Rayford Strange
My heart broke this morning when I read of a street preacher, of whom I am one, was shot in the head yesterday while he was preaching the gospel on a street corner in Arizona. Yes, I cried.
While I do not know the good man whose heart was so burdened for the lost that he ventured out of his comfort zone behind four walls of the church to take the gospel, as he understood it, to the streets. No telling how many tears this good man wept before he finally surrendered to do this thing, only to receive a bullet in the head.
So, I melted in tears to pray for him if he is not already dead. All he wanted to do was to lead someone to Christ, as he understood it, from a pure and honest heart. He just wanted to be obedient to the call that God gave him to go into all the world and preach…. So, he received a bullet in the head for his willingness and obedience.
The charm, the peace, the rapture of a soul filled with a Saviors love, has often been expressed in tender and exultant strains.
The words of the American poet Wordsworth are glowing with this sentiment:–
O for a seraph’s golden lyre,
With chords of light, and tones of fire,
To sing Jehovah’s love:
To tell redemptions wondrous plan,
How God descended down to man,
That man might rise above.
The Apostle Peter is recorded to have been led to execution crying. “None but Christ, none but Christ.” The good old bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp, when about to be burned alive, and required to revile Christ, replied: “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me wrong; and how can I now blaspheme my King, Who has saved me?” Hugh Miller, the great geologist, writes: “The great central doctrine, the true humanity and true Divinity of the adorable Savior is a truth equally receivable by at once the humblest and the loftiest intellects.”
Poor dying children, possessed of but a few simple ideas, and men of the most robust intellects, such as the Chalmers, Forsters, and Halls of the Christian Church, find themselves equally able to rest their salvation the man Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Sir James Macintosh, the statesman and historian, in dying, sank to rest uttering in faint sounds Jesus, love! Jesus, love–the same thing.
After reading about this good man’s reward of a bullet in the head for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, as he understood it, to a lost and dying world, I feel somewhat of an indictment and a sense of guilt since I’ve not been to a street corner to preach the gospel in quite a while.
How many preachers are there in our denominations who have the whole truth, yet will not take up the cross of Jesus to the streets? They will retreat back into their local churches, smug and comfortable without one thought of denying themselves to bear a witness outside of their four walls into the streets as Jesus and his disciples did as our example. But, even in their comfort zones of self-love, they call themselves “Christians.”
Yes, I wept and prayed for yet a little more strength and a little more time to do a little better.
Meanwhile, I posted on COTH Learning Center for the members there a commentary on the Second Seal Opening of the 2nd Seal:
The Red Horse Rider, of War and Violence
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