Patrick

O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. (Psalms 31:23 KJV)

No, I did not choose green for verses because of St. Patrick’s day – nor do I like green beer. The green font is an attention-getting decision to set apart scripture from my own thoughts simply because I like green. I believe the green beer is also an attention-getting sales technique to sell more beer on a remembrance day where most of the people ignore the Christian witness of a young Briton named Patrick.

March 17 is set aside to remember him, focusing mostly on the country to which he chose to be a Christian witness. Read much more about him on Persecution Blog. For the secular or cultural view, without a Christian witness, information is also available on Wikipedia. Or, read his own words in “The Confession of St. Patrick”:

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many …

Born into a Christian family in the Roman province of Britain, he was only sixteen when taken captive by a raiding party, ending up a slave in what is now Ireland, where Druids were worshipped. Though coming from a priestly family, he lacked education:

So, consequently, today I feel ashamed and I am mightily afraid to expose my ignorance, because, [not] eloquent, with a small vocabulary, I am unable to explain as the spirit is eager to do and as the soul and the mind indicate.

That lack of eloquence did not keep him from returning to the land where he was held in slavery and giving a lifetime dedicated to witnessing to this biblical truth:

For there is no other God, nor ever was before, nor shall be hereafter, but God the Father, unbegotten and without beginning, in whom all things began, whose are all things, as we have been taught; and his son Jesus Christ, who manifestly always existed with the Father, before the beginning of time in the spirit with the Father, indescribably begotten before all things, and all things visible and invisible were made by him. He was made man, conquered death and was received into Heaven, to the Father who gave him all power over every name in Heaven and on Earth and in Hell, so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe.

It is my position that this has nothing to do with green beer, turning a river green, having parades or celebrating a nation’s culture. It has everything to do with a personal relationship with God and a lifetime’s desire to share the gospel.

Patrick was born before the end of the fourth century, so we know that the message Jesus gave, as written in the gospels and shared by Paul, remained the same – preserved for close to four hundred years. Let me testify today that the message has been preserved through the sixteen centuries since Patrick’s confession. Many continue to believe:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1-3 KJV)

We believe all this happened:

To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:18 KJV)

It was Paul’s message and Patrick’s and mine and every Bible-believing preacher’s. Ask us about it, please.