Meditation for a Monday
For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takes up that thou layest not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. Luke 19:21.
Although the great preacher John Wesley had a good education, the same could not be said for all those who worked with him. At one Gospel meeting, the man who spoke used today’s text, and did so because he mistook the word ‘austere’ for oyster. He spoke about the work of those who retrieve oysters from the sea-bed. The diver plunges down from the surface, cut off from his natural environment, into bone-chilling water. He gropes in the dark, cutting his hands on the sharp edges of the shells. When he has the oyster, he kicks back up to the surface, up to the warmth and light and air, clutching in his torn and bleeding hands the object of his search. So Christ descended from the glory of heaven into the squalor of earth, into sinful human society, in order to retrieve humans and bring them back up with Him to the glory of heaven, His torn and bleeding hands a sign of the value He has placed on the object of His quest. Despite the speaker’s ‘mistake’, the Holy Spirit was able to use the message, in that 12 men were saved during that meeting. Afterwards, someone complained to Wesley about the inappropriateness of allowing preachers who were too ignorant to know the meaning of the texts they were preaching on. Wesley simply said, ‘Never mind, the Lord got a dozen oysters tonight”.
Do you know the meaning of ‘austere’? If not, you are not alone. But do you know how God is like an ‘oyster man’? Good! You know more than many who would preach today. Some eloquent sermons are delivered by ungodly men and women who don’t know the loving heart of a God who loves the world so much He would give His only begotten Son. Such preachers have no business handling the Word of a God they don’t know and who they misrepresent.
How good to know that those who would preach the Gospel in the weekly Gospel meetings of our Assemblies understand the character of the God whose message they proclaim! How wonderful to know that those who preach in each Gospel series we convene know the Saviour of whom they speak! Yes, they sometimes make mistakes in grammar or in the illustrations they use. So what? If they faithfully portray the truths of man’s ruin, God’s remedy, and man’s responsibility, God can – and does – use such messages to claim His ‘oysters’.
Don’t criticize or condemn the preachers who make mistakes, as long as they get the Gospel right. -Jim MacIntosh