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UNCONDITIONAL
SURRENDER — UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE #5
CAN HATCHET MEN GET INTO HEAVEN?
Back in the year 1972, one of Richard Nixon's least
favorite people on this planet was a Democratic senator named Harold Hughes.
Hughes was a big, burly two-fisted ex-truck driver, ex-alcoholic, but
NOT an EX-critic of the Nixon Administration. He was a CURRENT, LOUD,
VOCAL critic of Nixon and Agnew and Haldeman and Ehrlichman and all their
policies and plans. He was thinking of running for president himself,
and in a speech one day he denounced the White House and accused its occupants
of "repression, wiretapping, bugging, surveillance, and attempts
by government to intimidate the communications media." Et cetera
et cetera.
Needless to say, Mr. Harold Hughes was on Richard Nixon's SHORT "Enemies
List." And one of the great rifts in all human history had to be
between Hughes and Nixon's chief hatchet man, Chuck Colson. Colson, you
see, was Nixon's get-it-done guy who seemed to have his fingerprints on
the dirtiest of the dirty tricks. Harold Hughes, even though he was a
born-again Christian, could not STAND Mr. Charles W. Colson. As far as
he was concerned, the "W" stood for wacko, weasel, wiseguy,
wicked, and wild-eyed warmonger. AND, as things turned out, WATERGATE
co-conspirator, although Hughes didn't know it at the time.
One thing the "W" DIDN'T stand for was the word "wimp."
The most popular quote humming around Washington in 1972 was from Colson,
who told the world that he would run over his own grandmother if necessary
in order to get Richard Nixon reelected.
Well, right in the middle of the Watergate crisis, August of 1973, when
things were just breaking apart all around Chuck Colson, an amazing thing
happened. Chuck spent some time with a man named Tom Phillips, president
of Raytheon, one of the biggest corporations on the East Coast. Tom had
just become a Christian, and he shared with Chuck Colson how he had finally
found peace in his own life.
To make a long story short, Chuck Colson, after some soul-searching and
reading and investigation . . . HE became a Christian too. Chuck Colson,
Nixon hatchet man, the kingpin of ruthless political chicanery — gave
his heart to Jesus Christ. He came to understand that God accepted HIM
unconditionally, and in turn Colson surrendered himself unconditionally
to God. Sitting all alone in a car . . . in the dark . . . in Phillips'
driveway . . . with tears streaming down his face, crying so hard it was
like he was swimming underwater, he said later, he sobbed out all his
helplessness and then simply said two words to God over and over: "Take
me. Take me."
Now . . . we skip down in the story a little bit. Colson told his friend
Tom Phillips what had happened. Tom mentioned it to Doug Coe, organizer
of a Washington group called Prayer Breakfast. And when Doug, all excited,
came to visit with new Christian Chuck Colson, he mentioned to him, "You'll
want to meet Senator Hughes. Harold is a tremendous Christian."
Well, Colson almost fell of his chair laughing. "Harold
Hughes won't want to meet me. From what I've heard, he considers me the
number-one menace to America. He's antiwar, anti-Nixon, anti-Colson and
we couldn't be further apart politically."
Doug Coe, still all excited, shook his head in disagreement. "That
doesn't matter now."
Colson: "You're telling me that just because I've accepted Christ,
Harold Hughes, just like that, wants to be my friend?" Chuck simply
couldn't believe THAT.
"Wait and see, Chuck," Coe told him. "You'll have brothers
and sisters all over this city, hundreds of them, men and women you don't
even know who will want nothing more than to help you. Some of them know
we're meeting and they're praying for you right now."
Well, a little time went by. It got to be September. And truthfully speaking,
Harold Hughes wasn't that excited about meeting Mr. Watergate, Chuck Colson.
In fact, he said to his friend Doug Coe: "There isn't anyone I dislike
more than Colson. I'm against everything he stands for." Doug had
to encourage Hughes and tell him that maybe he might try to be a little
more Christlike himself.
The meeting began. As Colson described it later, he and Harold Hughes
were like two prize fighters circling in a ring. But finally Harold said,
"Chuck, they tell me you have had an encounter with Jesus Christ.
Would you tell us about it?"
And so Charles Colson, already on the hot seat politically for various
crimes and misbehaviors, slowly, carefully described how he had given
his life to Jesus Christ. How he'd surrendered EVERYTHING to his new Master.
Harold Hughes sat there in silence, listening as this unbelievable story
tumbled out.
When it was done there was a long silence. And then Harold Hughes, probably
Colson's bitterest enemy inside the whole Beltway of Washington, D.C.,
lifted up both hands in the air and brought them down hard on his knees.
"That's all I need to know," he said. "Chuck, you have
accepted Jesus and He has forgive you. I DO THE SAME. I love you now as
my brother in Christ. I will stand with you, defend you anywhere, and
trust you with ANYTHING I have."
Charles Colson reminisced later about that moment as he wrote his book,
Born Again.
"In all my life," he writes, "no
one had ever been so warm and loving to me outside of my family. And now
it was coming from a man who had loathed me for years and whom I had known
for barely two hours."
Now, friend, I tell you this wonderful, poignant story for two reasons.
First of all, because it MODELS for us exactly how God accepts us. How
He TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY and UNCONDITIONALLY accepts us. It doesn't matter
how many Watergate crimes we've committed. It doesn't matter that we've
spent our entire lives serving the opposition political party. It doesn't
matter that we're trying to cover up a whole list of sins and erase all
the Watergate tapes. The moment we accept Jesus Christ, God accepts us
RIGHT THEN . . . AT THAT MOMENT . . . UNCONDITIONALLY.
Listen again to what that big, hard-nosed senator said to Colson that
night: "I love you now as my brother in Christ. I will stand with
you, defend you anywhere, and trust you with anything I have." To
me, Hughes was simply reflecting the very words and attitudes of Christ
Himself. "I love you," Jesus says. "I will stand with you.
I'll defend you. Just as you have placed trust in Me, I now trust you.
I'll make you MY ambassador, MY defender." Harold Hughes, sitting
there in that living room with his former enemy, showed Colson AND US
what God is really like. What a beautiful witness!
But there's a second reason for this story. Harold Hughes' example doesn't
simply reveal to us how God is; it also shows us how WE are supposed to
be. This story is an example to us FOR us. Friend, you and I are to accept
UNCONDITIONALLY our brothers and sisters.
Listen to me now. Chuck Colson was still mired in Watergate. He was still
Harold Hughes' political foe. Some of Colson's character flaws took a
while to resolve. But Harold Hughes accepted him unconditionally as a
brother in Christ.
Now why? On what basis? Friend, on the basis of Calvary.
Yesterday we learned together that Calvary is the BASIS of surrender;
it's the legal structure, the moral foundation upon which the concept
of unconditional surrender is based. Now, that's not just true of God's
acceptance of us; it's equally true of OUR acceptance of others. Do you
believe that?
Just yesterday as I'm recording this program, two of my associates and
I sat together in my office and we forgave each other for a few things.
Nothing big, nothing too monumental — but Calvary was the basis of our
ability to forgive each other.
And maybe something real BIG has come along for you. There's someone out
there that you still hate; their sins are HUGE. Your grievances are blockbuster
complaints. You've got a feud going that makes the Hatfields' and the
McCoys' arguments look like a playground quarrel.
Tell me, friend. Is Calvary not big enough for you? Is the cross of Jesus
Christ NOT ENOUGH so that YOU can forgive, so that YOU can unconditionally
accept some "Colson person" in YOUR life? It's something to
think about, isn't it?
Right at the very end of Colson's book, Born Again, he tells one more
precious vignette. By now Chuck's in Holabird Prison, serving his time
for Watergate. Things are hard for the family; his own boy has just been
arrested too — for drug possession. And Al Quie, congressman from Minnesota
and member of this little group of Christian men, says the most amazing
thing to Chuck Colson. "I've been thinking," he says . . . and
there's a long pause. "There's an old statute someone told me about.
I'm going to ask the President if I can serve the rest of your prison
term for you."
Can you imagine that? A respected congressman with 20 years of impeccable
service, willing to go to prison and finish Chuck Colson's jail term for
him. Two days later, Colson was released from prison anyway, and the offer
never had to be fulfilled. But what a magnificent moment! What a picture
of what Jesus Christ is willing to do for us! What He HAS done for us!
I remember an old song by the Wedgwood Trio, a group that's sung for us
here on The Voice of Prophecy. It goes like this:
It doesn't matter how long it's been. It doesn't matter
how WRONG you've been. All that matters is that you let Him in.
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