When do you give up on someone?<\/p>\n
Think of someone you have prayed for time and again, someone who has heard the Gospel and rejected it for years. Should you conclude, \u201cIt\u2019s hopeless \u2013 this person will never come to faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
We considered Jesus\u2019 story about two sons last Sunday:<\/p>\n
“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” (Matthew 21:28-31)<\/p>\n
The sermon emphasized the second son; consider now the first. He initially refuses to obey his father. Later, however, he regrets that decision and fulfills the command.<\/p>\n
Any follower of Christ who speaks the Gospel regularly has heard such refusals. God makes His appeal through us: \u201cBe reconciled to God through Jesus Christ!\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). Yet as we make this appeal, many reject the command. Like the first son, they answer, \u201cI will not.\u201d Even after multiple appeals, many continue to say no.<\/p>\n
But gloriously, many also, after decades of refusal, change their minds, come to faith in Christ, and are reconciled to God. We could tell of those among our own church family, but instead hear of \u201cStaffordshire Bill,\u201d who came to faith in a poor town in Wales around 1930, under the ministry of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Bill was near 70 years old at this time. He drove a fish-cart around town, pulled by a pony, selling fish door to door \u2013 and it was not uncommon for the pony to pull the driverless cart back home after Bill, drunk, fell back, asleep, into the rear with the fish. One evening Bill was drinking in a club:<\/p>\n
There he was, drinking himself into his usual sodden condition, and as he afterwards confessed, feeling low, hopeless, and depressed, trusting to the drink to drown those inward pangs and fears which sometimes disturbed him.\u00a0 There were several men in little groups of twos and threes in the Club room, drinking and talking, and suddenly he found himself listening, at first involuntarily but then anxiously, to a conversation between two men at the table next to his [discussing Lloyd-Jones\u2019 preaching].\u00a0. . . \u2018Yes,’ said the one man to the other, \u2018I was there last Sunday night and that preacher said nobody was hopeless \u2013 he said there was hope for everybody.’\u00a0 Of the rest of the conversation he heard nothing, but, arrested and now completely sobered, he said to himself, \u2018If there’s hope for everybody, there’s hope for me \u2013 I’ll go to that chapel myself and see what that man says.\u2019 . . .<\/p>\n
[He aborted his first two attempts to attend, as his nerves failed him.] The third Sunday evening he was again at the gate, \u2018wondering nervously what he should do next’, when one of the congregation welcomed him with the words, \u2018Are you coming in, Bill?\u00a0 Come and sit with me.’<\/p>\n
That same night \u2018Staffordshire Bill’ passed from condemnation to life.\u00a0 \u2018He found,’ Mrs, Lloyd-Jones tells us, \u2018that he could understand the things that were being said, he believed the gospel and his heart was flooded with a great peace.\u00a0 Old things had passed away, all things had become new. The transformation in his face was remarkable, it had the radiance of a saint.\u00a0 As he walked out that night, [a church member introduced him and said], “Mrs. Jones, this is Staffordshire Bill.” I shall never forget the agonized look on his face, for he flinched as though he had been struck a sudden blow.\u00a0 “Oh no, oh no,” he said, “that’s a bad old name for a bad old man; I am William Thomas now.”‘<\/p>\n
William Thomas was a new creation. He died at peace with God three years later.<\/p>\n
How many times had Staffordshire Bill heard something of the Gospel? How many times had he refused to obey the call? How many times had he cursed those who spoke to him of Jesus?<\/p>\n
The power of God can transform the greatest drunk and the most arrogant intellectual, the vilest criminal and the most upstanding citizen. God commands all<\/i>: \u201cBe reconciled to Me!\u201d There are many \u201cfirst sons\u201d who have responded, \u201cI will not!\u201d But, like Staffordshire Bill, God may not be done with them.<\/p>\n
So be His mouthpiece. No matter how many rejections you have heard, no one is hopeless. \u201cIn Christ God [is] reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:19). So don\u2019t give up. Be His ambassador. And may God be pleased to bring many who have rebelled for decades into His family.<\/p>\n
[The story of Staffordshire Bill is taken from Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years <\/i>(Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), 222-223.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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