Now let me just start with a story about a person I met in Wellington some years ago. I was going down to speak at Promise Keepers, and I came out of the airport and waiting around, wondering who's going to pick me up, and this old drug rehabilitation van pulled up outside. So the transport was the drug rehabilitation van, and there was a fairly big Maori fellow there, with tattoos all over him, and he's sort of standing out there, and he said oh, this way bro'. I said okay, this must be the one. So I got in there with him, and anyway I got talking to him, found out his name was Peter and I said Peter, tell me a bit about yourself.
So he began to share about his background, and he'd had a very hard background; abusive father and family, and it was a very, very difficult painful background. It was quite distressing to hear about it, and he got involved in the gangs, he was then dealing drugs. He was the drug dealer, he was the one - and even while he's in the prison, he's got the deals going through his wife in the home. Anyway I said well what happened to you?
He said well, someone must have been praying for us. He said I got in here, and he said, you know, he said I started to feel so depressed after a while, and you know it's a tough place, hard to live in a prison. He said I started to feel very, very depressed and down, and he said I had a cell on my own, and he said there was one night there and he said I was just at the very end of myself, so actually what I did was I just put up my hands and said God, if you are real, Jesus, if you are in - because he said what had happened was, he'd had one of the other prisoners give his heart to the Lord, as a result of a team coming into the prison, and he thought the guy was a wimp. He wanted to beat him up, and he really was reacting, and the guy would not react back to him.
So this night he just got in the prison cell. He said God, if you're real show yourself to me, and he said it was like a light went on in the prison, and he said he felt the love of God. He felt the person - he didn't see anything, but he said he felt as though someone was standing there in front of him. He knew exactly who it was, that it was Jesus, and he said he began to feel love flow into his heart like he had never experienced in his life. He said it came over him in waves. He said I could not stop. He said here I am, I'm tattooed all over, I'm a gang leader and everyone's scared of me, I'm a hit man, and he said there I am on my knees, just blubbering like a baby. I sobbed.
I said well what happened? He said I just cried and cried and cried and cried. He said he couldn't stop crying. He said I cried for ages. It was loud. Everyone heard it, and they all figured I was having a breakdown, so I just stayed there, and he said the presence of Jesus so touched me in that cell. When I felt His love, all I could do was respond to Him. He said I received Jesus into my heart, alone in the cell, because I encountered the love of God, and he said I then wondered how on earth I'm going to live in prison, you know. Now I love Jesus, what's going to happen? I won't be tough anymore, and I'm not going to beat anyone up. So he wondered how he'd get on with his wife.
Anyway, his wife come in to see him the next day, and he was just wondering how he could break the news to her, that what had happened to him in the cell. Then she spoke up; she said honey, there's something I've got to tell you. He said what? She said well you know you've been asking me to deal all these drugs while you've been in jail? She said I went to a church meeting, and I gave my heart to Jesus. My life has changed. I got rid of all the drugs - and she's sort of waiting for the punches to start flying, and instead of that, you know, they both wept together, that in a place where both of them were in prison, one in the prison, and in chains in his heart, the other outside the prison, and in chains in her life; Jesus met both of them, and they were touched with His love, and both were changed.