Category — Books

I often think of a plaque I saw at the Old Seatack Coast Guard Station, which is now a museum in Virginia Beach. This building housed guards who would watch the sea, keeping track of steamers plying along this often turbulent coast. During rough weather or poor visibility, ships would strike the shoals and breakup — always at times of merciless surf and current. Without outside help, their passengers and crew would perish, crushed by the pounding surf, pulled out to sea by the heavy tides, and drowned. Their only hope was specially rigged lifeboats, know as crash boats, that the coast guardsmen would row through the furious surf. I saw sketches in which these crash boats were almost vertical as the rowers pulled on the long oars and tried to make it beyond the surf to rescue the ship’s helpless crew.

Many times during the rough weather I would stand on the beach watching the surf and thinking to myself, “How could anyone make it through that incredible surf? Even it was humanly possible, how could anyone work up the courage to try?”

Then I found a small brass plaque mounted next to the exit doors near where the boats, ready at a moment’s notice, rested on their perches. The plaque is hard to read because the coast guardsmen used to rub it for luck. The wording is short and to the point:

“You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.”

What made these men go out? I’m sure their pay wasn’t much. The work was grueling and the risk was high. They didn’t save everyone. The decision was made long before the storms arrived. They knew that by signing up for this job, they were agreeing to go out with no guarantee of coming back.

Likewise, when [we] sign up to follow Jesus, we say we’ll go out into the lives of our family, friends, associates, and neighbors. We agree that our mission is to bring back as many people as we can. If we’re more concerned about the comforts of having our own needs met, then we’ve missed the point of our calling and of our salvation.

We don’t staff the life station to earn our salvation, we staff it because of our salvation; not so that God will love us more, but because He already loves us; not so He’ll bless us more, but because He has redeemed us.

This quote is from the book Lost in America by Tom Clegg and Warren Bird. Although I can’t really recommend the book for its content, I haven’t been able to get this quote out of my head ever since I read it five years ago.

If we don’t “go out” and preach the Gospel, warning sinners of the judgment to come and calling them to repentance… how will they be saved? ~Greg

Porque todo aquel que invocare el nombre del Señor, será salvo. ¿Cómo, pues, invocarán a aquel en el cual no han creído? ¿Y cómo creerán en aquel de quien no han oído? ¿Y cómo oirán sin haber quien les predique? ¿Y cómo predicarán si no fueren enviados? Como está escrito: ¡Cuán hermosos son los pies de los que anuncian la paz, de los que anuncian buenas nuevas! [Rom 10.13-15]

The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day…

A desire for God which cannot break the chains of sleep is a weak thing and will do but little good for God after it has indulged itself fully…

We need a generation of preachers who seek God and seek Him early…

No man gets God who does not follow hard after Him, and no soul follows hard after God who is not after Him in early morn.

~ E.M. Bounds (Complete Works, pp464-65)

This short excerpt came across my in-box today from The Berean Call:

If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other means than any now being used. If the Church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many), he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.

–A. W. Tozer, The Size of the Soul, 128-129.

All I can say is…

I want to be a preacher like that! I want to be a preacher like that! I want to be a preacher like that!!!