The waves are severe, water is filling their craft, lightning tears across the tumultuous sky, the winds howl like the cries of wolves. And in the midst of it all, 12 men are panicking. With weak faith and fear tearing them apart inside while the storm rages outside, they wake up Jesus with an incredulous almost rude manner, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38).
Whether cried audibly, from the heart, or when it is too late in the depths of Hell (Luke 16:23-24 ), the cries of all of mankind from the deepest and sincerest place of hearts, “Lord God, we are perishing!” Does God care? Does God turn a blind eye? Does God chuckle as souls of humanity pouring through the gates of Hell like the waters flowing of Niagra Falls? Not at all! As Peter declared with eyes burning with tears, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). The cries of everyone’s souls ring abundantly clear and radiates loudly through the chambers of heaven. Save us, is the cry from earth.
God extended His arm of mercy toward all of mankind many times but at His apex when He sent His Son Jesus the Christ to redeem mankind. Scriptures and time would not allow of all the times God saved and desires to save us all.
And then from the halls of glory an even louder cry rings out that drowns out even the pained cry from mankind, “Whom shall I send, and who shall go for Us?” (Isaiah 6:8). And such is the question that for millennia that has not stopped. Whether in agony, pain, tears, and full of compassion, the cry of God spills forth unto the whole earth. Do we hear it?
Another question from the ancient texts of the Bible (I feel) are clamoring louder and louder, begging for a decision to be made out of all of us, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). And we, Christians as well, stand completely dumbfounded, “But the people answered him not a word” (end of 1 Kings 18:21). Aren’t we living toward God? Aren’t we the redeemed of the Lord? Aren’t we living toward God?
And yet God sits on His throne in bewilderment pondering why isn’t His people reaching their hands into the seas rescuing the lost souls of man, just as Jesus reaches His hand out to Peter when he began to sink. CT Studd declared this statement that ought to challenge our passion (or lack of) for the lost, “Some wish to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” Oh we attend church, we may read our Bibles occasionally, we sing songs while lying through our teeth “Here I am wholly available...” and “Here I am send me to the nations...” and yet how many of us hear the cry from God, “who will go for Us?” We spend time on our Facebook, ESPN, Hulu/YouTube, careers, shopping, etc and yet the moments of sharing, extending, freely giving the gospel to at least one person swims past us like a fast-flowing river carrying logs down stream. We turn our hearts away from friend and neighbor because we don’t like the color of their skin, or have said the wrong thing, or some other offense while Jesus challenged all of us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We hear messages and are challenged at church to give to support of the front-line workers who surrendered their lives, careers, and families to go overseas, and yet we spend more at the restaurant for dinner than we give in the offering plate. Who is God? Is it the Lord or is it Baal?
The cries of earth ring as abundantly clear as the rich man did in hell (Luke 16:19-31). But do we hear the louder cries of God, “Whom shall I send, and who shall go for Us?”