Human beings tend to resist lots of things.
For example, some people resist wearing seatbelts. They resist it in spite of statistics that say it’s the wise thing to do. They resist even though “It’s the law.” Ivan Segedin was very resistant to wearing a seatbelt. Ivan took his resistance to an extreme. The police had ticketed him 32 times over five years for failing to use his seat belt. Even though this was costing him big money, Ivan refused to buckle up. Finally, instead of obeying the law, he decided to rely on deception. He made a fake seat belt that would hang over his shoulder and make it appear that he was wearing a seat belt when he was not. His trick worked for a while. Then, he had a head-on collision. You know the rest of the story, right? He was thrown forward onto the steering wheel and killed.
Discussing the accident, the coroner described the fake seat belt with these words: “Though his car was fitted with seat belts, an extra belt with a long strap had been knotted above the seat belt on the driver’s side, providing a belt to simply sit over the driver’s shoulder.” Resistance, in Ivan’s case, was futile. Worse – his resistance was fatal.
In our passage today, Jesus addresses the resistance each of us has in reference to him. Click play below to listen to the message.
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At least they worked well for Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), an early American Congregational preacher and theologian. Many would assert that Edwards was one of America’s most important thinkers.