Consider The Wicked

I just wanted to share something with anybody who visits this blog. Just the other day, I was watching a rebroadcast of the Billy Graham Crusade, circa 1970-something. Like the year, I don’t remember the exact location, but I do remember the message. It was about an event in the Bible, where Jesus has dinner with a notorious tax collector named Zacchaeus. Graham brought up some very interesting points about the story I never thought about. I thought it was quite profound. That story happens to be in my Bible study for this week. I thought maybe the coincidence was the Lord telling me to share my thoughts on the subject. So we can consider what the Word has to say and the relevance it has for our lives. If you just take the time to read this short excerpt from Luke 19, we’ll be on our way.

Luke 19
Zacchaeus the Tax Collector

1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

The first thing Graham said was that Zacchaeus was probably startled when Jesus looked over a crowd of thousands and brought attention to him, way up in that tree. In my mind, I can kind of picture Zacchaeus having such a horrible fright that he had to struggle to keep hold of the branches. I’m sure it was kind of funny.

The thing you have to realize is Zachaeus was rich. He was taking more taxes from the people than was necessary. So people literally hated him. So, of all people, Jesus chose to stay with him. You can even see in the scriptures, where people are saying, “Whoa, what is Jesus doing eating with that jerk?” But it was because of God’s love and mercy, God even loves obviously wicked people. That blows my mind! But I’m thankful for it, too. I hope you are, too.

For some reason, the Lord wants us to focus on praying for wicked and downright mean people, I mean terrorists and murderers, the kind of people you don’t think care about God. It’s easy to forget that their victims and there’s reasons they do the things they do. The need freedom and God is the only one who can bring it to them. Let’s pray that the Lord will set them free from the lies of the enemy. He wants them to change and find salvation in Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus) just as much as anybody else.

But I’m sure the people that got paid back four times as much as they got ripped off weren’t complaining any longer. I don’t know about you, but I rather have somebody change their ways rather than doing the same old horrible things they’ve always done. Jesus always says it best, He came to seek and to save the lost.

So let’s try to be as merciful as God is unto us. May God bless you with His love and peace.

Steve