WORDS IN RED

WHO IS LISTENING I

23 And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. 24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. Luke 4:22-24 (KJV)

 

            Jesus had opportunity to preach in his hometown of Nazareth but they chose not to hear his precious words.  In fact they threw him out of the city and would have thrown him headlong down a mountain had he not escaped.

 

            As he spoke to them Jesus relayed to them that he knew he would not be accepted.  “No prophet is accepted in his own country.”  Luke 4:24.  Yet what gets my attention is what he said next.  “Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.”  Someone was listening.

 

            It often amazes us who is really listening.  In I Kings the seventeenth chapter and the ninth verse, God said he had commanded this widow to care for Elias.  She was not in Israel but in Sidon.  Nevertheless this widow was listening to God.  We may think that we are the chosen group of people but if we are not listening God will take his business elsewhere.  You would think that God’s greatest work would be taking place here in the United States.  One of the largest Christian churches in the world is in Lagos, Nigeria with seventy-five thousand in weekly attendance.  Two other churches in the same city have fifty thousand and forty thousand respectively.  The largest Baptist church in the world is not in America but in Suwon, Korea with thirty thousand in attendance.  The second and third largest Baptist churches at twenty-three thousand and twenty thousand are also in Korea.   Does it raise the question “Are we listening?”

 

            Jesus did not find the hunger and thirst for the Word of God in Nazareth that he found outside of Nazareth.  He may not be finding the desire for the gospel in the United States of America that he finds beyond our borders.

 

            Lord, please give us a hunger and thirst for your blessed words, especially your Words in Red!

 

Yours in Christ,

 

Brother Randy Burtram

 

(Originally published April 19, 2015)