Ephesians
6:12
For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
In 1970 I was born into a prison
system.
My mother and father were both
prisoners.
I grew comfortable with prison
life.
Once I got old enough I was
allowed to occupy my own cell which was
a great freedom for me.
Once there I was given all the
freedom I wanted and all the comforts I
needed to never want to leave.
I had plenty of entertainment.
The rulers of this darkness gave
me: the prison television channel, the
prison newspaper, the prison magazine,
and the prison radio station.
Between all these I was able to
find answers to any question I needed,
by studying what I was being given to me
as entertainment I soon began to develop
ideas about my world, the prison. I
became proud that I had become so wise
by my own intellectualism.
When
the confinement became unbearable I
would try to find something to do to
comfort me.
Conveniently the prison supplied
parts to make locks, these parts were
made readily available to anyone who
wanted them.
Whenever a lock was completely
assembled, immediately one of the guards
would take it and add it to the barrage
of locks on my door.
After a while the thought of ever
leaving my cell seemed hopeless.
I
had a little hole in the wall of my cell
up by the ceiling, it was too high for
me to get up there to look out, but at
certain times a light would shine
through the hole and make a large bright
image on the wall directly across the
room from the hole.
The light was strange, it seemed
out of place in the constantly dark
world that I lived in.
Sometimes,
I could hear voices that seemed to be
coming from where the light was coming
from,
these voices would talk about
things that I didn’t understand, but
they seemed like they were happy and
fulfilled, I began to contemplate just
how lonely I was in my little cell.
On a couple of occasions someone
came to the hole in the wall and asked
me if I knew that I could come out there
where they were.
I had never thought about the
prospect of ever leaving my cell
becoming a reality.
It did seem that they weren’t
as lonely as I was though, and they too
did seem happy.
They told me that I was in prison
because I owed a debt for things I had
done wrong and they called it sin. They
also warned me that ultimately I would
have to face the consequences for these
sins, and when my time had expired at
the prison I would spend eternity in a
place called hell.
I never read that in the prison
newspaper before.
But, if the prison media wanted
to keep me here they wouldn’t tell me
that.
They also told me that I could
never repay that debt on my own, but,
that someone named Jesus had paid that
debt for me if I would just accept it.
One
day as I pondered all these things that
I was told, I noticed the light from the
hole in the wall was much brighter than
usual and the image on the wall was
quite large compared to before.
I got up to investigate and I
heard a voice that I had never heard
before.
He called me by name and said,
“John, I love you, I don’t want you
to live there anymore”.
I knew this must be the Jesus
that the people from outside had been
telling me about.
The light became intensely bright
and encompassed the entire room as He
showed me my sin.
I tried to hide from the light, I
had been so comfortable in the darkness
for so long, but I couldn’t hide.
For once I saw myself for who I
really was, I was dirty and
malnourished, and I was ashamed, my
sinful state was revealed in the light
and all I could do was fall on my face
and ask forgiveness.
He told me that he had already
paid the debt I owed and that the
principalities and powers had been
deceiving me all this time.
I knew He was right, for the
first time I saw that I had been
deceived, my situation was hopeless on
my own, I
cried out “please save me”,
immediately the prison door flung open
and the steel door slammed against the
stone wall in the hallway.
When I turned back to look at the
light, Jesus was standing in the cell
with me.
I found myself weeping, partly
because I was so unworthy to be in His
presence, and partly because I had been
lonely for so long and I knew I
wouldn’t be lonely ever again.
He looked at me and said “I
will never leave you or forsake you”,
soon I began thinking about all the
other people imprisoned and wanted to
get the “good news” to them that
they could be free.
Of course this is a fictional story, but
it describes what happened to me in a
very real sense. The prison cell that I
was in, was my own soul, and everything
that I experienced in my cell is
metaphorically what I experienced as a
lost person. When the Spirit of God
moved in my heart, and illuminated the
darkness I was in, I came to realize my
lost condition.
If this describes you, I can tell you,
as one in the light speaking to you
through the little hole in the ceiling
of your cell, that Jesus died for you.
The debt that you owe that is keeping
you in that prison cell has already been
paid, and He wants you to accept that
payment that He made on the cross.
If you would like to know more click
here: Do
you Know Jesus?
