A Biblical Alternative To The Sinner's Prayer by Paul Washer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9hd3pV2VxU
I had the opportunity to preach a sermon at the end of a year. It was a responsibility I took very seriously as starting a New Year is a wonderful time to recommit our hearts to the Lord and reconsider what our lives are to be in His care.
As I prayed and researched topics about new beginnings, it occurred to me that searching out Jesus last directions and so when I did I discovered some very powerful things:
"'And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'" Matthew 28:18-20
If I had been easily content, I could have stopped there, because just those words alone should be far more than what was needed to preach from. What a marvelous topic!
In essense, our lives, unless called and gifted as an evangelist, we were to be making disciples not to be stressing over sharing the Gospel to everyone who would stand still long enough to hear the 'Four Spiritual Laws' or 'Peace With God' tracts.
Of course, it would aways be good to share these well-conceived tools, but not as we might share a bandaid and move on to the next 'wounded' heart.
The Navigators had a guideline and it is well worth considering:
"If each one won one,
and spent one year with them,
everyone in the world
would hear the Truth
in just 33 years."
Baptising them in the Word and teaching them to observe all that Jesus had commanded them. Sounds quite different from what many churches teach about getting out and 'saving' people before it's too late!
As I unpacked these verses a bit more, another question kept coming up. That was, 'What were the key teachings that Jesus had commanded of us?'
And what did I find? One set of verses in two of the Gospels:
"And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him. 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?' And He said to him,
"'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment.
"'The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depends the whole Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:36-40
and:
"And one of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognising that He had answered them well, asked Him, 'What commandment is the foremost of all?' Jesus answered:
"'The foremost is 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
"'The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.'" Mark 12:28-31
Reading through the Bible is sort of boring sometimes, isn't it? There are entire sections that seem written just to fill in some extra pages and make the book thicker!
For instance, the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. If you have a Jewish background or have Jewish friends, you would know they have over 600 rules and regulations above and beyond the Ten Commandments that they are supposed to know and follow that God shared with His chosen people.
I remember reading through an entire section once about the 'leprosy' on walls of a house and just resting my eyes wondering why in the world someone had written such strange stuff. However, after a lifetime of reading and endeavouring to understand the Bible, I know that God don't make no junk and that if something is in the Bible, it is there to teach me something important.
Recently, I found a Bible teacher who has taken some of the more obscure stuff in these four, rules-filled books and created YouTube videos around how God's Word and His prohibitions and warnings about common things are critical to observe.
Such as food. In my personal study of food regulations, I realised that every one of the regulations addressed two common themes:
1. The ongoing health and well-being of an individual
or search YouTube for Winona Judd: I Can Only Imagine
The five weeks I spent at my Mom's bedside taught me so many lessons. Some, I'm sure are still lurking in the shadows of my future to surprise me.
Easter Saturday - 18 April 2019 - 9:30PM
Once I caught my breath from being told she had slipped away during the only evening I left the hospital, the nurses asked me to wait. They drew the blinds to her observation windows and door to her room. They told me they needed to remove the instruments of their efforts to sustain her by technical power and the determination of man and earthly medicine.
Then they told me I could come in and stay as long as it took me to say good-bye. There could never be enough time! Yet I walked into the dimmed room and slumped against the door, not being able to look at her in her bed, yet. But I listened to the silence of a room that had been crowded by sounds of machines breathing for her and monitoring her heart. The life-affirming beeps and clicks became so normal for me. Now, there was just the deepest silence. The silence after a thick snowfall -- where sounds seemed sucked into the whiteness of emptiness.
The nurses had taken down all the many posters, balloons and cards that had covered her room and left them in a tidy stack on the small dressing table at the foot of her room. It made me sad to think this had to be done so quickly.
I sighed and took a big breath, slowly turned to look at her. It was as if she was just asleep...so beautiful. Perhaps they made a mistake. Perhaps, it was just a joke to see if I was paying attention.
My legs felt like lead and I wasn't sure I could move and slipped slowly to sit on the side of her bed. I watched her soft face and brushed some of her chestnut hair from her cheek. Then, I carefully laid on her, hugging her tightly and the heaving, sobbing tears finally came. I had stored away each day's tears as I tried to be a brave little girl. I did not want her to ever imagine I did not have hope she would be alright soon. I didn't want to burden her or worry her or hurt her. But it hurt me and now the tears would not stop and they were tears and sobs so deep.
But wait...
I sat up and imagined I had heard her breathing. I kissed her lips and cheeks and began to talk with her. I held her hands and told her I knew she was just kidding with me.
Somehow I needed to imagine the nurses were wrong and she WAS just sleeping. I laid my face on her shoulder and cuddled into her as a child would. I closed my eyes listening for her breathing.
I opened my eyes as if to catch her unawares anticipating her eyes would be opened and she would be smiling her beautiful smile at me. A long time passed with my trying to catch her watching me. Her hands began to grow cold and I held onto them and blew warm air on them to keep them from growing colder.
Anger ...
Then I was mad...so angry. I shouted at God that He was cruel to let me hope she would be OK. Now He had to be greedy and pull her to Him.
It was not a good talk I had with my Father that night.
Second hour
The second hour I found myself still holding her continued to cycle in and out of exhaustion and despair and back again.
I was afraid to let her go and rested on her body. The room was cold. I did not want her to catch a cold or a chill. She seemed to be growing cold and I could not allow that. How foolish to imagine I could change her release with my own selfish love for her.
Then I addressed the evil in the room. It had circled all the rooms she had occupied in this hospital all these weeks. It seemed to lurk in the corners since I first arrived.
I smiled, knowing that it was God's victory. She was now with Her loving Saviour, safe from the heartache that had followed her all my memory of her.
Interruption
I may have finally abandoned myself to exhaustion when I heard a gentle tapping at her door and was jolted awake. How could anyone bother my Mom and me! I pulled open the door to see a small nurse almost cowering as she asked me if I was alright?
I told her, of course, I was alright, but my Mom had died!
She asked me how much longer I needed. I thought how ridiculous. She said they needed to know what to do with the body. I snapped back, 'Well what does that mean? Do you want me to clear her out of the room and stuff her into a taxi and send her back to her apartment?' Can you tell I was still sailing in anger!
Once she explained they need to know if there was to be an autopsy to identify the reason for her death, but they would have to take her body to the morgue.
I told her I didn't know and shut the door in her face. I turned to my Mom and asked her what to do as if she would know. Of course, there was no answer. I was alone! It was Easter Saturday and it was late.
Doug McIntosh
I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I called my Pastor, Doug McIntosh. I think I may have awakened him, but he was gracious and then supportive when we realised why I was calling.
He lived so far away from the hospital I could not ask him to come to be with me. However, I did ask him what I was supposed to do with her body?
Should I have an autopsy or what? He asked me if I thought anyone had not cared for her competently. Of course, I would not know! He said unless I thought there was malice or poor care that perhaps I should consider that it was her time.
'But I was HERE with her EVERY day during EVERY visiting hour possible', I pleaded with him. 'Why did she wait to leave me when I was not here?
Doug, so wise, shared that he did not know the answer, but in his experience he had seen loved ones fight their trip Home because they need our permission to leave. Perhaps when I felt confident enough to entrust her to her carers it was the permission she needed to slip away without hurting me more. That hurt me like a dagger, but still needed to know what to do with her body.
Bill
He said to call a funeral director and they would handle it. I was exasperated now and asked him who he would call if it was his mother! He gave me a name and phone number and assured me, even at this late hour he would help me.
I hung up. I looked at my Mom's quiet, beautiful face and dialled the number. A softly-spoken, Southern man answered after two rings, despite the late hour, now after 10:PM. He said although he lived a good ways away that he would be there as soon as possible and to wait for him.
I put down the phone and curled up again in her bed. We had never been cuddly although we always hugged. Somehow, I had no strength and I was the one who had to always be strong and know what to do and get it done and now I was just lost and afraid as a child. More to come...
