A magnet draws iron to itself. You’ve seen a great magnet held over a little box of sawdust and iron filings? As it comes within a certain range, the air seems electric and the little particles of iron become restless. A movement passes through them … they vibrate and tremble. There’s some strange power possessing them and attracting them. Quite suddenly, they cling together, spring up and attach themselves to the magnet.
A magnet irresistibly draws iron to itself. While the effect is indisputable, the cause remains hidden. The sun draws earth’s moisture upwards into clouds. While the resultant rain is obvious, the way it works is invisible. So Christ draws his people to himself with unmistakable effect, but by all sorts of inexplicable means. Referring to his crucifixion, Jesus said: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself” (John 12).
What drew you to Christ? I’d love to hear your story.
I “knew” a man who had quite a past. He was not the sort of bloke you’d expect to come to faith in Christ. He was only 30, but he’d seen so much of the world and had lived such a wild life.
He lived a few hundred years after Jesus… born 354AD in North Africa, in a town which is today in Algeria. He grew up with a faithful Christian mum, but didn’t become Christian himself until his early 30s. As a younger man, he trained as a public speaker in the Roman Empire and became a renowned philosopher. Along the way, he indulged in what Paul calls “youthful passions” (2nd Timothy).
As a teen, he ran with a sketchy crowd, their name was something like “The Destructors.” Even when he stole pears from his neighbour he knew it was wrong, but he did it for the thrill of the sin, not for the pears. The boys didn’t find the pears tempting in their colour or flavour. Nevertheless, they wanted to steal them …
“We carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to dump out to the hogs, after barely tasting some of them ourselves. Doing this pleased us all the more because it was forbidden”.
When he was 19, Augustine began a long-term affair with a woman …
“I, miserable young man, supremely miserable even in the very outset of my youth, had entreated chastity of You [O God], and said, ‘Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.’ For I was afraid lest You should hear me too soon, and deliver me from the disease of my sexual passion, which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished” (Confessions 8:7).
This was the man you’d vote as: most unlikely to be drawn to the Saviour. In his own words:
“I dared to grow wild with these various and shadowy loves: my beauty consumed away, and I stank in Your [God’s] eyes; pleasing myself, and desirous to please in the eyes of men” (Confessions 2:1).
So, how did the Saviour lovingly draw Augustine to himself? I suggest, at least by these three means: a preacher, prayer and a passage of Scripture.
- a) A preacher – Bishop Ambrose of Milan. But it’s interesting to note that it wasn’t at first Ambrose’s preaching, but his kindness that attracted Augustine. Yes, his preaching was solid and pleasing to the educated ear of the young scholar … but the drawing of Christ was through friendship. The means of grace extended to this young man came in this order: first, he was affected by the Bishop’s kindness, then impressed with his eloquent speech, then he gradually came to see the truth of the preacher’s words.
Looking back on this drawing power of Christ, Augustine said:
“I came to love him, not at first as a teacher of truth, but for his kindness towards me … in the end, I was brought by God to the Bishop in order that I should be brought by him to God.”
- b) Prayer – through the never-failing prayer of his mother, Monica. Like the persistent widow pestering the unjust judge (Luke 18), Monica never gave up. Probably to the embarrassment of her son, she stalked him – across the seas and by overland trekking:
“You [God] sent down your help from above and rescued my soul from the depths of this darkness because my mother, your faithful servant, wept to you for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual death than other mothers shed for the bodily death of a son” (Confessions 3.11).
Later, at her death, Augustine said:
“I wept for my mother, now dead and departed from my sight, who has wept so many years for me that I should be loved for ever in God’s sight.”
- c) A passage of Scripture – through the reading of the Word of God. This was the final act of God in drawing Augustine to Christ. An open Bible: Romans 13.
Augustine was nearly undone by reading the testimony of the Egyptian monk Anthony. We think of Anthony as extreme, even weird in his antics, but the story flattened Augustine. He descended in spiritual agony, into fits of shame and sorrow. He collapsed at the foot of a fig tree in the garden. His mate Alypius had left the Bible open at Paul’s letter to the Romans. Augustine’s eyes hit these verses:
“… not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealously. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ …” (Romans 13:13,14).
There and then:
“in that instant, with the very ending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shine in my heart and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished.”
Like the hidden power of a magnet at work on iron filings … we rejoice at whatever means God chooses to extend saving grace to the sinner. This is how it’s always been. This is how it will be this Sunday, dear pastor, dear preacher, dear elder as your people gather on Sunday morning. Allow God to work: through preachers, prayer and a passage of Scripture.
Through preachers – think of the opportunity this week within the Presbyterian Church of Australia. There are 650 preachers this coming Sunday (5th May) across all states and territories of Australia. That’s 650 pulpits/lecterns across the land … plus this writer preaching in the Good Shepherd congregation, Dehradun, India. Yes, let’s be faithful workmen. Let’s prepare to our very best standard. But then, when all is said and done, it’s your character that will continue to speak and linger longer. Will your hearers ask: “But, does he love me?” Sometimes, it will be our kindness that lingers longer than our words.
Through prayer – how many in our 650 congregations are praying for the unsaved, like Monica? There’s a poem “The Hound of Heaven” about the pursuit of a sinner by a loving God. Some call Monica the hound of heaven for Augustine. Will you be that person for the unsaved? Don’t give up. Jesus reminds us that we should always pray and not give up.
Through a passage of Scripture. Will you be sure that when the Bible is read in church that it’s read with clarity and conviction – with the expectation that someone might be there and as they listen that THAT verse might be used by God to draw a sinner to Christ? That is why we take every opportunity for the Bible to be read, taught, preached, recited, memorised and lived in our churches.
John P Wilson