The Sabbath Hour

Northern Advocate, 2 December 1939, Page 12

The Sabbath Hour

* ‘The Judgment Of A Lost Opportunity”

(Sermon by Mr E. Finnemore, Presbyterian Church, Onerahi.)

Text: “And they went to another village.”—Luke 9:5G.

These words by themselves may, to you, mean notning. Yet contained within them is one of the deepest tacts with which we can possibly oe concerned. They mean lives wnich have lost their opportunity. Jesus Christ was on His way from Galilee to Jerusalem. There, He knew, He would meet the gathered forces of Hatred and hostility and eventually be crucified. From Galilee He passed into Samaria, and as evening came on He sent two of His disciples into a village to prepare for His arrival. Hut the villagers sent these two messengers away. Tney refused to oe botnered with them.

Two of the disciples were indignant and wanted to punish these Samaritans by calling down lire from heaven and consuming them as Elijah Had done years before. But Jesus had a different answer. “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” How gentle, you say, and how meek! Yes, but there is something else in the words sounding like a deep bell of judgment. Jesus recognised mat judgment was already imposed. He had come to save men’s lives, but these Samaritans would not let themselves be saved. He was at their gates ready to give them all he had to give, but tney would not let him in. "They went to another village.”

The strange part about the tragedy was that they aid not know that one had happened. It did not occur to them tnat they were losing anything by sending away these Galilean fisherrnen. They simply refused to be bothered with strangers, and went about their business, feeling that they were rid of a bother. They did not know what it would have meant to have Jesus come into those streets of theirs, blow they never would know; they would not even have regrets. Tet sick people in that village who might have been filled witn new strength and hope would now lie as they nad before; little children wno nugnt have looned into His eyes and seen there something they would have remembered all their lives would now never see Him, and never know that there was anytmng that they had missed. Men and women going about the drab business of the little town would go about their same drab tasks, and never imagine that life held anything beyond. Their opportunity had drawn near and gone away unrecognised.

Jesus went to another village, but their village remained as it had been before —a poor little pool of complacency and spiritual stagnation. Tnat village is a parable, and it does not belong merely to the first century, but it applies toaay. Like the Samaritan village, we may be blind to life’s most tremendous consequences. If James and John had had their way, the town would have recognised that something serious had happened, if judgment had fallen from neaven the people would have begun to ask questions as to what it was all about. As it was, they did not ask questions because they did not care. That was the saddest part of their situation. And exactly tne same is true of us. Those moments when we think that life is at its lowest ebb may be the times of our most awful impoverishment. If God would shake us, out of our complacency with some awful judgment we would stop and listen. But God has spoken finally in His Son, and now He simply spreads the facts before us and waits for us to judge and understand.

Life’s mighty meanings come to the gate of our soul and bid us let them in. But we refuse. “Go somewhere else,” we say to the heavenly messenger. “Let me alone and go to the man who is already interested,” we say to those disturbing voices of God. “We do not want to hear about religion.”

And what harm has come to us by this attitude? We still have all we want! Y r es, so many still do have everything they want. And that is where the blight upon their lives comes in. They have refused the opportunity to know what it is they ought to be wanting. ' Jesus stands at the door of our hearts and seeks admission. Not until we let Him in will we appreciate just what He can do, for the natural man received not the things of the Spirit of God, nether can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.

The Scriptures contain some wonderful examples of men who have lost their opportunity. Among them is Felix, the Roman procurator, whose answer to Paul’s reasoning was: “Go thy way. When I have a convenient season I will call for thee.” “Christ went to another village.” Now, a man who saw and grasped his opportunity was C. T. Studd. He was one of England’s leading cricketers in the 1880’s, but, renouncing a cricket career and a fortune of £29,000, he went to preach Christ to the natives of China, and later to the African people. Ask him, “Was it worth it?” and the answer comes back from his deathbed. From the moment when he knew the end was near he ceased to try to talk about anything else, and with each little breath he could spare he could only say: “Hallelujah hallelujah.” His last written word in a letter to the missionaries was “Hallelujah.”

Jesus Christ still saves and satisfies all who will but trust Him.

May it not be said of us that “He went to another village—He went to another 4 person and yet missed us out!”