I just finished a study with the Christ Church Wednesday Bible Study Group on prayer. We studied the book Prayer Does It Make Any Difference by Phillip Yancey. During one of our sessions we discussed the fact that Jesus told us that we are to intercede for our enemies.
Matthew 5:43-48 (NLT)43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
He didn’t give us any exceptions. For us today that includes the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Russians, ISIS, Iran, and the people in our lives bent on hurting or destroying us.
In the book there is a section that talks about a letter that the author C. S. Lewis wrote to his brother. In his letter he says that he prayed, every night, for the people he was most tempted to hate, with Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini heading the list. In another letter he wrote that as he prayed for them, he meditated on how his own cruelty might have blossomed into something like theirs. He remembered that Christ died for them as much as for him, and that he himself was not “so different from these ghastly creatures.
That means that He died for all of the terrorists who've committed mass murder, and for all the serial killers.
Then I read this (scriptures added by me).
Matthew 5:43-48 (NLT)43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
He didn’t give us any exceptions. For us today that includes the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Russians, ISIS, Iran, and the people in our lives bent on hurting or destroying us.
In the book there is a section that talks about a letter that the author C. S. Lewis wrote to his brother. In his letter he says that he prayed, every night, for the people he was most tempted to hate, with Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini heading the list. In another letter he wrote that as he prayed for them, he meditated on how his own cruelty might have blossomed into something like theirs. He remembered that Christ died for them as much as for him, and that he himself was not “so different from these ghastly creatures.
That means that He died for all of the terrorists who've committed mass murder, and for all the serial killers.
Then I read this (scriptures added by me).
Do You Want to Share Heaven with Serial Killers?
Rachel Watson
Roy Ratcliff is the pastor who baptized infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
After Dahmer was convicted of 15 murders and sentenced to many lifetimes in prison, Ratcliff began visiting him and sharing the gospel. According to Ratcliff, Dahmer struggled to grasp the depths of God’s grace. It’s not hard to understand why. For someone who committed such atrocious acts, grace must have seemed unattainable. But in a 1994 interview with Stone Phillips, Dahmer said: “I have accepted [Jesus] as my Lord and Savior.” Though we won’t know of his sincerity until heaven, it’s possible that one of the most twisted serial killers of our lifetime said yes to grace.
Do you want to see Jeffrey Dahmer in heaven?
Ratcliff wrote a book about the time he spent with Dahmer. If you skim the comments under the book on Amazon.com, you will quickly see that our definition of grace doesn’t always reflect God’s. One reviewer wrote:
I don’t know why you, or the person who posted above you, cares about the state of Dahmer’s soul, much less has any desire to meet him in heaven. It’s just plain creepy. Some of the people who have read the pastor’s book, and written reviews, are thrilled that God can and does forgive anything, and how much hope it gives them of getting into heaven. Good Lord, what kind of sins did they commit themselves, to be “relieved” by something like that?
Not everyone shared this reviewer’s feelings, but it made me wonder about the limits we put on grace. We love knowing God can save someone like Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson from a past of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, but do we rejoice when he extends grace to a man who raped, killed, and even ate his victims? We want to see Brad Pitt in heaven while hoping Hitler didn’t have a last-minute conversion. We want God to forgive us when we worship our mini idols of leisure, but we shudder to think of a pedophile receiving the same forgiveness.
I praise God the decision isn’t ours. While I am guilty of holding onto mercy with tight, stingy fists, the God I serve is not. He offers grace through Christ to any who call on his name.
Romans 10:13 CEV All who call out to the Lord will be saved.
Because of this, I might one day be singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” beside Jeffrey Dahmer. This excites me for three reasons.
1. It means there is hope for me.
Many of us have heard of King Manasseh. He’s the one who burned his sons alive and liked to hang out with sorcerers and witches (not the J. K. Rowling kind). One of the first things he did after becoming king was to “rebuild the high places” where people worshiped Baal. He didn’t listen to God until he was in a bind—literally.
2 Chronicles 33:10 CEV The Lord tried to warn Manasseh and the people about their sins, but they ignored the warning.
And yet “when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God”.
2 Chronicles 33:12-13 CEV While Manasseh was held captive there, he asked the Lord God to forgive him and to help him. The Lord listened to Manasseh's prayer and saw how sorry he was, and so he let him go back to Jerusalem and rule as king. Manasseh knew from then on that the Lord was God.
If there is hope for King Manasseh and Jeffrey Dahmer, there is hope for you and me.
I found it interesting when the Amazon commenter asked: “What kind of sins did they commit themselves to be ‘relieved’ by something like that?” So many. I have failed to be holy. I have failed to be patient. I have failed to extend the sort of mercy I’ve received. I have utterly failed my Maker. So yes, I am relieved he can save someone like me. Hoping that grace doesn’t extend all the way to serial killers and evil kings is a misunderstanding of grace. It trivializes sin and underestimates the omnipotent goodness of God.
2. It means there is hope for others.
I have a list. It’s stored in my heart, not on paper. It’s filled with names of people I love who don’t love God. When I read about Manasseh ignoring God’s voice and committing infanticide, I think about my own sins. Then I think about the people on my list. I know that unless they cling to Christ they will wear their own punishment. Until they submit to God, humble themselves, and seek his face the way Manasseh did, they will not see grace. But I rejoice in the availability of grace:
Acts 3:19-20 CEV So turn to God! Give up your sins, and you will be forgiven. Then the time will come when the Lord will give you fresh strength. He will send you Jesus, his chosen Messiah.
I rejoice in the assurance that if they surrender to God by clinging to Christ, they will be saved. They will be forgiven. There is hope for them. In Hebrews 7, Jesus is described as the perfect high priest. So perfect that daily sacrifices are needless since his death achieved what all previous sacrifices failed to: permanent, once-and-for-all atonement for sin:
Hebrews 7:22-25 CEV This means that Jesus guarantees us a better agreement with God. There have been a lot of other priests, and all of them have died. But Jesus will never die, and so he will be a priest forever! He is forever able to save the people he leads to God, because he always lives to speak to God for them.
He is able to save “forever”. Some translations say “completely” or “to the uttermost.” There is no caveat here. Murder. Homosexuality. Infanticide. Idolatry. These sins do not pose a threat to God’s grace when we draw near to him through Christ. Every person on my list and yours is a candidate for mercy.
If God does not offer grace to sinners like Manasseh and Dahmer, there is no hope for us, and there is no hope for our loved ones.
3. It means God gets all the glory.
The extravagance of God’s grace reveals the extent of our insufficiency. We need him, and that’s uncomfortable. Humiliating. When it comes to defeating sin, Christ alone stands victorious.
Some of us hate receiving gifts. Instead of a thankful smile we respond, “You really shouldn’t have.” Acts of mercy make us feel indebted instead of blessed. But this is damning pride. My pastor reminded me in a recent sermon: “There is no catch to God’s grace but this: you can only receive it as a gift.”
3. It means God gets all the glory.
The extravagance of God’s grace reveals the extent of our insufficiency. We need him, and that’s uncomfortable. Humiliating. When it comes to defeating sin, Christ alone stands victorious.
Some of us hate receiving gifts. Instead of a thankful smile we respond, “You really shouldn’t have.” Acts of mercy make us feel indebted instead of blessed. But this is damning pride. My pastor reminded me in a recent sermon: “There is no catch to God’s grace but this: you can only receive it as a gift.”
I wonder what Jesus’s genealogy would look like if it were up to us. It certainly wouldn’t include; Rahab, David’s most disgraceful sin, or the likes of King Manasseh.
Matthew 1:1 CEVJesus Christ came from the family of King David and also from the family of Abraham. And this is a list of his ancestors.
Matthew 1:6-11 CEV From Abraham to King David, his ancestors were: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and his brothers (Judah's sons were Perez and Zerah, and their mother was Tamar), Hezron; Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz (his mother was Rahab), Obed (his mother was Ruth), Jesse, and King David. From David to the time of the exile in Babylonia, the ancestors of Jesus were: David, Solomon (his mother had been Uriah's wife), Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram; Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, and Jehoiachin and his brothers. (emphasis mine)
Surely we would select our favorite saints and revel in the thought of linking arms with them. But God defines grace. He marks out its path, its length, its depth. The scribes in Mark 2:7 rightly questioned: “
Mark 2:6-7 CEV Some of the teachers of the Law of Moses were sitting there. They started wondering, “Why would he say such a thing? He must think he is God! Only God can forgive sins.”
And he offers forgiveness even to the worst person you know.
Stephen’s prayer while being stoned is extraordinary:
Acts 7:59-60 CEV As Stephen was being stoned to death, he called out, “Lord Jesus, please welcome me!” He knelt down and shouted, “Lord, don't blame them for what they have done.” Then he died.
Perhaps even more extraordinary is Saul’s response:
Acts 8:1-2 CEV Saul approved the stoning of Stephen. Some faithful followers of the Lord buried Stephen and mourned very much for him. At that time the church in Jerusalem suffered terribly. All of the Lord's followers, except the apostles, were scattered everywhere in Judea and Samaria. (emphasis mine)
The conversion and subsequent ministry of Saul, better known as Paul, is one of history’s most powerful illustrations of God’s relentless grace.
1 Corinthians 15:8-10 CEV Finally, he appeared to me, even though I am like someone who was born at the wrong time. I am the least important of all the apostles. In fact, I caused so much trouble for God's church that I don't even deserve to be called an apostle. But God treated me with undeserved grace! He made me what I am, and his grace wasn't wasted. I worked much harder than any of the other apostles, although it was really God's grace at work and not me.
Praise God that he shows mercy to the merciless and love to the unlovely. Praise God that he redeems rebels like us. Like C. S. Lewis let’s remember, that Christ died for them as much as for us, and that we are not so different from them.
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