Devotion: “If I Really Believed in That” [Luke 16:23-31 NKJV] “23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 Then he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us. 27 Then he said, I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my fathers house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment. 29 Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. 30 And he said, No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent. 31 But he said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.” There are many today who feel that you and I, as believers, are the most foolish people alive. But this concept is nothing new to Christianity. This view of Christians has been held by many from the birth of the church and will continue until Jesus returns for His own. I read this story about from 1879 about a man, Charlie Peace [notice his last name]. Charlie was a well-known criminal in London who faced execution by hanging. When he was marched to the gallows, a minister walked behind him. In keeping with custom, the minister read aloud this passage from a prayer book, Those who die without Christ experience hell, which is the pain of forever dying without the release which death itself can bring. When the minister read these chilling words, Charlie Peace stopped marching, turned to the minister, and shouted, Do you believe that? The startled minister stammered for a moment and then said, Well, I suppose I do. Well, I dont, said the criminal. But if I did, Id get down on my hands and knees and crawl all over Great Britain, even if it were paved with pieces of broken glass, if I could rescue just one person from what you just told me. I wonder if you noticed something in the story. Did you notice the minister’s response to Charlie’s question? , Well, I SUPPOSE I do [“I GUESS I do”]. This minister is not sure if hell is real, yet he repeats words of eternal pain and suffering. The main point, at least for me, is Charlie’s closing remark: But if I did, Id get down on my hands and knees and crawl all over Great Britain, even if it were paved with pieces of broken glass, if I could rescue just one person from what you just told me. I wonder how much the church, today, believes about eternity and if there really is a heaven and a literal hell. I say this because, in most circles, evangelism is way down. There are approximately 35 members of EBC and if each of us would pray for just 3 people to lead to Christ in 2014 the kingdom would grow by 105 people.If you add the original 35 back in we would be 140 believers strong and then continue to do that again each year until Jesus tells us to stop. Now I don’t advocate “fear salvation” [what I mean is scaring people into heaven] but I do if each believer had just a touch of the fear of hell in their loved ones future, would it generate a more evangelical community? “If I really believed in a literal hell I would ___________________.” You fill in the blank.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 10:50:57 +0000
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