Tuesday, December 10, 2002
If there was one symbol of the Cold War years and a world divided between Communist and free, it had to be the Berlin Wall. Some of the most dramatic images of the last half of the 20th Century involve that wall - the wall that the Communists built to divide East Berlin from democratic West Berlin. There are pictures of the barbed wire along the top of the wall, the armed guards, the people who risked everything to escape from behind the wall, and the people who died trying. I think I was like most of the people on this planet to be honest. I mean, we pretty much expected the Berlin Wall to always be there. We couldn't imagine how it would ever be taken down. But go to Berlin today - the wall is gone. And it came down almost overnight. The wall we thought would always be there is gone.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Unmovable Walls."
Now, it may be that there's a wall in your life that looks like it's always going to be there. It's hard to imagine how it would ever come down. But God doesn't know anything about unmovable walls. He's been tearing them down for a long, long time!
In our word for today from the Word of God, for example. Now, the Jewish people had been in captivity in another land for 70 years, living under the rule of the pagan King Cyrus. It was hard to imagine how they would ever get back home. But in Ezra 1:1, the Bible says this. "The Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia." Verse 3 tells us about the king's proclamation that said, "Anyone of His people among you - may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem and build the temple of the Lord ... And the people of any place where survivors may now be living are to provide him with silver and gold." That's incredible! This was about as likely humanly as the Berlin Wall coming down, but God moved the heart of the most powerful man on earth. And the wall between Persia and Israel came crashing down.
This kind of miracle is reported all through scripture. God changed the hard heart of Pharaoh to let the Jews - his major labor force - just walk out of Egypt. Who would have figured? When Saul didn't want to be Israel's first king, the Bible says, "God changed Saul's heart." (1 Samuel 10:9) When God wanted Peter to take the Gospel to a Gentile military commander, Peter's strong Jewishness - and his lifetime dislike of Gentiles - was a major wall of prejudice. But with one vision, God tore down that wall, and Peter went willingly into Gentile territory for Jesus. When Saul of Tarsus was determined to stamp out Christianity before it spread, God changed the heart of the persecutor into the heart of a disciple of Jesus - in a moment.
Walls. Impossible walls. Things that look like they will never change. God specializes in these kinds of things. And right now, He's calling you believe Him, to pray to Him in faith, for a wall in your life to come down. Whether it's a wall in a relationship, a person who seems like they will never come to Christ, maybe a son or daughter who looks like they will never leave their prodigal ways, people who are standing in the way of something God wants - any wall that stands in the way of the will and the working of God. Come against that wall in prayer, unleashing all the power of God on that wall. Pray especially for hearts. God's wall-demolishing miracles often begin with the miracle of a heart changing that only God can change.
No matter how high the wall, no matter how long it's been there, it is not unmovable. If God wants it gone and if you'll believe Him for it, that wall is coming down!