jesus and that's Mary Magdelene. And Jesus married her and had kids and everything."
(Ah, I think to myself, a DaVinci Code disciple. . .apostacy in our culture revealed before my very eyes. . .)
"Where is that written?" I asked her. "That's not in the Bible," I say.
"I dont' know where it's written," she said. "But you can see it in the picture!"
"But that picture," I say, "Is a man's opinion, not the truth. I believe the Bible is true."
"I don't," she says. "If it's true, why don't the gospels all say the exact same thing?"
"Because different people wrote it from their own experiences. It's like when you are in an accident, and four different people see four different details, that's all."
She wasn't convinced.
"But that picture -- have you ever looked at it? That's a woman sitting there beside Jesus!"
"That picture was painted over a thousand years after Jesus was born!" I said. "It isn't factual. It's just a painting." (I didn't tell her that often in pictures of that time, young men were painted to look feminine.)
"If the Bible is a lie," I said, "and those men who wrote the gospels made it up, why would they credit women as being the first ones at the tomb? Women in that culture had no credibility and their testimony in a court of law was considered worthless. No one could be convicted of a crime on the basis of a woman's testimony. The only reason for the gospels to say that women were the first to see Him resurrected is because it really did happen that way!"
She thought about that for a minute. Then she hit me with her questions about the Creation story.
"It's incest!" she cried.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if Adam and Eve were the first people on earth, then their kids married each other and that's incest!"
"You're right about that," I said. "They did marry their brothers and sisters." I went on to explain how the gene pool wasn't yet corrupted as it is today, and that in those times God had not yet forbidden people to marry their relatives. (Lev. 18:6-15)
She wasn't quite convinced yet, but my goal wasn't to convince her. My goal was to plant seeds of hope back into a heart that felt had been tricked and deceived by religion.
My son came out to tell us they were almost ready to leave and I needed to come back and see my daughter-in-law.
I stood and told the lady it was very nice meeting her.
She said the same and then said, "Maybe I"ll get my Bible out and read it. I haven't read it in a long time."
"You know," I said. "Jesus is coming soon. And you want to be ready."
She agreed that the signs were all around us. (She had grown up Catholic so was aware of some things.)
I reached down and gave her a warm hug.
"You are the apple of God's eye," I whispered. "You are just so precious to Him and He has not forgotten you. Give Him a chance. He loves you so much. Just give Him a chance. He's waiting for you." I stood and touched her face gently.
"I will," she said.
Did my daughter-in-law loose her baby so I could share Christ with that lady? No. But I do believe that God guides our steps and He brings good out of harm that the devil tries to shell out. The devil had blackened our eyes -- but we gave him a few black eyes right back that night.
(My daughter-in-law is doing well physically, but of course, we will all have a difficult time as we yearn to hold that little baby that is in our hearts.)
It's so important that we know what is true so that we won't be decieved. That's why it's important to really, really, really KNOW the word -- inside out and upside down! It's important when things in our culture scream out to dispute us that we know how to argue effectively in love.
Last night I heard James Cameron (producer of that movie, TITANIC) announce that he had the ossuary of Jesus and his family, thus proving he didn't raise from the dead and that he married Mary Magdalene. (An ossuary is box where the Hebrew people placed the bones of their dead relatives.)
Hog wash.
But can you dispute it? Can you argue effectively as to why James Cameron is wrong?
In case you can't, here are some things you should know:
- This is just an old story being recycled. This ossuary was found back in 1980 in Jerusalem by some construction workers. The names on this particulary ossuary has the names "Jesua son of Jsoeph, Mary, Mary, Matthew, Jofa and Juda, son of Jesua."
- While these are familiar names, they are also very common names of that time period.
- Joseph was a humble carpenter and couldn't afford an elaborate burial crypt for his family.
- This is an old story being recycled to sell books.
- If this was truly where Jesus was buried, they would have had to secretly move Jesus' body to that tomb in a very short period of time.
- They were not residents of Jerusalem so why would they be buried there?
- Matthew was not a member of the family of Joseph.
- The earliest followers of Jesus never called him "the son of Joseph."
- The name Jesus appears at 98 other tombs and and on 21 other ossuaries of that time.
- DNA testing will prove nothing because they do not have an independent DNA control sample.
But you can't be Free unless you know Truth. The only way to know Truth, is to know the Word of God -- the standard by which we must measure all things. People are so hungry for something true. They are tired of being tricked. Still, they believe so easily anything that's on TV but not a document that's been around for thousands of years. They develop their belief systems on the fad thinking of the time, or on what a celebrity has to say.
How can they know what to believe? It's up to us to help them dare to believe what is True.
Reading our Bibles isn't just about our own relationship with God -- there are other people's lives depending on what we know is True. He is coming soon! Spread the Word!
"How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?"
Romans 10:14
Romans 10:14
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