Failing To Witness!

A friend sent this to me which I thought I’d like to share with you.  It is devastating in its impact, and very disturbing.  The challenge this brings to Christians is powerful and ought to stir us to become active witnesses to Christ and His great salvation.  The unsaved writer is standing in the judgement hall and is pointing the finger of blame at you for not sharing with him the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Read it slowly and let the words seep into your soul.

MY FRIEND

My friend, I stand in the judgment now,
And feel that you're to blame somehow.
On earth, I walked with you day by day,
And never did you point the way.

You knew the Lord in truth and glory,
But never did you tell me the story.
My knowledge then was very dim,
You could have led the way to Him.

Though we lived together on the earth,
You never told me of the second birth,
And now I stand here, condemned,
Because you failed to mention Him.

You taught me many things, that's true;
I called you "friend" and trusted you,
But now I learn, when it's too late --
You could have saved me from this fate.

We walked and talked by dawn and night,
And yet, you showed me not His light.
You let me live and love and die,
You knew I'd never live on high.

Yes, I called you "friend" in life,
And trusted you through joy and strife,
And yet on coming to the end --
I cannot call you now "my friend".

                                                 Author: unknown

What do you make of that, then?  How many have we let down by remaining silent?  Silent witnesses to the Gospel!  What a contradiction in terms.  Perhaps we are to become much more vocal in our witnessing if we are not to be in the position of the person addressed in the poem.

Because He Lives

The words of a beautiful Gospel hymn have been with me for the past days: “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because He lives, all fear is gone.”  

What a wonderful truth is the truth of the literal, physical, resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is alive and is alive forevermore.  His resurrection means that death and the grave have lost their power and sting.  That greatest miracle the world has ever witnessed means that death, for the believer, is the means of entry into God’s nearer presence.  It is a move from this old sinful world and into God’s pure heaven.  There, all pain and suffering and tears are gone; all darkness expelled and all that offends our Saviour obliterated.  It is where God lives and reigns.  And that calls for a good reformed ‘Hallelujah’!

Our Never-failing Friend

The amazing thing is that people are wondering why **** is still so joyful and enjoys so much peace as she does. We know why – God in Christ lives in her heart and His life is overflowing through her.  The circumstances would depress anyone, so the reason for her joy and peace lies elsewhere.  How wonderful it is to face the unknown and uncertain future confident that God has already been there and He will take her by the hand and led her on.

God is good – I never tire of saying this.  He is our never-failing Friend, the One Who promised through His Son that He would “never leave us nor forsake us.” With Him, we can take it one day at a time, and leave everything in His loving hands.  It is truly amazing what He can do in and for those who have surrendered their lives to Him.

Now is not the time to ease up in your prayers.  There is still “more land to be taken,” and by God’s grace we will come through triumphantly.

The Cross When Dying

When cancer enters a family and loved-one, it has a wonderful way of concentrating the mind on eternal matters – a bit like hanging.  Cancer is closely associated with death in the minds of many, and in many cases this is what follows cancer.  Thankfully, today, God in His love and providence has given men wisdom and skill to deal with many cancer types, and do so successfully.

The ugly thought of the possibility of death seems to hang over you throughout this process of living, so it is important that we realise some facts about this “last enemy” that shall be “destroyed” (1 Cor.15:26).  Death is the ugly reality of life that was not part of God’s original creation.  It entered by one man’s sin – Adam (Rom.5:12-21).  Now, one out of one dies – not an impressive or encouraging statistic. Everyone dies when they reach the end of their lives – but we do not know when that will be - one of life’s certainties. But death is an appointment we all have to keep (Heb.9:27).  “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor.15:22).

The Christian has only one prayer when it comes to departing this world and going to be with Christ forever – which is far better. Allow Henry Francis Lyte explain in the words of his lovely and widely appreciated hymn:

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Or, in the words of the apostle Paul “an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11).  Have you ever prayed for that?  Is that your desire – to enter heaven abundantly?  Christians, by God’s grace alone, are going to enter heaven where Christ lives and reigns; but how do you want to enter it?  Do you want the Saviour of the world’s Cross held before your closing eyes?  Why this?  Because in the Cross of Christ alone is life – real, eternal and everlasting.  

This should be the prayer of everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord.  Why do we not do that?  Because this sinful world has such a hold on us that we just do not want to leave it.  And on top of that, we are not really sure whether there be any life with Christ after death!  Doubts invade our thinking, so we hold on to this life with much too tight a grip.  Our assurance of God’s grace takes a back seat when we think about this world and ponder the next.

Life - God's Precious Gift.

Truly life is a precious gift of God; He gave us the life we have, and He can take it back again whenever He wants.  It is His gift to us, not something we got or did for ourselves.  

But as long as He sustains our life, He expects us to live for Him.  Indeed, because He gave it to us as a free gift, He wants us to give it back to Him again, if for no other reason than for safe-keeping in a wicked world.  We are to "offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable worship" (Heb.12:1).

Remember, He's worth it!

Christ Is Enough.

With the delay ... we are learning new lessons – or old lessons in a new way.  Through this trying time, we are learning to be content in Christ and with Christ – not always easy.  We want to let Christ satisfy us to the full that we might find our total satisfaction in Him alone.  As Charles Wesley put it:

Thou, O Christ, art all I want; More than all in Thee I find;
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint, Heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is Thy name; I am all unrighteousness,
False and full of sin I am; Thou art full of truth and grace.

But be very, very careful; He might take you at your word, and withdraw everything from you, and leave you with Him alone, and nothing else.  It is then that you will prove Him as you’ve never done before.

When God, in His sure providence, takes your job from you, and with it your earning power, and when He threatens to take your wife and the mother of your children from you, life becomes profoundly serious.  It is then that you find yourself locked up to Christ alone.  He is enough, and we’ve proved that numerous times; but I’d still like to have **** around for many years to come.  It is a stark reality of God’s dealings with us that He sometimes takes us at our word, and gives us exactly what we have asked. He did that to us and we didn’t realise it.  We wanted Christ alone, and He is giving us that.  We have Him, and we are more than satisfied with Him.

But you can see the inconsistencies of this the moment you write something like this down.  Satisfied with Christ alone, yes; but we want our loved ones healed of their illnesses to be around us for many years to come.

I think Christ understands these inconsistencies and contradictions in our faith.  It is a case of “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief” (Mk 9:24).  We have put our faith in Him, but our lack of real trust when it is most needed is annoying.  And He does help us; He comes to our aid and assures us that we are His always.  That’s why we can say with the Psalmist in total honesty, “I love the LORD because He has heard My voice and my supplications.” (Ps.116:1).  Israel was facing a great crisis, and was in a time of great need, so her response was to put the God Who is alive and sovereign first.

What a fine thing it is to be a Christian!  Why do sinful people not want to know and trust this wonderful Saviour?  What reason can they give for staying away from the Redeemer of the world?  There is none.  

If anyone reading this does not know Christ personally, ask yourself, why not?  Look how good He is, the Man Who went about doing good; the best Man the world ever knew.  Why are you staying away from Him?  He wants you to come to Him and trust Him with your soul.  My friends, He is altogether lovely, the bright morning star, and the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.  That’s our Saviour.  Our souls want nothing but Jesus, for in Him we have more than heart could desire.

Trying the Broken Cisterns

It can be somewhat frustrating when we cannot discern what it is that God is doing in our lives.  We feel that we are being held in suspense by our Father.  The Psalmist David found that, you know, and so have his countless servants throughout the running centuries. God is mysterious, and His doings are equally mysterious.  

In such times, what are we to do?  We are to do the only thing it is proper for us to do in these circumstances, and that it to repose our lives confidently in His Word.  What else have we?  He is faithful Who promised.  We cast ourselves and our burdens unreservedly upon His grace and mercy.

Now, the last thing we ought to do, and the first thing we are often tempted to do, is to look for the consolations of the world.  How foolish that would be!  It is vanity to look to the empty and perverse world to help and succour us when in difficulties.  The world has absolutely nothing to offer.  Indeed, this is exactly what worldlings do - they look around them everywhere to find something from the world that will mitigate their miseries.  But there's nothing there.  At times of difficulty, they may drown their sorrows with alcohol, but they still have them when they sober up.  They may use some kind of escapism, yet that is OK only for the short time they have 'escaped.'  But they still have to return to the real world.

No, the world and its ways have nothing to offer the child of God.  They mock us, deride us, and make fun of us. 

I tried the broken cisterns, Lord,
 But, ah, the waters failed!
E’en as I stooped to drink they fled,
 And mocked me as I wailed.

The world’s broken cisterns have nothing to offer the child of God when he or she is going through life-threatening difficulties.  We have all tried them, and some of us have seen through them.  Even the positive thinking attitude, while good so far as it goes, is inadequate, and I’ve seen people being devastated by this outlook.

However, we have found something that does work in all circumstances – having a positive faith in Christ the sovereign Lord and Comforter of the weak.  It’s not just about being positive; it’s about being positive in Christ; it’s about being positive in Him because of Who He is – the One Who suffered and bled and died for us, and Who rose again on the third day to demonstrate that the Father had accepted all He had done on the Cross and therefore accepts all who trust in Him.

God's Strength In Weakness

Our God is good and His goodness knows no end.  Praise Him constantly for being What and Who He is.  You know, it is at a time of testing that you really do prove the Lord.  In a sense, anybody can say they are a Christian; but when you are thrown back upon the Saviour, and knowing that you have been forgiven, you can rest assured. 

I have no help but Thine; nor do I need
Another arm save Thine to lean upon;
It is enough, my Lord, enough indeed;
My strength is in Thy might, Thy might alone.

This is our confidence, and in this confident we rest.

Head Knowledge Not Enough

I am so glad that our faith in the living God in Christ is a living faith, and we have experienced His great mercy in so many ways.  I just do not know where we’d have been had our faith a purely heady, intellectual or mere clinical affair.  Head knowledge is important for growth, but if that is all one has, then he is no better than the devils.  The faith of demons is useless when it comes to facing the potential of death head on.

But then again, that is true of us all, is it not?  Every day we live, we are dying, a fact that so few really appreciate.  And since we are, at this moment, dying, it is urgent that we see every moment in this world as our last.  Who knows?

However, our God has defeated death in Christ’s glorious resurrection, and now believers have nothing to fear about dying.  We have seen a side of our heavenly Father that we haven’t seen before, though we know about it.  We have seen Him care for us and fold us to His breast, assuring us that we are in truth His own dear children.  We have felt His arms around us, supporting us and assuring us.  He has spoken to us through His Word and reminded us of truths we often forget.

Getting back to the update proper, it is important to realise that the surgery that **** has undergone is likely to be but the first stage in a comprehensive plan of treatments to ensure that all cancer cells have been destroyed and/or removed.  This is still unknown to us.  While we will know on Monday, there is a certain apprehension in **** about what will be involved in the future.  She knows that the Father Who has been with her in the past weeks will also be there during any future treatment; but she is still human with all that being human means.  Mind you, it is so refreshing to hear her say that if those she loves coming to know Christ personally, it will have been all worthwhile.  That said, she has no intention of leaving any time soon, though, of course, when that final call comes, she is ready to answer it.  With her hope firmly placed in Christ alone, she has everything to look forward to.