An Exhortation

A couple of weeks ago, in the first of my two Sunday services, We were singing “Throw Out The Lifeline.” Some thoughts crossed my mind while we song were singing throw out the lifeline.  It says “Throw out the lifeline to danger fraught men, sinking in anguish where you’ve never been. Winds of temptation and billows of woe will soon turn them out where the dark water flow.” 

And while we were singing that, I was thinking about, first, the Salvation Army, and then I was thinking about street corner evangelists. Street Preachers.  I have done a little street preaching. I’m not very good at it, but I have done it. Not much, and not often, because I’m not very good at it. I suppose had I practiced more, I might have been better.

In the early days of my ministry, when I was just getting started, I’d go out with my pastor, and we’d preach on the street corner. And people would just walk past us, and usually we’d get dirty looks, and sometimes somebody would stop, and then they’d go on.  

I have a friend who preaches on the streets in Chicago. And he goes down into the worst part of town in the skid row where all the bars are, in the crime ridden area, down on the south side where it’s really dangerous to be, and they stand up there, and they preach. They just stand there on the street corner, and they preach, that’s all they do. They have a Bible in their hand, and they just preach. - Loudly, of course, so you can hear ‘em clear across the street. - Right amongst the bars. Right where all the streetwalkers are. Right where the sin is. They take the word of God right down where the sin is. 

Saints, we need to pray for those street preachers, because they are doing exactly, what Jesus told us to do. Going into the four corners of the earth. Preaching the message to the lost and the unsaved.  

“Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline, someone is drifting away. Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline someone is sinking today.”

 Are you strong enough to throw out the lifeline? Is your soul strong enough? Is your faith in God strong enough?  Is your belief in Jesus Christ, and the truth that he taught, strong enough to carry the message of love and peace, and joy that rests in the hearts of those who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you strong enough to throw out that lifeline? You can do it on a street corner, you can do it amongst your friends, you can do it to your fellow workers, you can do it anywhere. 

Pray this prayer that I pray every time I preach: “Father, in the Name of Jesus, I ask you to open my mouth. To put your word in my mouth so that no matter what I might say, Your word comes out. And Father, in the Name of Jesus, I ask that you put your words in the ears and the hearts of the listeners, so that no matter what I might say Your word will come through.  And I ask it in Jesus Name. Amen.” Be strong, and trust in The Lord. 


That’s my message today.

Agape
Lee