Where does our condemnation lie?
A little while back I went to see the movie "End of the Spear" with some friends (you can view that blog here). It was a very interesitng movie. Between it and some good conversations with a friend (thanks, Carolyn!), I became more curious about people like Jim Elliot and Nate Saint. I later borrowed the book "Through Gates of Splendor" from Pastor Tim.
I'm reading that book now. I'm only three chapters in, but I stumbled across a quote I've found out is pretty well known but it was actually my first time reading it. It was a quote from a letter Jim Elliot had written to his parents in 1950.
Jim had determined that his calling was to be a missionary to Ecuador. When he told his parents of this, they had written him asking why he couldn't be better used to spur Christians on here in the United States. This was part of his repsonse...
"I dare not stay home while the Quichuas perish. What if the well-filled church in the homeland needs stirring? They have the Scriptures, Moses, and the prophets, and a whole lot more. Their condemnation is written on their bank books and in the dust on their Bible covers."
Have you ever thought about that? What is our condemnation? America is once again a sleeping giant that has no desire to wake up. Here we are with all these resources and all these capabilities to be a God-honoring country, but we just lack desire. We lack the desire to send more than what we think we have overseas or even to put more than what we think we have into our own local church! We lack the desire to pick up our Bibles and look inside!! Our parents and grandparents couldn't have been that far off base, could they have been?
"The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine through the land not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. People will drift from one end of the country to the other, roam to the north, wander to the east. They'll go anywhere, listen to anyone, hoping to hear GOD's Word--but they won't hear it." Amos 8:11-12 (NIV)
How close are we to that? What will we do when we do get to that point? Are the servants of the Most High hiding the word of God in their heart so that htey're prepared for a time like this... or is our condemnation written in the dust on our Bible covers?
I'm reading that book now. I'm only three chapters in, but I stumbled across a quote I've found out is pretty well known but it was actually my first time reading it. It was a quote from a letter Jim Elliot had written to his parents in 1950.
Jim had determined that his calling was to be a missionary to Ecuador. When he told his parents of this, they had written him asking why he couldn't be better used to spur Christians on here in the United States. This was part of his repsonse...
"I dare not stay home while the Quichuas perish. What if the well-filled church in the homeland needs stirring? They have the Scriptures, Moses, and the prophets, and a whole lot more. Their condemnation is written on their bank books and in the dust on their Bible covers."
Have you ever thought about that? What is our condemnation? America is once again a sleeping giant that has no desire to wake up. Here we are with all these resources and all these capabilities to be a God-honoring country, but we just lack desire. We lack the desire to send more than what we think we have overseas or even to put more than what we think we have into our own local church! We lack the desire to pick up our Bibles and look inside!! Our parents and grandparents couldn't have been that far off base, could they have been?
"The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine through the land not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. People will drift from one end of the country to the other, roam to the north, wander to the east. They'll go anywhere, listen to anyone, hoping to hear GOD's Word--but they won't hear it." Amos 8:11-12 (NIV)
How close are we to that? What will we do when we do get to that point? Are the servants of the Most High hiding the word of God in their heart so that htey're prepared for a time like this... or is our condemnation written in the dust on our Bible covers?