The Wrath of Man
One of my favorite hobbies is playing strategy games. The more I play and the more I read the Bible, one of the coolest things about God to me is what an amazing strategist He is.
At the Garden of Eden, God straight up told Satan ahead of time how He was going to beat him. He was going to send a seed of Adam (and later David) to crush his head. So of course Satan spent all kinds of effort trying to wipe out the Israelites and especially David’s line.
Then Jesus comes along, the fulfillment of every prophecy made through all of scripture. And He starts bringing God’s kingdom to earth: casting out demons, bringing people to righteousness, etc…
God basically baited Satan into killing Jesus. Satan couldn’t let Jesus keep wreaking havoc on his kingdom. Satan was given the perfect opening to crucify Jesus, and he jumped. Except that he totally played into God’s plan! It reminds me of judo where you use the enemy’s energy against them. The Bible says that in this move, Jesus disarmed and made a complete mockery of the evil spiritual forces in the heavens. It’s pretty “gangster” to tell your enemy exactly how you’re going to beat Him, and then do it!
Now, when I play a game with multiple people and realize I can’t win, I go for second best: I try to cause chaos. Maybe make the person in the lead lose by suicide attacking his forces. Satan does that by trying to take out as many people with him as he can, and he especially tries to make life miserable for Christians. If he can’t beat God, and can’t hurt God directly, he goes for hurting God’s kids. But God is so good that He even uses THAT energy for good. He tells us that what we suffer now as Christians is the very thing that is producing us a reward of glory. So anything that the enemy uses to hurt us here, is making life even better for us in the future!
This all seemed like abstract stuff until I met “Kawani.” Kawani is a “clinic escort” at the local abortion mill, which basically means she gets paid to harass anyone trying to talk to parents and offer them help before they make the worst choice of their lives. Kawani is very good at her job. She’s single-handedly blocked us from reaching sooooo many parents. She’s blasted us with music, stolen stuff, thrown eggs at preachers, assaulted people and a lot more. She knows every trick in the legal system to shake off every charge against her. She’s nearly made going to the abortion clinic a waste of time for pro-lifers. But…
God is so good and wise that He’s even used her! The Bible says that “the wrath of man will praise Him.” Kawani HATES God and HATES His servants. But she’s been too good at her job. Several of us knew we’d been called to speak up for our unborn neighbors, and after a few months of getting harassed like crazy by Kawani we knew we had to do something different. So we started looking for other things we could do.
Some of the preachers started an organization called “Equal Protection” that focuses on legislation to protect the pre-born. Equal Protection’s efforts during the primaries have been responsible for uprooting a lot of false “pro-life” politicians in SC and raising up a wave of seriously Godly, actually pro-life candidates.
Other people have been called to mobilize the church in SC to pray against the bloodshed, through a group called Lovelife. They’ve had at least 20 churches this year commit to praying for a week, and all that prayer has been paying off. The abortion clinic’s busiest day has always been Saturday, and it’s no longer open. Even the “escorts” have admitted that it’s closed because of the groups praying, so they come out to harass them despite the clinic being closed.
Kawani’s effectiveness drove me to reach people earlier before they’d made up their minds. So I joined a national pro-life organization that talks to college kids on campus. In the last year we’ve reached thousands and thousands of students and changed a lot of minds.
Just like God hardened Pharoah against the Israelites to use him for God’s purposes, He’s done it again.
God is amazing.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28 ESV