What do you know about The Salvation
Army?
· Did you know that in the 19th Century people were actually dying working in match factories – the chemicals or something would rot their jaws away until they died. The Army actually took over a match factory, paid people a living wage and invented matches, like the wooden ones we still use today, that don’t kill people!
· And did you know that the Army actually ran one of the world’s first sting operations to break up a human trafficking ring?
· In Canada, The Salvation Army provided the first probation officer.
· And who has ever gone to a movie? Who has ever liked a movie with an Australian in it: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Hugh Jackman, the Wiggles…? In Australia, The Salvation Army started their whole movie industry.
All of this is true and some people
loved the Army for all of this and people were joining the Army but still when
people stood on stage like this some people would take tomatoes like these and
actually throw them at the Salvationist who would be standing on the stage
speaking like I am today. They would try to shout them down and drown them out.
They would rush the stage. And the Skeleton Army that would follow the
Salvation Army around would throw the fruit, call out the comments, physically
assault them and even kill some – but the Army kept doing and the Army kept
preaching. So I ask you: when the Army did all the great stuff why would they
attack the Army preachers? And why would the Salvation Army keep preaching when
they were risking their lives to do this?
we have been serving God by working to
rescue people from since our very beginning: we rescue people from addiction,
prostitution, homelessness, and more; and we try to help people to a future
where we can instead be saved from all of the bad things for eternity if we
just know the way, the truth, of that life. Doesn’t that sound great? No more
tears; no more pain; no more suffering? That is our message!
It is fundamental to who we are: we can
be saved to Heaven from hell and from hell on earth -but some people didn’t
like that and so they would follow the Salvation Army around and they would
throw the fruit, call out the comments, physically assault them and even kill
some of us.
In my time in the Salvation Army I have
seen many people saved from this and I have seen some lives really transformed.
I have seen people healed of addiction; I have seen people cured of AIDS; I
have seen people cured of cancer; (Now God is not going to heal all of us all
the time; at some point He wants to call us home to heaven in Heaven) and I
have also seen people succumb to terrible ailments albeit in peace as they are
comforted by the Lord in their time of need. Just after I moved here from
Toronto one of my close friends there died from AIDS – but he knew the Lord and
I believe he is with Him now. I have seen people whose whole lives have been
transformed, now experiencing heaven on earth and/or looking forward to heaven
in Heaven. I have served God and the Army not only here but also Vancouver’s
DTES, Winnipeg’s North End, Stoney Mountain Penitentiary, Inner City Toronto. I
know and have known people still trapped in very real hells. It breaks my
heart. What breaks my heart even more is that they are missing out on the
safety and joy of the Lord in the midst of all life’s struggles. Life can be
hard. When brutal things happen, wouldn’t you like help and comfort to get through
it from the Creator of the whole universe, if you could get it?
It is our desire to see people saved
from all this stuff even if trying to help people causes some to scream at us,
throw tomatoes at us, attack us and kill some of us. Really, if you believe
with me that there is a way for people to be saved from all of this, wouldn’t
you tell them? Wouldn’t you want them to be saved?
In The Salvation Army, as well as
pointing people to eternal salvation with Jesus and helping people through addiction, helping trafficked people,
helping homeless people and hungry people, we also do a lot of work helping
people in natural disasters: forest fires, house fires, floods, tsunamis,
hurricanes, etc.
I was able to be in Texas shortly after
a hurricane struck Galveston Island in September 2008: more than 1 million
people were evacuated from Texas but probably more than 100 people were found
dead as a result of the Hurricane and flood. I was on the first deployment with
the relief team and bodies were still being found when I left.
Food and water: this was a big part of
The Salvation Army mission. We had 30 food trucks from which we served around
75 000 hot meals every day, and gave people water and ice. Ice was very
important. It was around 90 F. And the food: many people told me that without
The Salvation Army they wouldn’t have eaten at all. Even though they lived
through the flood, they wouldn’t have continued to survive.
When we were serving down there, I heard
more than one account of a contemporary miracle paralleling that of the fish
and the loaves. Our food trucks were instructed to make sure that they gave
away all of the food before they came in for the night. They did not want food
returned when people were going without. It was getting late and one truck was
seeking someone to give its last container of food to. They prayed. One person
then saw a line of about 12-18 tired and hungry looking construction workers so
they headed over to offer them their food. They were really appreciative.
As they were feeding these men, a number
of school buses filled with people pulled up. It is my understanding that they
served over 800 meals at that location – no one went away hungry. Feeling
blessed by what the Lord had done they started to clean up. (Now there was a
non-believer, a Red Cross worker on their canteen with them that day). Someone
picked up the container from which they fed the 800 meals and read from the
side of it, ‘serves 90 meals’. The Lord fed more than eight times that number
and no one went hungry. The Red Cross worker who was helping them on the truck
that day began to cry. He said that he had never believed in God – until now.
God provided for the salvation of not
only those He spared from the flood but God also provided for the Salvation of
those left behind without food or anyway of making food and God also provided
for the salvation of the Red Cross worker.
No one needed to die when the hurricane
struck. There was lots of warning and it was easy to get the bus out of town.
However, some people chose not to be saved. There is a story of one 19 or 20
year-old who stood on the waterfront, intentionally defying the storm. He was
swept away to his death. I met a man who lost his home and his business and
praised the Lord for his insurance but he wondered why his brother chose to
stay behind and die. How does he deal with the fact that his brother rejected
salvation?
This is really the same for us today
here. We can all be saved; we can all escape eternal peril. This warning was
sounded 2 millennia ago – through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Praise the Lord! He gave his life so that anyone, everyone can be saved.
Jesus died on the cross and rose again
so that no one needs to perish. The sad thing is that some refuse to take the
bus to heaven. Some ignore the early warning system. Some defy God. Some refuse
to be saved. Some friends and family are like that man’s brother. Some friends
and family are like that 19 or 20 year old – defying God and awaiting eternal
death. It is sad. It is tragic. It is heart-breaking. It is for these friends
that we received the tomatoes and it is for these friends that Christ was
nailed to the cross.
I want to share some good news though:
the story of Scott and the story of Paul. Scott was a food truck worker who had
accepted the Lord not too long before coming to Galveston to help out with the
flood relief and Paul was a 12 year-old boy.
Scott was working on of one of our food
trucks. Paul lived in a small apartment with 10 other people and was familiar
with the neighbourhood activities of gangs and drugs. This boy saw our canteen
near his home and wanted to help. He approached Scott and volunteered to help.
Scott welcomed him with open arms and very quickly made an impression on Paul -
he kept coming back. Scott even gave him T-shirt and hat. The look on Paul’s
face was worth a million dollars or more.
The evening before Scott was to return
home from his deployment, I had the opportunity to give him his debriefing.
During this exit interview we began speaking about Paul. Scott told me that he
had prayed with Paul on a number of occasions and that Paul was asking about
Jesus. I asked if Paul had asked the Lord into his heart. Scott said ‘not yet’
and asked me to help him do that.
The next day, Sunday, Scott, Paul, and a
number of other volunteers working on the canteen eagerly awaited our arrival –
Paul was ready to ask the Lord into his heart. We arrived and I encouraged
Scott to lead Paul in the ‘sinners’ prayer’. After a simple confession of sin
and profession of faith, Paul was welcomed into the family of God. We then sang
a verse of Amazing Grace and Scott presented Paul with a Bible.
While we were celebrating Paul’s
proclamation of salvation, two apparent ‘good-ole boys’ rolled up in a pick-up
truck with their radio blaring Hank William’s “I Saw the Light.” They were
angels. They were messengers of God who had come to celebrate with us, then
they were gone.
In the midst of all the turmoil and all
the suffering God was there just like in the midst of all our troubles and all
our sufferings, God is here. He offers this very same salvation to us that he
offered to Galveston, Texas in 2008.
Today we have the same choice as the
people of Galveston Island. We can either defy the impending storm and perish
like the nineteen year-old boy or we can heed the warning; we can see the
light, accept salvation, and celebrate with the Angles sent from God in Heaven.
I know that I will never be able to hear Hank William’s, ‘I Saw the Light’
again without being reminded of God’s glorious Salvation on that day.
For those of us who have already
experienced the salvation that Scott, that Paul, and that so many others have
experienced, for those of us who know we are going to heaven where there is no
more pain or suffering and for those of us that know that we can turn to God in
our pain and suffering until then, it is my hope that every time we hear the
song ‘I Saw the Light’, that indeed we might turn to Lord thank the Him again
for His glorious Salvation.
Those who are Mercy seat counsellors I
will have you come forward in a moment.
For those of us here who haven’t
experienced salvation yet; for those of us maybe who are still living through
hell on earth and who would really like to be free of the pain of suffering and
instead feel God’s comfort both now and forever. In the midst of the real
storms of our lives, for those of us who would like God to save us and keep us
from the very real everlasting storms, for those of us who would like to
experience heaven in our hearts now and a home in heaven in our future, I
invite you to come forward now.
Let us pray.
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