Thank you. Prison is how we typically protect the outside world from convicted criminals.

But today on Truth for Life, we'll hear how God used imprisonment to protect an innocent man from death threats outside the prison walls.

Alistair Begg teaches us to view the drama of world history and personal circumstances through the lens of God's perfect plan.

Father, you know that in studying this week, once again I come to this narrative and how hard it is, it seems so repetitive.

And I have asked for your help.

And now I ask for it again, not now to study the material, but to deliver it. And together we ask for your help, that beyond the

voice of mere humanity, we might hear your voice. We might learn truth from your word about who we are

and about who you are, the living God, and about how you operate in our world and what you plan to do.

And then if it please you,

will you bring our lives into line with the truth that you convey? For we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.

During the summer, I went back to one of my boyhood haunts at Sterling University in Scotland,

Sterling Castle, actually not the university. The university wasn't there when I was a boy,

but you look down on it from the castle and from Wallace's monument. And as I stood there in the company of loved ones, I was reminded of how when I was tiny and there was still

a barracks in Stirling Castle, I would go there of a morning, and when the soldiers came out

to march on the esplanade, then I would march alongside them. I suppose deep down I thought I'd like to be one of them.

I never got to be one of them.

I've never been a soldier or a sailor or an airman.

I've never enjoyed that privilege, but I have respected and still respect those who have and

those who do.

And in being fascinated by all of that, and particularly by the Second World War,

I have gravitated frequently towards war movies and war books. And so right up there amongst

them is, of course, Bridge on the River Kwai, and who can think of that

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