Pros
update
04 April 08
When the going gets tough….remember this…
‘I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.’
Matthew 10:16
Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar will go to court if necessary to challenge a
ban ruling him out of international and domestic cricket for five years.
The fast bowler, 32, was banned at a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday for
publicly criticising the Pakistan Cricket Board. "If the board rejects
my appeal I will go to the High Court and Supreme Court to get justice,"
said the bowler. "I haven't murdered anyone, so why such a harsh
penalty?" Shoaib, who was mobbed by fans during Wednesday news
conference, added: "I will definitely be filing the appeal in the next
two days and will follow the PCB procedure. I feel I have been
personally victimised by the board. If I have committed any violation of
discipline I should be told about it. I will fight it to the end. Even
if I have to retire from the game I will do it to pursue this case but I
will not allow them to stigmatise me." Shoaib maintains he has been made
the scapegoat after Pakistan's Test and one-day series defeats by rivals
India at the end of last year and is utterly determined to stand up and
be counted, however strong the opposition.
By Matthew 10:16 Jesus instructions about how to do evangelism are
largely over. The rest of the chapter is about how they should respond
to what will be done to them, to the consequences that their gospel
preaching would provoke. And those consequences are appalling. The
possibility of rejection has been mentioned back in verse 14. But now
for the rest of chapter 10 we see what is promised to the disciples of
Jesus Christ: they will be arrested, flogged, put on trial, betrayed by
families, hated, put to death, persecuted, slandered, terrified, killed,
put to the sword, crucified.
Since Jesus spoke in these terms, how important He must have thought it
to get across the fact that the gospel would be opposed. But we may be
in the greater danger from the apparent friendship of our world if we
lose sight of Jesus’ insistence that the world does not welcome the
gospel. It rejects it. And this is Jesus’ repeated emphasis because
Christian and the non-Christian, according to Jesus, are as different as
sheep and wolves: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves”.
Those two animals just don’t mix, do they? Men and women reject God and
His kingdom: His rule over their lives. The sheep have only one hope
amongst the wolves, namely the presence of the shepherd beside them. So
don’t be surprised by opposition, but remember that the shepherd is
right there beside you!
Graham
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