Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 11 verses 20 through 24:
20 Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, because they did not repent. 21”Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.22But I tell you, on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you.23And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.24But I tell you that on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.”
I thank God for His “Woes”.
I know that I don’t usually like a bunch of hell, fire, and brimstone in a sermon and I particularly don’t like it when it comes with spit. Hell, fire, brimstone, and spit is a sermon I will pass on every time. Woe unto those who have to endure them week by week.
Yet, it was a woe that saved me. At a definitive moment, when my life could have gone one way or the other, it was the woe that saved me.
It wasn’t so much hell that I was afraid of. I believed in God and God’s graciousness in Christ. I wasn’t scared that God was going to torment me for all eternity. But I could see that my own choices were going to torment me in life and then in death I would have to stand before God with the shame of having chosen to do life my own way.
I surrendered.
There’s a couple of lines in the hymn “Amazing Grace” I deeply love:
“‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved”
God’s woes were a grace to me— a way of salvation.
I thank God for them because I know I wouldn’t be who I am without them.
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