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Leave None Behind
A sermon by Rev. Jim Pardue
Interim Preacher
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Last Sunday night was Oscar night in
Hollywood. You are aware that once a year the motion picture industry gives
awards to people who have produced the most important films, or have done the
best job in being a star in those films. And you know a little bit about how
that goes. They name five people in each category. And then they announce who
it is and finally at the end they open it up and say this is the winner.
In 1981 was an Oscar night that many of you
remember, and many individuals who don’t remember anything else about Hollywood
would remember what I’m getting ready to tell you.
It was the time when they opened up the best
picture of the year. It is opened and then the man said the winner is “Chariots
of Fire.” If you remember that movie, it is the story of a young man who felt
committed most of his life that God was calling him for something special. But
he also learned that as he grew up into a young man he began to understand that
he could run faster than anybody else around. He actually went in for the
Olympic tryouts found out that he was number one and he was asked by the country
of Scotland to take him to France where he could represent England in the 440
yard dash.
The man’s name is Eric Liddle. When he got
to Paris, he found out that the race was going to be on Sunday. He went to the
leaders and he told them, he said “I have come, I’m appointed by my country but
I can’t run a race on Sunday. Sunday is the day I’ve dedicated to God. So, is
it possible some way that I can run on Monday?”
Well, the people began to stir and how can
this be… and finally they agreed and on Monday the young man of conscious was
the man who ran the 440 yards and he came in number one and set a world’s
record.
Well, not only did he become known because
he came in number one, but he was known because he was a man who had a conscious
and man with a commitment to God.
When he came back, they said he could have
become a multi-millionaire. Everybody wanted his name to use and everybody
wanted his name on their products. But Eric said no, he said, “God called me to
be a minister.” And if you go to the Hope Park Presbyterian Church in St.
Andrews, Scotland, they will tell you that one of their pastors was named Eric
Liddle. Eric was pastor of the church which was right off from St. Andrew’s
University. He stayed there for years as their pastor and then went to them and
said, “God has called me to be a missionary in China.” He went to
Tianjin, China. He worked in schools and
finally felt that God wanted him to go out into the country, and so he began to
go out and do evangelistic work out in the back parts of China.
In 1943, they looked up one day and the
Japanese forces in WWII were in their town taking over all of the people who
lived there. I never knew the rest of the story. I had the opportunity to go
study at St. Andrews and so I said, “I’ve read this story and heard about it,
now I want you to tell me the rest of the story.”
When he was arrested, thrown into a POW
concentration camp, there were 1800 people in an area of 150 by 180 yards.
There was no water, no food, there was no sewage. The only way that they got
anything to keep them alive was a guard would come out once a day and throw food
from a bucket over a fence, give them a little water and they were to stay there
not knowing how long.
Eric, when he was there began to be the
minister to everyone - but particularly to the children. And they said that
everyday he would get out and play with children and then he would sit down and
tell them about God.
One morning they were waiting for Eric to
come out. Here’s this athlete – bright, young – waiting for their special
friend to come out and he didn’t come. And they went inside and realized that
the athlete in his early 30’s had died.
They said that the pall bearers that day
were the men, but the honor people who went in front of the casket were all of
the children, because here was a man who had ministered to them and helped them
to know about Jesus Christ.
Another part of the story which I never
heard was that there were two men in the concentration camp and they escaped and
they said to themselves, “You know what were not going to do… we could go and
maybe find the American forces that are coming across China. We’re not going to
do that. We’re going to try to steal a short wave radio. We’re going to learn
what’s going on all around us and we’re work some way to try to get the word
down to Eric and the other leaders in the concentration camp.”
So these two Americans stole a short wave
radio, went up in the mountains and listened so that they could find out what
was going on. What they found out was that in the camp one of the Japanese
guards was a Christian and what they would do in the night is that they would
listen to the radio broadcast. The Japanese man would then take a little
capsule and write a little code, stick it up his nose and go in to see how the
prisoners were. And he would always say, “Oh, I’ve got a cold today.” And he
would blow his nose and out would come the capsule and they would sit there and
read it. And it has been said that they probably knew when the Americans were
going to get there before the Americans did.
The Americans did come, release all of the
rest of the people who had not died, and somebody asked the two men, “Why did
you do that? They could have found you, they could have killed you, why would
you hang around and try to get word to these people in the concentration camp?”
The person who wrote the story said the two men looked at him in almost
disbelief, “Why would you ask a question like that?” And then this word which
is etched in history… “We could not go off and leave these people behind.”
Now, let’s look at our story from the Bible,
2nd Kings chapter seven. In Biblical times when there were wars
between different groups, what they would do is that one group who had greatest
amount of power would come in and surround the city. Then they would wait until
the people literally starve to death, and then they would go in.
The story that I will allude to today is one
of those stories. The people were inside the city, the army was around them,
they were all starving to death. And then God did a miracle. God created such
a noise one day that these people thought that it was another army that was
coming after them. So what they did was just leave everything and run as far
and as fast as they could. Then these outside that group – not inside the city,
but outside – they always asked the lepers to be out there. They thought it was
contagious and they pushed them away, and you live out there. And one day,
these men who had leprosy, came upon this camp. The people were afraid, they
had run off. All the food was still there… and listen to what they story says.
"The men who had leprosy reached the edge of
the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away
silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered
another tent and took some things from it.” Listen to this, “Then they said to
each other, ‘We're not doing what is right. This is a day of good news and we
are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake
us. Let's go at once to the royal palace.’"
Here were these men not knowing where the
rest of them were said, “We’re going to stay around until we can get word and
food to these people that we will be able to save them. We will not leave until
they are taken care of.”
This story has been woven into American
history. 9/11, an airplane hits two towers in New York City, the whole place
explodes, fire is going everywhere, you are not knowing whether the place is
going to fall in or not. And you look on television, and my God, there goes
firemen up. And for those who lived through the experience, they asked
them what were they trying to do and they say we have a code as firemen, we will
not go off and leave them; we want to make sure everyone is reached.
Not very far from here last year, there was
a coal mining accident; there were nine men who were missing. Every morning
coal miners went in looking and they said, “What are you doing?” and they said,
“We have a code, we’re not going to go off and leave until everybody is able to
go off together.”
Many of you have been up to Washington D.C.;
you’ve gone to the Vietnam Memorial. One of the last times I was there, there
was a hulk of a man with his old army clothes, had the beret on and he was
sitting there crying. And I heard a man walk past him and said, “Sir, why are
you crying?” He said, “Do you see that name?” And he took his fingers went
across it like this… “Do you see this man? He drug me out. So I would be
saved, but died in the process. And I come once a year to thank the man for
what he did for me.”
Isn’t it interesting that fire departments,
coal miners, military – all have a basic code… we will not go off and leave the
men in our group.
What I hope will be written in your memory
today is that as a believer in Jesus Christ, you will make a commitment to God
and to the people around you – you will not go off and leave them. You go on to
Heaven, but they didn’t make it. They didn’t make it, but not because they
could not have been reached, but because they were not, because people didn’t
care enough to reach out to them. My, what a sad story that is going to be.
And one of the commitments you ought to make, is to say “Dear God, I pledge to
you again today, there will not be a person in my household, there will not be a
person where I work, there will not be a person in the community that I will not
do everything I can to win them to Jesus Christ.”
There are people who have left this church,
they have gone all around the world motivated by that one thing – I want to tell
everybody in the world about Jesus Christ. My, what a difference it would be if
you would do it.
We have been blessed in our family. Our
only daughter is a missionary with Southern Baptists. They left the states ten
years ago; nearly eleven now, went to what is called the poorest nation in the
world – which is Mozambique. They lived there six years and then were
transferred down to South Africa and they live in Cape Town. Every Wednesday,
my daughter and another missionary go over to kind of a rugged area where 40
thousand people are jammed in tin roofs and cardboard. But many of them have a
child who has very much difficulty with their body. And they go every Wednesday
and minister to them.
This past Wednesday afternoon, we got a
phone call and realized it was my daughter on the other side, and said, “Amy
what’s happened?” “Well, I want to tell you that while we were there with the
handicapped children that two men broke into the door, they had guns. Pointed
the guns, took everything that we had, stole the missionary car, and we wanted
you to know that we are all right.”
One thing that I understood better Wednesday
than I’ve understood in a while – the reason that she then ended by saying
everything’s okay, we’re going to stay on and do what God has called us to do.
That’s not a one-time story; there are
thousands of people around the world who are doing that. Who care so deeply for
others, they don’t want to have anybody who hasn’t heard the story, anybody who
doesn’t understand how you become a Christian, and everybody will have the
opportunity to come to know Him. “I will not go and leave somebody else
behind.”
One of the best friends that I had was Dr.
Carl Bates who for many years was the esteemed pastor of the First Baptist
Church of Charlotte. Dr. Carl said one day he was praying and he said, “Oh God,
fill me afresh, oh God, fill me afresh.” And Carl said, “I heard God say,
‘Carl, as little as you’re planning to do, you’ve got all you need now.’”
Do you understand if this reaching every
person that you can for Jesus Christ – if that’s not priority, then God is not
going to empower you to do what you’re not committed to do. My, how today, you
need to say, whoever they are, wherever they are; we want to help them to come
to know Jesus Christ.
I went out to a small town to lead a
revival, it was a few minutes before seven o’clock on a night I’d spoken to all
the fellows who were standing over here, and I looked over this way, and it was
the most rugged looking fellow I’d seen in a long time. Nothing seemed to fit,
and what seemed to fit seemed to be fitting on the wrong piece of the body. You
know – it just didn’t fit. And I was in a little hurry anyway, and I said well,
I think I’ll just go on in. I got in the front door of the church and then I
thought, “that’s not right, don’t do that.” So I turned back out and went over
and talked to him.
He said, “I look funny, don’t I?” I said,
“Yeah, tell me your story.” It was a story of abuse of the body and abuse of
the spirit. He said, “But I want to share something with you.” He reached in
his pocket and he gave me a letter. “I want to tell you this story then I want
you to read the letter.”
He said, “I abused my body and abused my
life and abused everybody around me. But the people in this church came to me
in so many different ways and said we care for you and love you in Jesus Christ,
and just a couple of months ago I gave my heart and life to Jesus. I was
baptized in this church.”
And he said, “When I was baptized I said,
‘Lord you gave me one son, he lives in Houston Texas, and I’m going to go tell
him the story myself.’”
He said he saved up his money and got on a
bus and went to Houston. He said he sat around and the son said, “Dad what did
you come over here for?” He then told him the story of how he’d come to know
Christ and how he’d been baptized. He said, “I wanted to ask you if you would
come to church with me tomorrow.” The boy said, “No daddy. I know you’ve got
enough problems, and I don’t want to go.” He said, “Is it alright if I take the
two grand-girls?” They said, “yeah, if you’ll get up and get them out – we like
to sleep in on Sunday.”
Saturday night he ironed those two little
girls’ dresses. Got them up the next morning and had them breakfast and had
everything ready and had ribbons in their hair. He said, “I put one hand in
this six year old, and this one in the eight year old and stepped outside and
found the first person and said, ‘Can you tell me where a Baptist church is?’”
He said, “I walked for a mile and a half with two girls holding on to my hands.
I bet everyone was saying ‘don’t he look funny?’” He said, “I took them to
Bible study class and took them to church. And then we came on back home.”
This is the letter:
Dear Dad,
We’d like to pay
your way to come to Houston. Because next Sunday night Millie and I are going
to be baptized. And we want you here to read the scripture.
Do you know what reached the man who said,
“I look funny?” You know who reached his son who said, “I don’t want anything
to do with God or anything to do with church?” It’s a four-letter word. It’s
C-A-R-E. They got past all the barriers because they understood that they cared
for him in Jesus Christ.
Outside of this wall, there are people after
people who need the touch of caring. And I urge you today to let the Spirit of
God write that within your heart. It’s all of what Jesus is about. You’re
never going to understand Him, until you understand there’s not a person beyond
his reach. There’s not anybody that he’s going to turn his face on and He’s
sending you in His name to reach them for Jesus Christ.
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