Sermon Central
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How God Changed Ireland Through A Dream
Contributed by Dr. Larry Petton on May 3, 2022 (message contributor)
One incident helped change Western civilization—Paul’s vision of a man from northern Greece led him to take the gospel westward into Europe instead of eastward into Asia—with far-reaching results.
Nearly 400 years later, a remarkably similar dream changed all of Irish history.
Patrick, a teenager in England, was kidnapped by pirates and scuttled away to Ireland where he was enslaved as a herdsman of swine. There he labored six years before escaping and returning to his relatives. Back in England, he resumed his education and prepared for his career. But one evening—“in the depth of the night,” he later said—he dreamed a man from Ireland appeared to him, saying, “We are asking you to come home and walk among us again.” Patrick awoke “struck to the heart.” To his family’s dismay, he began making plans to return to Ireland, land of his captivity, this time as a slave of Christ. He felt God calling him there as a missionary.
Arriving in Ireland in A.D. 432, Patrick went to work on the west and northern sides of the island, seeking to evangelize the Celts. These were tribal peoples who lived in clans rather than towns, and who raised cattle and occasionally engaged in tribal warfare. Their religion consisted of Druid superstitions involving magic, and animal (even human) sacrifice. Patrick traveled from village to village, preaching and evangelizing. In his Confessions, the first personal missionary accounts in history, he writes that he faced death twelve times; nevertheless, he continued for more than 30 years, planting some 200 churches and baptizing an estimated 100,000 people. He gave credit to God, calling himself, “Patrick the sinner, an unlearned man to be sure, that none should ever say that it was my ignorance that accomplished any small thing; but judge ye and let it be most truly believed, that it was the gift of God.”
Many remember him today as........Saint Patrick. But he knew he was merely a sinner in need of a Savior.
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