There was a student at a Bible College called Samuel, who had a Pentecostal background. He loved to get up at three a.m. to practice Psalm 5 "My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up."
And as a good Pentecostal, he prayed out loud, so none of the not-so-faithful ones could get to sleep.
Once some of the men laid a twelve inch PVC pipe over the ceiling, until it reached Samuel's bedroom. Right when he started praying, one of the men spoke through the pipe causing an echo: "Samuel, Samuel .".
Samuel fell on his knees, believing that he was hearing the call of God, mirroring that of Samuel in the Old Testament, and in a triumphant voice he shouted: "Speak; for thy servant heareth". And the reply came "Samuel, Go and lie down, and let my other servants get some sleep".
Recently I spoke about our need to be evangelists, but I suppose all of us have seen or met people who we feel are a little over-passionate in their proclamation of the gospel. Perhaps it’s the preacher in Church banging the pulpit, and talking about the depths of hell, or perhaps it’s the street preacher who follows you along the road or the overpowering neighbour or friend, who seems to turn every sentence into a sermon of some sort.
There really are so many good reasons for not talking too much about our faith that we can convince ourselves that it’s better not to ! But this evening’s reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel emphasises that we have no right to make such a decision. He ends the section (3:4-21) we heard by writing about the duties of people who know something that could save another from danger to let them know about that danger.
The duty of the Christian is to warn people of the dangers of living without God. Put like that, it can seem a very fierce and rather miserable sort of message, back to the banging the pulpits and talking about hell and so on, but the dangers are more about the joys and the peace that people are missing out on, if they are missing a relationship with God. It is our duty to share a wonderful message of life transforming joy, peace and hope.
I read a saying this week that ‘Having children is hereditary –if your parents didn’t, you won’t either!’ And it struck me that if people of previous generations had not put effort and dedication into passing on the gospel message to us, then we may well not be sitting here today.
We have huge responsibilities which we can never, as servants of God, abdicate. And yet, we so often allow other things to get in the way of our message. In the passage that we heard from the 1st letter of John (Ch 3), we have the suggestion that there was a need for John to remind people to refrain from in fighting and to show the love and compassion of Jesus to all people. Division was present it seems even in the earliest days of the Church, and it continues today.
There was a man stranded on a deserted island. Years passed before he was finally discovered. When the rescue party came ashore, the man expressed his gratitude and told them how he had survived alone for so many years. The rescue party was suspicious. One of the party stated, "No one could live on this island alone for that long a time." "But it's true," the man said, "Come and see where I lived."
When the rescue party arrived at his residence, they saw three huts. "Ah Hah!" They said, "Here is evidence that you are not alone." "No," said the man, "let me explain. This first hut is where I lived all these years, and the third hut is where I attended church." "What then is the second hut?" they enquired. "Oh," said the man, "That's where I used to go to church."
From the earliest times of Christianity, there have been divisions within the Church, and yet division runs contrary to everything that we profess, and worse than that, it gets in the way of God’s mission. Again if we go back to the writing of John (1 John 3:1), he says, ‘See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.’ We are children united under God striving for a better world, and we must celebrate that fact through our words and actions, and through our Churches.
And underlying all of this we have the responsibility to offer a message of hope and salvation to all… we are blessed with the freedom to worship, to speak about our beliefs, to argue for those beliefs, whilst others have no such privilege – and yet so often, it is they, and not we, who are prepared to offer themselves and everything they have for the sake of the gospel.
To those to whom much is given, much will be expected… May God make us ever aware of our responsibilities, confident of his power to speak through us, and faithful in our commitment and service to him. AMEN
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