Mutually exclusive outcomes

There seems to have been a lot more ragwort than usual around this year, in fields and on road verges.

  

Good news if you happen to be a cinnabar moth, since ragwort is the favourite food of its caterpillars!

Not such good news though for cattle and horses, since eating ragwort can be disastrous for them.

The same plant then can be food or poison, bring health or harm. Life for some, death for others. One or the other, but not both at the same time. Mutually exclusive outcomes, you might say. The gospel has just such a separating effect.

For the message of the cross,” writes the Apostle Paul, “is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) The Lord Jesus Himself spoke in some of His parables of two separate groups of people in the world – sheep and goats, wheat and tares, fish to be kept and fish to be thrown away, solemnly reminding us of the final, eternal separation yet to come. In the words of the Apostle John, “There shall by no means enter into it (the holy city, New Jerusalem) anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (Revelation 21:27)

And amazingly, God’s people, living faithfully in obedience to Him and to His word, also have a part to play in the separating process, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16:

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death to death, and to the other the aroma of life to life.

And who is sufficient for these things? 

Who indeed? What a privilege, and what a responsibility!

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.”

Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.” They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they were also appointed. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. (1 Peter 2:4-9) 

Make use of me, my God,

Let me not be forgot;

A broken vessel cast aside,

One whom Thou needest not.

 

I am Thy creature, Lord,

And made by hands divine;

And I am part, however mean,

Of this great world of Thine.

 

Thou usest all Thy works,

The weakest things that be;

Each has a service of its own,

For all things wait on Thee.

 

All things do serve Thee here,

All creatures great and small;

Make use of me, of me, my God,

The meanest of them all.

 

Horatius Bonar