TITLE: Following the Spirit 7/10/14 By Richard McCaw 07/10/14 |
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Following the Spirit
When you go among multitudes of lost souls, imagine yourself approaching a desert. The sun’s intense heat has destroyed everything. Dead bodies are strewn across the sands. Many are walking towards you, weary, sweating, panting and dying of thirst and some are fainting. With bleary eyes they hope you can provide water for their parched lips. You have a well that never runs dry. That is how you must consider men without Christ!
When I first met Bobsey Dakin, a tall, dark-skinned young man, probably in his late twenties, he was standing with hands folded and looking rather disconsolate. An empty look stared through his eyes. He seemed like a lost sheep waiting for a shepherd to come show him the way. In all my seventeen years, I had never seen anyone with such a vacant look before!
Not long afterwards I discovered that he lived and worked as a gardener with a family along Arnold Road in Kingston, trapped in a familiar cycle of bondage. Uneducated, he was forced to take the most menial of occupations with a family, who paid precious little for tending the grounds and gardens around their premises.
Have you ever read the faces of people in line at the supermarket or those waiting at the doctor’s office? Their faces relax into those contours that often reveal what is going on deep within them. Many work from dawn to sunset like Bobsey and remain for the rest of their lives crippled by financial distress, broken relationships and the absence of satisfying love.
That night I had stopped after church for an ice cream cone at “Frosty,” an outlet in Half-Way-Tree, in Kingston. After leaning my bicycle against the wall, I could hear the Lord speaking to me, “Give that young man a tract!” I took a tract from my back pocket, and approached him.
“Young man,” I said, “here’s something to read!”
“I can’t read, sir!” he replied,
I turned away and returned the tract to my back pocket. Then the Lord said, “Tell him to ask someone to read it to him!” So I retraced my steps and said to him, “Perhaps, you can have someone read it to you!” So he took the tract. Once more I turned away and went towards my bicycle. But again I clearly heard the Lord say, “Ask him if he would like to receive Christ today!” So I approached him for the third time and presented the question, “Would you like to receive Christ as your Savior today?”
“Right now,” he answered, “Anytime, any place, anyhow!” That was how thirsty he was. His astonishing reply convinced me that multitudes of people out there are waiting to receive the Lord, if only someone would show them the way.
I took him outside around the back of the building, where I opened my pocket New Testament to 1 John 1:9 and explained the need to confess his sins and be delivered from Satan’s power. That young man prayed the most sincere prayer I have ever heard anyone pray,
“Lord, wash away my sins; take charge of me, dear Lord!” Tears streamed down his cheeks!
Since Jesus commanded us to disciple all nations, my friend, Tony, and I committed ourselves to teach Bobsey the Word of God. We were well aware of the Master’s command, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men!”1 We never felt called to build our own little kingdoms in this world. For us “teach all nations” (A.V.) meant that we should ‘make disciples’ (NKJ) of anyone whom we had won to Christ.2 Regularly after school each week day, Tony and I would take turns teaching Bobsey to read and write English. Eventually he could read the Gospel of John. Ministering to Bobsey provided a sense of fulfillment as we accomplished the task Jesus had given us of assisting someone in need in a very practical way. Soon, he was baptized and became a part of the fellowship of believers at Assembly Hall.
God was always opening our eyes to see lost souls in and outside of ecclesiastical walls. The tireless house to house visitation of the Watchtower members impressed us. We often saw them arrive in a neighborhood with a leader, then scatter street by street to spread their version of the kingdom. The Watchtower Society is among the fastest growing religious organizations in the Western world. While most of us sit in church, clapping, dancing, shouting His praise,3 the lost remain without hope. Jehovah’s Witnesses walk from door to door with their literature, slowly building small study groups everywhere from which eventually they draw thousands.
How often has any professing Christian visited you to show you the way of salvation? The early church discipled the then known world, exactly by ministering ‘publicly and from house to house’4 God has a people called out of this world, who love Him. He works everything for their good and has marked out their boundaries. One day they will resemble His Son,5 Who called them from the womb and sent them into the world to fulfill His will on this earth!
Before conquering Jericho, Joshua lifted his eyes and saw a Man standing opposite him with sword drawn. Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?”6
Let us worship Jesus Christ, the Great Leader of God’s army. He calls us first to worship, then to advance with Him against the enemy of souls. He calls us to rescue helpless, hopeless men, women, teenagers and children from the power of darkness and despair, and to lead them to the Light. Led by the Spirit we will win the lost and distressed of this world to Him.
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