SUMMER RAIN 2024: Saved a lot (James 2:14-17)

Presented to the Alberni Valley Community, 10 August 2024 by Major Michael Ramsay at the Summer Rain Music Festival at Russell Field.

 

Summer Rain. How many years has Summer Rain been going on now? We lost a couple to Covid, right? My first time joining you here was in 2019 when Major Stephen Court, Evangelism Consultant for The Salvation Army – among others – spoke.

 

I think most, if not all, of the messages have been about Salvation. I know mine have. So... how many people here already know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour? How many people know Jesus as our corporate Saviour? How many people would call themselves Christian? How many people would say that they are not or not quite yet or haven’t fully decided yet to be Christians? Anyone?

 

So for those of us who are ‘saved’? Why are we saved? For what purpose? What does it mean to be saved? In the Bible we have salvation mentioned in a number of different ways – salvation in the future for all of the cosmos, salvation held for us in heaven, salvation in the here and now and salvation from daily calamity. I submit that each of us who are saved for eternity have a duty to point everyone to that salvation; to be available for God to use to help save others for eternity but also for the here and now. Because there are real things that people need saving from here and now while we are awaiting the culmination of our ultimate salvation.

 

James 2:14-17: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

 

Since San Group has seen fit to sue the city and as we have just had the international day to highlight human trafficking, I thought that I would like to share with you a little bit about some people that the Lord has used us to save in the here and now that hopefully he will use others to save for eternity. {Note: unbeknownst to me when I was preaching a Vietnamese womAn whom I did not know, who is in relationship with these workers has been sharing her faith with them, was present during this presentation. It was a miracle of God. We spoke after and met later to follow up}

 

Genesis 37:17b-28 and 36:

17b So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. 22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.

26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.

28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt...

...36 Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

 

We know the story of Joseph being sold into domestic slavery in the Bible. These things and things similar still happen today. Jun 26, 2024, 10:18pm, I had a text from David Wiwchar of the Peak Radio Station: "Are you aware of the Vietnamese men who are about to be made homeless by san group?"

"No. Not at all...but we can help" I replied.

 

I immediately set to work to try to find out what was going on. David’s wife works for Kuu-us Crisis Line, so I texted her boss, and asked him what he knew about all this. He told me that the RCMP and the City were aware of the workers and that it was one of our employees at the Army who brought this all to light: I followed up with the employee and let them know that this really is something that is better left confidential rather than pulling in other agencies. But since the cat was out of the bag I went to work. I then contacted my boss and the Modern Slavery and Anti-Human Trafficking department of The Salvation Army seeking help and passing on the information that I had. At 3:35pm I received this reply:

Hello Michael, my name is XXXXX and I'm the Manager of Propel Anti-Human Trafficking Services. I'm trying to get a hold of you and your case worker XXXXX because I was asked to help support the 16 [alleged] human trafficking survivors that I heard presented to your staff yesterday. … With the information I have received so far I have secured a Vietnamese translator/counsellor who is on standby, a shelter on the island that can house all 16 survivors (at least temporarily), and I have an HT specific budget to help with whatever their needs are including transit to the shelter and clothing. I would love to speak with you further to get more information and support your team in whatever ways needed! My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx, hope to speak soon!

 

And then after he had contacted me earlier in the day, at 8:30pm that same night, our Member of Parliament, Gord Johns, reached out to me. He was on his was to see the workers. He asked me to join him. I hopped in his car. We met a translator who knew the people just over the orange bridge. We followed her out to the San Group property on Hector Road. The conditions the workers from Vietnam were living in were deplorable. There was sewage backed-up. It soaked the carpet. The men slept on mattresses side by side on this sewage-soaked carpet. The smell was terrible. There was no heat in the building. There was apparently no running water. The people bathed and washed their dishes in a ditch with water running out of a pipe outside. Gord, who has been in derelict buildings in town – maybe even more times than I have – said that these living conditions were even worse than the Port Pub that the city had just recently closed down because it was dangerously unsafe.

 

We spoke to the people through a translator. They said they paid between $20 000.00 and $30 000.00 to come here to work for a wage in excess of $30/hr. They said they never received that wage. They said they were subject to unsafe working conditions: working with toxic chemicals without proper protective gear, working long hours, many days in a row. They were afraid for themselves, and they were afraid for the safe transportation of their family. They showed us where they lived. They explained to us how they lived. They asked us to help them flee. I told them we could get them out tomorrow.

 

On Saturday, June 29^th, 15 of the 16 workers were taken out of town to a secure Salvation Army facility in Victoria where they could have their physical, emotional and spiritual care needs met and where they could get the legal and other counsel that they needed. I checked up on them on Sunday. They were happy. They were free. Now they were saved for the here and now. Hopefully they can be saved for eternity as well.  As Christians it is our duty to point people to salvation for both now and the future.

 

James 2:14-17 again: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

 

 

This week we had a funeral for one friend and another friend had a car accident that write off their car. I have thus  been thinking about Salvation and our spirit and the Spirit of God. The word for ‘spirit’ both in Hebrew and in Greek has the same range of meanings. Hebrew, ‘Ruach’; Greek, ‘pneuma’ bith mean ‘wind’ and ‘spirit’; therefore, we can think of God the Holy Spirit as the Holy Wind or the very Breath of God.[5]

 

John 20:21-23: Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven...”

 

I remember when I lived in Toronto and was thinking about this very topic- the Spirit of God and Eternal Salvation- the phone rang. There was a man in the hospital who had a terminal respiratory illness. He was going to die from not being able to breathe the air, the wind. I was told he might not live until tomorrow. I was told he needed a minister and I was told his family wanted a Salvation Army Officer. I was told he might be ready to accept forgiveness for his sins and receive eternal life. I ran downstairs, I told my staff, asked for prayer and someone drove me to the hospital, prayed and I headed upstairs to see the man and his family. And to make a long story short, this man who was dying of a lack of breath, accepted the Breath of God, the Holy Spirit and eternal life; so that even as he dies, yet shall He live. This man accepted eternal life, God’s Holy Spirit, even on his death bed. Praise the Lord!

 

What about us here? Is there any in this place who have never asked Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit to come into our lives? Are there any of us here who are dying of an eternal respiratory disease? Are there any of us here who are going through the struggles of life without taking hold of the comfort God offers? Is there anyone here who hasn’t prayed to receive the Holy Spirit yet? If so, you don’t need to wait until your death bed; you don’t need to wait until your dying breath; you can accept forgiveness for sins and live forever today.

 

Is there anyone here who has not asked God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus into their lives yet? Would you like us to pray for you? If so come up to the front here and we will pray for you.

 

Let us pray

 

And for those of you who have the Spirit of God inside of you already – listen to Him. He wants you to forgive others and help them and point them to salvation for eternity and also for now.

 

James 2:14-17: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

 

Let us pray.

Jonah 3-4: But What if You Don’t Love Your Enemies?

Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries, 21 January 2024, and to the Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 13 May 2012 by Major Michael Ramsay

 

This is the 2024 BC version. To view the 2012 Saskatchewan version, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/05/jonah-3-4-get-rid-of-your-enemies.html 

 

Many times the Gospel has been boiled down to something as simple as loving one another. The Law and the prophets are summed up by Jesus (Matthew 7:12) as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and (Matthew 22:37-40) “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… Love your neighbour as yourself.’ But what happens when we don’t? The story of Jonah.

 

Jonah hates. Jonah hates the Ninevites so much that rather than obey God and point them to salvation, he runs in the opposite direction (Jonah 1:1-3).  Jonah hates the Ninevites so much that when the opportunity presents itself, he decides that he would rather die than obey God by pointing them to salvation (Jonah 1:12). Jonah does not want to preach to the Ninevites because he knows they will be saved (Jonah 4:2); he hates them so much that he wants them destroyed (Jonah 4:3). He wants no part of their salvation.

 

Are we ever like this? Do we ever hate a person or group of people so much -a political party, country or leader, neighbour, family member, boss, colleague… that we wish they just didn’t exist or that they would just be wiped off the face of the earth? That is the way Jonah feels that way about Nineveh…

 

Jonah was an Israelite. An Israelite was a citizen of ancient Israel. We know that when Jonah’s story was taking place, it is many years since Israel’s civil war split the nation into two countries (1 Kings 12, 2 Chronicles 10): Judah in the south and Israel in the north. Jonah was a northerner, an Israelite.

 

Nineveh, the city whose citizens Jonah hated, was the capital of Assyria. Assyria was a country near modern day Iraq and Assyria would eventually destroy Israel (721 BCE; cf. 2 Ki17). Sargon II, King of Assyria (722/21–705/4) wrote:

At the beginning of my royal rule … I besieged and conquered [Israel’s capital city,] Samaria, led away as booty 27,290 inhabitants of it. I formed from among them a contingent of 50 chariots and made remaining (inhabitants) assume their (social) positions. I installed over them an officer of mine and imposed upon them the tribute of the former king.

About Ninevah and Assyria, J. Robert Vannoy tells us:

The brutal Assyrian style of warfare relied on massive armies, superbly equipped with the world’s first great siege machines… Psychological terror, however, was Assyria’s most effective weapon. It was ruthlessly applied, with corpses impaled on stakes, severed heads stacked in heaps, and captives skinned alive.

 

Assyria, like all Superpowers past and present, could be brutal. King Esarhaddon of Assyria, to show his power, even hung the captured King of Sidon’s decapitated head around the neck of one of his nobles and then paraded him through the streets of Nineveh with singers playing on harps leading the way. This is Ninevah.

 

From the Bible, the prophet Isaiah reports the Ninevite King boasts (Isaiah 10:13,14; cf. Nahum 2:12):

By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations, I plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings.

As one reaches into a nest, so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations; as men gather abandoned eggs, so I gathered all the countries; not one flapped a wing, or opened its mouth to chirp.

 

The prophet Nahum says of Nineveh: “Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!” (Nahum 3:1) Nineveh rose up to be a Superpower as brutal, as prideful, and as terrible as Superpowers tend to be and Nineveh was to unleash that terror on their enemies. Israel was their enemy. Jonah was her enemy.

 

These are the people Jonah was told to love so much that he would point them to salvation. Tolstoy said, “To get rid of an enemy one must love him.” The Bible says, “… Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you,” (Luke 6:27-28); (Matthew 5:44:) “… Love your enemies…and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matthew 6:14-15), “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Psalm 103: God is compassionate and forgives all our sins.

 

We know this and Jonah knows this and he did not want his enemies forgiven – not after what they did. Jonah 4:2:

He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

 

You and I here today, we know that we are supposed to reflect God and we know that God is compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. We know that, as Jesus said, if we do not forgive people, God will not forgive us. We know that, as Tolstoy said, “To get rid of an enemy one must love him;” so…

 

How do we do with that? How do we do at sharing the gospel and God’s love to see an enemy – or even a friend - saved for now and eternity? Are we any better than Jonah?

 

God asks you to love your neighbour and to share the gospel; do you love your neighbour who borrowed that thing from you last year and never gave it back so much that you want to tell him about Jesus so that he may be saved both for now – in all his struggles whatever they may be - and forever?

 

As God asks you to love your neighbour and to share the gospel, do you love your neighbour whom you did so much for over the years and she never even bothered to say ‘thank you’ so much that you want to tell her about life with Jesus?

 

As God asks you to love your neighbour and to share the gospel of salvation, do you love the policeman who pulled you over so much that you want to tell them about Jesus so that they can be saved?

 

As God asks you to love your neighbour and to share the gospel, do you love the person working at Tim Horton’s who gave you a double double instead of a black coffee for the third time this week so much that you want to tell them about Jesus so that they can be saved?

 

God is compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. God says “… Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matthew 5:44). “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” (Matthew 6:14-15).

 

Tolstoy, reflecting God’s sentiments said, “To get rid of an enemy one must love him.”  It is my hope that none of us here would have any enemies.

 

To Jonah’s story there is an interesting ending. Jonah is introduced at the beginning of this story as being on the inside of God’s blessing as a prophet of God (Jonah 1:1); he winds up, however, on the outside of Nineveh as it is saved: his own hatred is eating him up just as the worm is eating up the vine (Jonah4:5ff). The Ninevites, whom Jonah feels perfectly justified in not wanting saved, are worshipping God and presumably having a great time as they live out their salvation here, now and forever. Jonah, on the other hand, is not having a great time as he stays outside of the wonderful party of Salvation going on inside the city.

 

Let me tell you one more story. This is actually a paraphrase that I couldn’t readily corroborate but you’ll understand the sentiment even if the details may not be entirely accurate: Billy Graham was at a service with his wife, Ruth. The offering plate was passed around and he put in his money. Later he was looking in his wallet and he complained to Ruth, “I put a $20 in the plate by accident. I only meant to put in a five.”

 

Ruth replies, “Now that you’re complaining about it, not only are you out the twenty but you’ll only get credit for the five.” God received His twenty dollars from Billy Graham but Billy did not receive the full credit or the full blessing of that offering.

 

Jonah delivered God’s news of salvation to the Ninevites but he did not get the full blessing, the credit of eternal joy. Billy Graham gave God the twenty but only got credit for five. Today it is my hope and our prayer that as God asks each of us to love our neighbours enough to share with them the peace and joy of the Lord, that indeed, we won’t try to hold anything back from them but that we will experience the joy of our salvation as even our worst enemies come to the Lord because, as Tolstoy wrote, “To get rid of an enemy one must love him;” so then when we see them in paradise, what a day of rejoicing that should be. And if God can forgive even Nineveh when they repent, and if God can forgive even our own real and imagined enemies when they repent, then -when we repent- God can forgive even us; and then, like the hymn says, when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be.

 

Let us pray. 

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Matthew 5:14; 28:18-20: Signs of Joy

Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, Men's Breakfast, 24 September 2022 by Major Michael Ramsay

 

 The other day I was picking up the food truck from the mill. They were doing construction near the exit and so a lady was standing in a reflective vest, with a hard hat on, holding a sign for directing the traffic. I admit I was confused by her methods -at first- for she held the "stop" side of the sign facing me but with her other hand she was beckoning me to approach her in the large Salvation Army Community Response Vehicle I was driving.

 

I drove up to her. She motioned for me to roll down my window, which I did. She then said to me that she knows that The Salvation Army uses the truck around 5pm why am I taking it our around 9am. I explained to her that I had to fill it with gas and the volunteers and staff had to clean and stock it.

 

Then, while I was still stopped, she told me about her job. She mentioned how much she was paid - more than other companies that hold signs for road work. She spoke about the training she underwent and how good it is. She told me how one could get government assistance to pay for work boots and other things needed for the position. She spoke about the monetary benefits; she spoke about the beneficial work conditions. She, assuming I was a volunteer, told me how much she loved her job and how I could apply for a position with the company.

 

I thought it was cute that a new employee who had just gotten her job through an employment training program liked it this much. I said that it sounds like a great job (which it does) and I asked her how long she has been doing it. "Since 1980", she replied. That is 42 years ago at the time of my writing this!

 

Imagine loving your job so much that even after 42 years when you tell someone about it they just assume that you are excited because it is new to you!

 

As I reflected on this I thought of the job that we are all given, Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus tells his followers, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” and I think of the excitement that this should bring us - even more excitement that the lady holding the sign had that day! The excitement should be so much that it cannot be contained. It should be like, Matthew 5:14, "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden."

 

It is my hope that this joy of the Lord will overflow in all of our lives.

 

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John 20: So that You May Believe

Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, Resurrection (Easter) Sunday, 17 April 2022 by Captain Michael Ramsay

 

Many things happened in our Resurrection Day text. Here we have the first preacher of the Gospel, the Good News that Jesus rose from the grave. This woman, Mary Magdalen is the first Christian teacher / preacher / proclaimer of the resurrection. She doesn’t quite get it yet. But she proclaims what she sees to Peter and another person, presumably John.

Next in our Resurrection Day text, after they hear the Good News John and Peter run to the tomb as fast as they can, I assume, to see for themselves! John gets there first and stops at the door, examining the scene and taking the whole thing in. Peter – like a child or younger sibling – comes running up behind him, roars past John, who is stopped at the tomb then seems to call out: “I win! I was here first. I won!”

They take it all in. They see Jesus’ burial clothes lying there – but Jesus is gone. It says John saw all of this and believed but he did not understand. Then the disciples just went home. I can only imagine. What else could they do? …if they don’t understand? They know Jesus is gone and maybe they will know he has raised from the dead but they don’t quite understand, why? How? What next? Where is He? What is happening? They don’t understand

Now it seems that Mary had gone back out to show them the tomb and, of course, the boys went running off ahead. When she gets there Mary stays outside the tomb even after the boys leave. She’s crying, and crying, and crying. So much is going on. She loves Jesus every bit as much as the boys do. I imagine she is completely overwhelmed by the immensity of it all. She bends over to look in the tomb herself again and she sees two angels where Jesus’ would have been laying.

They turn to her -I don’t imagine she recognizes them as angels yet but maybe she does – and they ask her, ‘why are you crying?’ She answers them and then she turns around and when she does, she sees Jesus. But she doesn’t recognize Him at first – understandably: she is crying – she is probably trying to avoid eye contact. And anyway, when is the last time you went to visit someone’s grave and they tapped you on the shoulder and started speaking with you? No wonder she doesn’t recognize Him immediately.

Jesus also asks her ‘why are you crying’? Why is everybody asking her this? You’d think everyone would know why someone would be crying at a graveside, really! Especially if the tombstone and everything was in place but person you went to see wasn’t there anymore. But Jesus does ask her, ‘why are you crying?’

She thinks He is the gardener; so, He asks, ‘who are you looking for?’ I imagine He is just waiting for her to look up and see who He is or even stop crying a bit, take a breath, and listen to His voice. I imagine that is why He keeps speaking to her like this: ‘why are you crying?’ ‘Who are you looking for?’ So she will stop and pay attention. She talks to Him like He is the gardener, probably looking away and the He eventually just says, ‘Mary!’ and then she recognizes Him.

She cries out to Him and I imagine she tries to hug him but Jesus says, “remember to social distance”, “No touchie”. No, that’s not what this means. He says, don’t detain me, I still have to go see My Father, Our Father, My God, Our God.

Mary then begins to understand a little bit about what the boys didn’t’ understand and she runs off to tell them that she saw Jesus. Mary for the second time in our text is playing the part of the first evangelist: sharing the Good News of Jesus being raised from the dead and telling of her interaction and relationship with the resurrected Christ!

That evening many of the disciples are gathered together. They are concerned. They lock all of the doors – in light of everything that has been happening and what they know and do not yet understand, they are afraid of the Jewish leaders.

Picture this with me then. They are trying not to be noticed. They are afraid. They are hiding. The doors are locked. And then in the middle of the room, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “peace be with you”. I picture a similar scene as when He was speaking with Mary earlier. I wonder how long He was standing in their midst before they actually heard, listened to, and recognized Him. After however long, He then shows His hands and His side, with the wounds from His crucifixion. Everyone there is excited! No Kidding! When is the last time you went to someone’s funeral and they showed up at the lunch afterwards?! …showing you the scars from how they died.

He says again to them ‘peace be with you’ – I imagine this is after the commotion has died down a bit and everyone has had their turn touching Him and greeting Him.  ‘Peace be with you’ He says, Verses 21-23, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And then he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Now this is very important: On that first day of the week, right at the resurrection, Verse 22, we have the Advent of the Holy Spirit infilling people in the New Testament! Not forty days later in Acts Chapter 2. Acts Chapter 2 is about something entirely different. But also this, of course, isn’t the first time the Holy Spirt shows up in the Bible – He was present at creation – and before. He is there at Jesus’ baptism. He is there in John Chapter One. Here, in John Chapter Twenty, on this the resurrection day, Jesus breathes and His Holy Spirit fills the disciples. They are filled with the Holy Ghost.

Now then Thomas, for some reason, wasn’t with them. They tell him the whole story but he doesn’t buy it. He thinks they are pranking him or something! So he says unless I see and touch Him too, I don’t believe you!

Now Jesus is nice enough to accommodate him. Later they are all in the same house, with the doors locked again – and this time Thomas is with them when Jesus shows up and says, “Peace be with you”. Jesus asks him to touch His wounds, His scars. Immediately Thomas worships Jesus. Jesus then goes on to perform many more miracles and signs and He does this again and again for his disciples. So why does Jesus do all this? Why does John or whomever, and the other Gospel writers, record all this? Verse 31: …These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His Name.

And that is my hope for each of us here. May we know so that we believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and as we really are all sent, may we be evangelists like Mary and the other disciples so that others who have not yet seen Jesus may yet believe and so that they and we may all have life in His Name. For now and evermore. Amen.

 

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Acts 8:26-40: Taking Lukas from Houston to Smithers.

Presented to Alberni Valley Corps of The Salvation Army, 02 September 2018 by Captain Michael Ramsay.

Verses 39 -40: And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Cæsarea.

The Spirit just picked Phillip up and transported him all of that distance. That would be a great way to travel. It certainly is a lot quicker than the time that I have spent on the road and in ferry line-ups recently.

I just arrived home at about 12:30am yesterday morning after beginning my travels at before 8am Friday morning.  That was 16.5 hours. This week I was helping with The Salvation Army’s fire relief efforts up north; so on Friday, we woke up in Smithers, drove 4 hours or so to the airport in Prince George (where our flight was out of) and then waited for my plane that was a number of hours late and then by the time I got to Vancouver my connecting flight had gone so I had to wait through many more delays until I finally got off the plane to Nanaimo where Susan had been waiting for me for 5 or 6 hours after I was scheduled to arrive. We then began the drive here to Port Alberni.

            

Going up to help with the fire relief program was something too. The day before my flight up north I was in Vancouver to see Susan and the girls final performance and bring them home from SPAC. We then stayed and watched a football game at BC Place (The Roughriders were playing and since we moved from Saskatchewan to Toronto, Sarah-Grace and I haven’t missed a Riders game and since they happened to be playing in Vancouver when we were on the mainland, we stayed for the game). Of course, by the time it ended, It was too late to catch a ferry so we got a hotel room,  slept for a couple of hours and then drove to catch the first ferry to drive to Port Alberni to drop off the car and my kids and then get a ride from Susan all the way back to Nanaimo to travel to Prince George. There was a lot of travel.

Too bad we didn’t have a travel plan like Phillip in our text today. Verse 39: “And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: ... [40] Philip was found at Azotus.” The Holy Spirit just picked him up and flew him 21 miles in an instant. It would be nice.

Here we have a really neat story in Acts 8: it may even be the first time that the Gospel is brought to the Gentiles. The Ethiopian here is not necessarily an ethic Judean. He may have been part of the diaspora but it says he is an Ethiopian.[i] He may however have been a proselyte.[ii] Do we know what is a proselyte? A proselyte is like a recent convert. They are someone who is new to a faith. And in ancient Israel in order for you to even become an Israelite you would have to first be a proselyte, convert to the worship of the LORD. And by the time of Jesus some people, especially some Pharisees were quite evangelistic and quite good at making proselytes. The problem with this is that he was a eunuch and the Jews didn't usually make eunuchs proselytes. He was definitely an outsider who was interested in God though, after all he is coming from Jerusalem and he is reading from the book of Isaiah.

The part of Isaiah that he is reading from is neat too. He is reading from Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 always reminds me of Bill, a friend of mine. I admit that I didn’t really listen to a lot of Christian music growing up but there was one very popular Christian band from the 1980s that my friend Bill listened to and had a number of their tapes. I think we may have even done an air band to one of their songs in the 1980s. The band’s name was Stryper and they got their name from Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53: 5: "By His stripes we are healed." And this band Stryper actually was able to bring the Gospel message now only to Christian fans but they actually got radio play on real (not just Christian) radio stations and they opened for big name bands in that time period like Ratt and Bon Jovi. God used them to bring the gospel of Isaiah 53 to people who weren’t already Christians. And today in our text God and an angel are using Isaiah 53 and Phillip as a messenger to bring the gospel to this person from Ethiopia and all of us who happen to read this account afterwards.

Isaiah 53 is neat because it is all about Jesus. Isaiah 53:5 talks about Jesus on the cross, "By His stripes we are healed". Isaiah 53:7-8, that God laid on the Ethiopian’s heart reads, is also speaking about Jesus. It says, as we read earlier:

He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people he was punished

Now in the last few weeks we had just finished going through this little tract in our Sunday sermon series and last week when Susan was preaching on Acts 26, she encouraged us to share the Gospel and our testimony. She encouraged us to be prepared to tell people about Jesus and I think she even gave us some papers or maybe even some homework to help us with that. And that is great for a couple of reasons:

1. It is good to tell people about Jesus: He can help us through any situation both now and forever; our salvation comes through Christ alone and we would hate for anyone to miss the benefits of that as they face the troubles of this world and the prospect of the next.
2. We never know when God is going to give us a situation, maybe just like this one, when we can share our faith.

Let me tell you a true story that happened just the other day. As you know, I have been helping with The Salvation Army’s forest fire relief program this last week. Myself and another person, Chris, were posted to Smithers BC, to give The Salvation Army ministry lead there a bit of a break. Our job was to support the staff, volunteers, evacuees, and the people who were at the reception centre. People who were evacuated needed to come there to register and we would offer them food and emotional and spiritual support as it was required.

We were staying at the Salvation Army Mountainview Camp between Houston and Smithers and we would drive in every day.  On this one particular day as we were driving back from a day’s work in Smithers we were so engaged in our conversation or something that we drove right past the camp and right into Houston before we realized what we had done. We thought it was an accident but the truth is that we had a divine appointment. Just like the Ethiopian picked up Phillip from the side of the road, Chris pulled over and we picked up a firefighter looking for a ride back to Smithers. And just like the Ethiopian was reading the Scriptures; so was Lukas, the fellow we picked up from the side of the road. He was reading from the book of Mark. And just like the Ethiopian asked Phillip to explain to him what Isaiah meant; Lucas, when he heard we  were providing spiritual care for people, hauled out a little New Testament Bible that he had just been reading by the side of the road and flipped through Mark, asking us to explain whatever we could from his gospel: what does it mean to hide your light under a bushel? How about the parable of the mustard seed? And what is the yeast of the Pharisees? Phillip explained Isaiah to the Ethiopian, building on whatever had happened before and then he stopped by the side of the road, baptized him and was on his way. We were blessed to explain excerpts from Mark, after he had had an initial conversation with some medics and picked up his Bible. As we reached Smithers we prayed with him as we let him out of the car and we continued on our way. I have had this passage in Acts 8 going through my head ever since. I don’t generally pick up hitchhikers and if I were to, I wouldn’t expect them to have a Bible in hand asking me to explain it to them. But this is the grace of God.

God loves us so much that He has saved us. He promises that He will be with us through tough times – like losing our homes in a fire or any other such trouble – or good times – like meeting new friends and praying with and for them. And we never know when God will give us a chance to do just that. So like Susan encouraged us last week to share our testimony, I encourage us to pray and read our Bible because who knows when God may send someone into your path like the Ethiopian or Lucas who just wants you to explain the love of God to them

Let us pray.

 More daily blogs at

https://salvogesis.blogspot.ca/

More articles, sermons, and papers at

www.sheepspeak.com

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[1] Cf. Robert W. Wall, ‘Acts’ The New Interpreter’s Bible 10, (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2002),143

[2] Cf. Michael Ramsay, “Acts 10:1-16 Interpretation: The Intentional bringing of the Gospel to the Gentiles.” Presented to William and Catherine Booth College (Fall 2006). Available on-line: http://sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm#Acts%2010:1-16

[3] Cf. N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone Part 1 (Louisville, Kentucky, USA: WJK, 2004),133.

[4] Edouard Kito Nsiku in Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), ‘Isaiah 52:13-55:12: The Suffering Servant’, 871.

Devotion 2.14/66: 2 Timothy 1:8: Unashamed

Presented to River Street Cafe, 13 May 2016

by Captain Michael Ramsay

Read 2 Timothy 1:6-8

When Christ returns it will be like a thief in the night. The time and hour we don`t know but we do know the end is coming and then some will go off to eternal happiness and some to weeping and gnashing of teeth. To know this is good news, believe it or not.

It is like disaster relief work: I have done a lot of this. A few years ago I helped in the aftermath of a hurricane. The good news is, like natural disasters in general and like when the hurricane struck Galveston Island in particular, was that even though people chose to stay behind and perish, even though we met, spoke to and prayed with people whose family members chose to reject salvation from the hurricane, people knew it was coming; they had a choice and as a result thousands of people were saved.

Can you imagine if the news announcers were so ashamed of the fact the hurricane was coming that they didn’t share the information? Can you imagine if the meteorologists were so ashamed of the fact that they did not know the exact hour the hurricane was going to strike that they didn’t tell anybody? Can you imagine if your neighbour knew the hurricane was coming and she evacuated but she never told you because she was ashamed that she couldn’t explain exactly what, why, where, how, and when the hurricane was coming? Can you imagine the horror as you look up to see your life being swept away – and no one ever told you how to be saved because they were ashamed?

Well, an eschatological hurricane, ‘the end’, is coming and it is a lot more dangerous than a temporal hurricane. There are people in this city here right now who have no idea that the end is coming. There are people out there right now who are lost and no one is pointing them to salvation.

So let us do that. Today let us be like the rescue workers who go around pointing people to safety. None of us know when our –or anyone else`s- lives are going to end. We may be taken tomorrow. None of us know when the Lord is returning and bringing with him the end to our world. But, like the weatherman watching the storm, we do know that the things of this earth are going to pass away and it is our job to share with everyone we meet the good news of the way to salvation so that they do not need to perish but instead can experience the full power of God for Salvation.

It is our responsibility to share the Gospel for the Gospel is the power of God for all to be saved both now and forever. To this end then, I encourage us all to look for opportunities to share the good news of salvation in the upcoming weeks here so that all of us here may turn to God and experience the full power of His Salvation.

John 2:1-12: They Believed.

Presented to 614 Regent Park 17 Jan 2016 

by Captain Michael Ramsay [a]

I remember when I was younger than my older two girls are now - maybe 10 or 11. I remember once we were watching TV in the living room –my mom, my dad, my sister, and I - and I, as a 10 or 11 year-old boy make some apparently hopelessly inappropriate comment about something on TV so my mom decides that it is time for my dad and I to have a sex education talk and banishes the two of us to the kitchen.

My dad and I talk about what we are supposed to talk about for a while but the conversation eventually changes to other interesting things such as God and family history. It is an easy transition from sex education to family history especially as my grandfather’s father brought the first rodeo across Canada; he was always travelling from the east coast to west. He had another reason for travelling too. He had one family out west in Saskatchewan and another family back east in the Maritimes – until, of course my great grandmother found out. My great grandfather could have used one of these sex-ed talks. I am eagerly learning all of this family history from my dad and it is starting to get really interesting as we have long accomplished our assigned topic and task and we are actually laughing about some of the more interesting family stories and other things.

It is at this point that my mom hears all the laughter. My mom comes into the kitchen and with a firm voice reminds us why we are supposed to be here. It is not supposed to be fun. It is so ‘I can learn a lesson,’ she says. ‘And how is the sex education talk going?’ She asks. To which, as an 11 year-old boy, I reply, ‘Very well, I’ve taught dad everything I know’. My dad continues, ‘Yes, I’ve learned a lot.’ That doesn’t go over so well. We laugh. Mom doesn’t. I, however, am glad that my dad had added to my comment because it means that I am off the hook and able to sneak out of the room and out of trouble as Dad is now the recipient of Mom’s attention.

Our pericope today speaks to –among other things- a relationship between a mom and her son. We have an interesting exchange between Jesus and his mother here in vv. 3 -5 of John 2. Jesus is older than 11 in our story today; he is probably in his early 30’s. He is at wedding, probably a family wedding.[1] He is there, as is his mother, his brothers, and his disciples (a least the first 5 of them, anyway).[2] The wedding is taking place in the town of Cana. Cana is really close to where Jesus, his mother, his brothers, and most of his disciples live. It is only 8 or 9 miles north of Nazareth. Eight or nine miles: what is 8 or 9 miles from here? That is still part of the GTA. This wedding in Cana is pretty close to Nazareth.

Whoever is getting married is obviously a family member or a close friend of the family because we notice that when trouble arises – the running out of wine – it is Jesus’ mother, Mary, who either volunteers or is tasked to find the solution to the problem. Mary and Jesus, his brothers and his disciples are not just casual guests. They must know the people getting married fairly well. They (or at least Mary anyway) have some significant role to play in this event.

Now we have just finished the Christmas season here and we looked briefly - as we often do around Christmas - at the 1st Century Judean engagement/betrothal arrangements that are really quite different from traditional Canadian engagements. Today, in our pericope, we have a wedding. Now Galilean weddings in the first century did have some things in common with Canadian weddings of the 21st century. There were often lots of people; friends and family would travel a great distance to attend the festivities. Then, after they did travel all that way, the family would often stay to visit for a while– especially if they walked there, which many of them would have in 1st Century Galilee.

Marriage celebrations then and there, unlike weddings here and now lasted quite a while. A wedding ceremony nowadays can reasonably be expected to last between 30 minutes and 2 hours and then add another hour or few for the reception afterwards. There and then in Galilee it was expected that the wedding festivities would last for up to a week.[3] The Bridegroom was the host. He and his family would then be expected to host all the relatives, friends, and family from both sides for this week: providing them all with accommodations, food, and beverages. Here and now in our world today it is embarrassing enough if we don’t quite make enough sandwiches for a funeral or some other event. There and then, can you imagine if the marriage celebration began on a Monday and was to last until Friday or Saturday but you ran out of food and drink for your guests on Wednesday? It would be humiliating! You couldn’t just call to have pizzas delivered. You couldn’t just have someone run down to the store to pick up a sandwich tray. You would be out of food; you would be out of wine and the whole town, your whole family and the whole lot of your new in-laws would all be thinking a few things about you if you ran out of wine at your wedding celebrations.

This is the background to the story when we get to the part of this pericope that always interests me, verses 3,4 &5:

3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him,

“They have no more wine.”

4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied.

“My hour has not yet come.”

5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

This will be Jesus’ first recorded miracle. The question many people seem to ask here is why is Jesus’ first miracle to make wine (and it is wine; it is not grape juice![4]) for people who have already had quite a bit to drink. If they had roadside check stops in those days, I probably wouldn’t recommend that any of them drive home.

The questions that strike me though are:

1) Why is Jesus’ mother even asking Jesus to do something about the fact that they have run out of wine? Why doesn’t she ask Jesus AND his other brothers who are there? This is his first recorded miracle; so why just ask Jesus? Does she expect him to do some kind of a miracle? Has Jesus done something similar at home before? In the context of the Bible here (John 1-2), it has only been in the previous few days that Jesus has even just acquired his first disciples – he probably doesn’t even have all of the twelve yet; did his mom expect Jesus to send these disciples to do something or did she know already (before he had ever performed any public miracles) that he could and that he would perform miracles such as this – making wine at a wedding? [5]

2) Another question I have pertains to Jesus’ response to his mother’s request. When asked by his mom to do something, he says: “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come,” To this my dad would respond, if I ever uttered such a phrase, “Is that anyway to speak to your mother?” Aren’t we supposed to honour our mothers and fathers? How honouring is this response?

3) And another question that I have relates to Mary’s response to Jesus’ comments. Mary asks him to solve the wine problem in whatever way he will solve it. Jesus replies in such as way as one might infer that he is refusing to help his mother: “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” But this does not faze his mother at all; she seems to ignore his objections all together and says to the servants, “do whatever he tells you”? Why isn’t Mary fazed by Jesus? Why does she seem to completely ignore his response to her as if he is a toddler or a child protesting for the sake of protesting?

Can you imagine the scene at the wedding: The wine has just run out. It is a potentially devastating situation for the bridegroom and his family and Mary and Jesus are having this little discussion as recorded in vv. 3-5.

More questions then arise, of course, such as: Why is the author of the Gospel of John telling us this story? What is the text saying? And more importantly: what is God doing here in the story?

The wedding party has run out of wine. Jesus has just had this encounter with his mother. He then proceeds to save the day by turning some jars of water that they used for ceremonial hand cleaning into about 150 gallons of the best wine possible, to be served when most people have been drinking for a while and so they won’t even notice how good it is.[6] John 2:11: “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” This miracle is Jesus’ first sign of who he is and what he is doing and his disciples put their faith in Him. Jesus’ transformation of water into wine causes his disciples to put their faith in Him.

Lots of questions: let us explore the text a little more here as we address them. This miracle of Jesus’ was no small feat. There was a lot riding on the fact that the wine would show up. If it didn’t, the bridegroom would have been humiliated. Jesus, in turning the water into wine, and not just any wine but into copious amounts of the best wine of the wedding, not only saves the day very dramatically but He shows what God can do and His disciples here and now put their complete faith in Him. This is an important part of the story.

It is the same in our world today, when we are faced with difficult situations, when we are faced with family members putting demands upon us, when we are faced with embarrassment, when we are faced with humiliation, when we are faced with even not being able to provide for our family in our world today, Jesus is there for us just like Jesus is there for his friends and family in Cana. The only questions for us then are: do we believe in Jesus, like his disciples do? And are we willing to put our faith in him, like his mother does?

Speaking of questions, I am not going to leave us hanging entirely about the questions we mentioned earlier. Let’s see what we can find in the way of possible answers. First about the question that everyone asks regarding Jesus making wine for people who had been drinking and were possibly even drunk - does that mean that Jesus condones drunkenness? No, the Scriptures condemn drunkenness more than once actually (Leviticus 10:9, Proverbs 31:4-5, Ecclesiastes 10:17, Isaiah 28:7, 1 Timothy 3:8). However, making water into wine has been associated eschatologically with divinity (Jeremiah 31:12, Joel 3:8, Amos 8:11-14; cf. also Enoch 10:19). [7] This text isn’t addressing drinking. It is addressing divinity and eschatology. Also providing this wine is a real and important part of showing hospitality to your neighbour in 1st Century Galilee, especially on an important occasion like a bridegroom’s wedding. Jesus isn’t promoting drunkenness, on the contrary Jesus is showing his faithfulness to those around him, as well as to God; and he is showing that we can put our faith in him.

Now about the other questions: the questions about the way Jesus was addressing his mother. He wasn’t actually speaking with any disrespect. The word translated ‘woman’ here in our text, when he addresses his mother can be seen as a neutral or a positive term and he does definitely honour his mother in the text by fulfilling her request and much more (cf. Matthew 15:28, Luke 22:57, John 4:21; cf. also 2 Kings 3:13, 2 Chronicles 35:21).[8] Jesus doesn’t leave her in the lurch; he saves her as he saves the festivities. Mary takes no offence by what Jesus says and she has perfect faith in him as she even instructs the servants in this story to “do whatever he tells you.”[9] I think this is good advice for us today too. Whenever we are faced by life’s crises, like Mary and the servants, we should have the faith to ask Jesus what to do and then we should have faith to do whatever Jesus tells us to do. He is faithful and we can put our faith in Him.

So then pertaining to those of us who are here today, I know that there are people in this congregation and even in this room who are facing challenges every bit as big as Jesus’ friends and family at the wedding. Some here are facing challenges of possibly not being able to provide for your family or yourself – January is a long month for some. Some here are without work. Some have even lost jobs. Some are faced with the daunting prospect returning to work after a long break. Some have serious health challenges. Some have lost loved ones, friends and family members. Some of us are grieving friends who have moved on in one way or another and some of us are faced with family problems every bit as intense as the challenges of today’s text. Some of us are facing new realities, different from anything we had ever hoped for or expected. Some of us are hurt. Some of us feel betrayed. Some of us are anxious, some of us are angry, and some of us here today are just plain sad. Sometimes life can be overwhelming.

John’s record of Jesus’ miracle of turning the water into wine has a special message for each of us who find ourselves in situations like this here today. When things look as bad as they can look; when there seems to be nothing that we can do; when it seems like our life and our world is ‘going to Hell in a hand basket’, as they say; when it seems that everything going askew, we can put our faith in Christ – just like Mary did and just like the disciples did. When everything seems to be going sideways, we can put our faith in Christ and we can turn our will and our lives over to Him. Just as Jesus was faithful in the midst of the chaos and concern at the wedding, saving the day, and his disciples put their faith in him; Jesus is still faithful here and now in the midst of the chaos and confusion of our lives so that we too can put our faith in Him and we too can be saved.

Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com 

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[a] A version of this sermon was presented to Swift Current Corps on 06 Jan. 2012. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/01/john-21-12-and-they-believed-in-him.html

[1] Cf. Rosemary King, “17th January: 2nd after Epiphany: The Marriage at Cana (John 2:1-11)," The Expository Times 121, no. 3 (December 2009): 134.

[2] Colin G.Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 93.

[3] Stack and Billerbeck, Das Evangelium nach Johannes in Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Tulmud und Midrash, (Munchen, 1924), 401. Cited in William Hendricksen, John, in New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Academic, 2007), 114.

[4] Cf. William Hendricksen, John, in New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Academic, 2007), 115.

[5] Cf. Colin G.Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 93: these were after all eschatological signs.

[6] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 538.

[7] Gerard Sloyan, John, in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, ed James L. Mays, et. al. (Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1988), 36-37

[8] ‘Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 536-537.

[9] Cf. Merrill C. Tenney, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/II. The Public Ministry of the Word (1:19-12:50)/A. The Beginning Ministry (1:19-4:54)/3. The first sign (2:1-11), Book Version: 4.0.2