---

APRIL 2003

---

Three Faithful Wounds
Rev. Bobby Bateman

Proverbs 27:6
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend,..”
Bless be the Spirit of the Lord

And lest we imagine that the preacher is the one who does the wounding, I want to read Job 5:17-18: "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth; therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty”; v.18- “For he maketh sore, and bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands make whole."

So with that in our minds I want to talk to you about three faithful wounds of a friend.

INTRODUCTION: In order to get launched into my message let me introduce a little lady who has been dead for more than six hundred years. She once lived and loved and prayed and sang in the city of Norwich, England. This little woman did not have much light and she had no way of getting more light, but the beautiful thing about her was that, with what little Scriptural light she had, she walked with God so wonderfully close that she became as fragrant as a flower. And long before Reformation times she was in spirit an Evangelical. She lived and died and has now been with her Lord nearly six hundred years, but she has left behind her a fragrance of Christ. She wrote only one book, a very tiny book that you could slip into your shirt pocket or your purse, but it's so flavorful, so divine, so heavenly, that it has made a distinct contribution to the great spiritual literature of the world. The lady to whom I refer is the one called the Lady Julian. Before she blossomed out into this radiant, glorious life which made her famous as a great Christian all over her part of the world, she prayed a prayer and God answered. It is this prayer which I am concerned with today.

The essence of her prayer was this: “O God, please give me three wounds: the wound of contrition and the wound of compassion and the wound of a heart longing after God." Then she added this little postscript which I think is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read; "This I ask without condition." She wasn't bargaining with God. She wanted three things and they were all for God's glory; "I ask this without condition, Father; do what I ask then send me the bill. Anything that it costs will be all right with me."

All great Christians have wounded souls. It is strange what a wound will do to man. Here's a soldier who goes out to the battlefield. He is full of jokes and strength and self-assurance; then one day a piece of shrapnel tears through him and he falls, a whimpering, beaten, defeated man. Suddenly his whole world collapses around him and this man, instead of being the great, strong, broad-chested fellow that he thought he was, suddenly becomes a whimpering boy again. There is nothing like a wound to take the self-assurance out of us, to reduce us to childhood again, and make us small and helpless in our own sight. Many of the Old Testament characters were wounded men, stricken of God and afflicted indeed as their Lord was after them. Jacob - Take Jacob, for instance. Twice God afflicted him; twice he met God and each time it came as a wound, and one time it came actually as a physical wound and he limped on his thigh for the rest of his life. Elijah - Was he not more than a theologian, more than a doctrinarian? He was a man who had been stricken; he had been struck with the sword of God and was no longer simply one of Adam's race standing up in his own self-assurance; He was a man who had an encounter with God, who had been confronted by God and had been defeated and broken down before Him.

And when Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, you know what it did to him. Or take Ezekiel, how he went down before God and became a little child again. And there were many others.

The wounded man is a defeated man. The strong, robust and self-confident Adam-man ceases to fight back any longer; he lays down his sword and surrenders and the wound finishes him.

But that's just what's the matter with us. We have reduced repentance to a change of mind. It is a mental act, indeed, but I point out that repentance is not likely to do us much good until it ceases to be a change of mind and becomes a Wound Within Our Spirit. No man has truly repented until his sin has wounded him near to death, until the wound has broken him and defeated him and taken all the fight and self-assurance out of him and he sees himself as the one who nailed his Saviour on the tree. I don't know about you, but the only way I can keep right with God is to keep Contrite, to keep a sense of contrition upon my spirit. Contrition is feeling very sorry for having done something bad. Today there is a lot of cheap and easy getting rid of sin and getting your repentance disposed of. The great Bishop Ussher each week used to go down by the riverbank and there all Saturday afternoon kneel by a log and bewail his sins before God.

Perhaps that was the secret of his greatness. Let us beware of vain and overhasty repentance, and particularly let us beware of no repentance at all. We are a sinful race, ladies and gentlemen, a sinful people, and until the knowledge has hit hard, until it has wounded us, until it has got through and past the little department of our theology, it has done us no good. A man can believe in total depravity and never have any sense of it for himself at all. Lots of us believe in total depravity who have never been wounded with the knowledge that we have sinned. Repentance is a wound I pray we may all feel.

III. THIRDLY, THERE’S THE WOUND OF A HEART THAT LONGS AFTER GOD.

This little woman wanted to long after God with a longing that became a pain in her heart. She wanted to be lovesick. She prayed in effect. "0 God, that I might want Thee so badly that it becomes a wound in my heart that I cannot get over.” Today, accepting Christ becomes terminal. That is the end. And all evangelism leads toward one thing--getting increased numbers of people to accept Christ, and there we put a period. Not the paradoxes: To be happily forgiven and yet to be wounded and to remember the grief; to enjoy the peace of the finished work of Christ and yet suffer to win others; -- find God and yet be always pursuing Him. When Moses saw the Glory of God he begged that he might see more. When God revealed to him that he had found grace, he wanted more grace. Remember this: the man that has the most of God is the man who is seeking the most ardently for more of God. There was a man who talked about "a restless thirst, a sacred, infinite desire,“ and that is what I want for my own heart. Among the plastic saints of our times Jesus has to do all the dying and all we want is to hear another sermon about His dying; Jesus does all the sorrowing and we want to be happy. But my brethren, if we were what we ought to be, we would seek to know in experience the meaning of the words, "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

I am deeply concerned that you and I do something more than listen, that we dare to go to God like Lady Julian and dare to ask Him to give us a faithful, fatherly wound maybe three of them, if you please to wound us with a sense of our own sinful unworthiness that we will never quite get over; to wound us with the sufferings of the world and the sorrows of the church and then to wound us with the longing after God, a thirst, a sacred thirst and longing that will carry us on toward perfection. I am praying that a "jubilant pining and longing for God" might come back on the evangelical churches. We don't need to have our doctrine straightened out; we’re as orthodox as the Pharisees of old. But this longing for God that brings spiritual torrents and whirlwinds of seeking and self-denial--this is almost gone from our midst. I believe that God wants us to long after Him with the longing that will become lovesickness, that will become a wound to our spirits, to keep us always moving toward Him, always finding and always seeking, always having and always desiring. So the earth becomes less and less valuable and heaven gets closer as we move into God and up to Christ. Dare we bow our hearts now and say, "Father, I've been an irresponsible, childish kind of Christian more concerned with being happy than with being holy. 0 God, give me three wounds. Wound me with a sense of my own sinfulness. Wound me with compassion for the world, and wound me with love of Thee that will keep me always pursuing and always exploring and always seeking and always finding."

If you dare to pray that prayer sincerely and mean it before God, it could mean a turning point in your life. It could mean a door of victory opened to you. May God grant that it be so.

If you pursue God with a deep hunger and a broken heart, He will pursue you with a Love that will surpass understanding. When God comes near the church will know the difference.

New Bridge near San Lazaro School

Groundbreaking at
Bear Creek Church

On March 2, 2003, a groundbreaking service was held at historic Bear Creek Methodist Protestant Church. For the first time in one hundred forty-five years new construction will be done on the church site. Bear Creek is located on the corner of Bear Creek Road and Highway 27 between Crystal Springs and Utica.

Construction will begin soon on the new addition, which will have a Fellowship Hall, kitchen, office, nursery, restrooms and several Sunday School rooms. This building will match the outside of the Church and will be connected by a covered drive-through.

The congregation at Bear Creek is very excited about building this structure for the glory of God, and as a means of reaching out to their community.

Southeast District Laymen’s and Pastor’s meeting

The District held it’s semi-annual meeting March 9th at Hickory Grove Church. The meeting was well attended, with all District Churches being represented. We all had great fellowship and fun. Brother Dan Sellers is our District Lay Leader. Hickory Grove Church and their pastor, Rev. Newton Pertuit went all out to welcome everyone from the other churches. Refreshments were provided by the host church. The Southeast District (Zone) is comprised of Antioch, Clear Creek, Hickory Grove, Laurel, and Neely Churches.

We look forward to our next meeting which is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 14, 2003, at Laurel Church.

Tom McDuffie, Secretary, Southeast District Laymen’s Fellowship

The Missionary Record
Dianne Reid, Editor

The King of Glory Betrayed

Scripture: (Matthew 26:14 -17) Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

BETRAYED !!! The King of Glory, the divine Son of the Eternal Father, Love Incarnate, was betrayed for a paltry sum of 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave! (See Exodus 21:32) The most precious and loving person, God in human flesh, was sold out by His familiar friend, one of the twelve who had so intimately shared in the Lord’s earthly ministry. Most of us, at one time or another have asked the question: “How could Judas do such a thing????” Considering the price tag of the betrayal, Judas apparently thought very little of the Savior of the world ..22...23...24..25...26...27...28...29...30......SOLD!

Once Satan got a hold on Judas, apparently there was no turning back from his evil deed. Love or gratitude for the Lord, who had treated him like a brother, did not deter him. Jesus had taught Judas right along with the other eleven disciples. Judas had seen the marvelous Messianic miracles. Notice in our scripture passage the depths of Judas’ treachery: (1) Judas actually sought out the Jewish leaders instead of the other was around. (2) Judas even initiated the proposal by the words: “What will you give me?” (3) Judas obligingly solved the problem of where to find Jesus and how to take him, without causing an uproar, by promising: “I will deliver him to you.” Of course, the devilish bargain was struck, and later in the Garden of Gethsemane we see Judas leading the malicious mob and then actually betraying Jesus with a kiss -- a token of friendship.

LESSONS FROM JUDAS: This Easter, as we meditate upon the Lord’s week of Passion, which culminated in His cruel, yet wondrously atoning death, and as we stand awestruck before His very empty tomb, may we reaffirm our faith, our love, and our dedication to such a one as He. You know, there are some lessons to be learned here from Judas: (1) Instead of betraying or grieving Christ, let us seek to love the Lord Jesus unreservedly, to honor, and to loyally obey Him. (2) Instead of initiating or flirting with evil, may we reject evil and initiate and carry out that which is good moment by moment, day by day. (3) Let us deliver the Lord Jesus, but not to betray Him, rather to share Him with the world He died to save. We can share in the Great Commission by “delivering” the Gospel of Grace to every corner of the globe and by shining on the corner where we are. A top priority should be to present Christ to those about us and represent Him in an honorable and effective manner. Let us be real as His disciples. A lost world, as well as the Body of Christ, need to see genuine faith and holy lives.

At Easter time each year, we Methodist Protestants have an opportunity to prove our loyalty to the Lord Jesus and His mission of salvation by participating in the Brand L. Jenkins Memorial Easter Offering, which is sponsored by the General Board of Missions. Let each one come with thankful and appreciative hearts and present a “love offering” to the One who died that we might live. We are raised both physically and spiritually by His resurrection power. Christ indeed has defeated sin and death through His sacrifice and resurrection.

THE METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH AND THE GREAT COMMISSION: “The Methodist Protestant Church was missionary in spirit from the beginning of its history. The beginning of our work in foreign missions dates back to the first General Conference in 1834. The Board of Foreign Missions sent out Rev. David James as superintendent of a mission at Cape Palmos, Africa. Missionary enthusiasm was growing so that in 1893 in Bridgeton, New Jersey the Women’s Home Missionary Society was organized. After the merger, a new Board of Missions was chosen in 1944 at the General Conference. God has prospered the work of missions in our beloved denomination.” Let us do our part in the work of missions -- get involved: pray, encourage, give, and send. For some of us it might be ......... SHINE WHERE YOU ARE OR MIGHT BE GO AND SHINE. CAN THE LORD JESUS COUNT ON US??