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January 30, 2010 On Sunday 24th January we had our first ‘Focus Sunday’. It was a day where we emphasized the role of Emmanuel in connection with the Great Commission that our Lord gave to us. The verse that adorns our 
noticeboard has become our focus for 2010 “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation to all who believe…”
While preparing for the Sunday morning ministry I came across this story which just about summed up the message and what I wanted to get over to the congregation. I’ve included it here because it is a challenge to all of us.
On a dangerous seacoast off the coast of Saginaw Michigan, where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a little hut, and there was only one boat. But the completely devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, they went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many were saved by this station, so it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its life-saving work. New boats were bought and crews were trained. The little life-saving station grew.
Now some of the members of the life-saving station became unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the cots with beds and put better furniture in and enlarged it to a more elaborate building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, who were proud of it. And they redecorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely because they used it as a kind of club. Few of the members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired life-boat crews to do this work. The 
life-saving motif still prevailed in the club’s decorations. And there was a liturgical life boat in the room where club initiations were held.
About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet half-drowned people. They were dirty and wounded and sick and some had black skin and some yellow. The beautiful new club was left untidy, muddy and generally messed up. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where the victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside. At the next meeting there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s activities as being somewhat beneath them and an unpleasant hindrance to the normal social life of club. Some of the members insisted that life saving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were known as a life-saving station, but they were finally voted down. They were told that if they wanted to save all those various kinds of people with different colors of skin, strange languages and odd religions who were shipwrecked on those waters, they could start their own life-saving station down the coast.
And so they did. And as the years went by the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club. And yet another life-saving station was founded. And history repeated itself. And if you visit that seacoast today you find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent, but most of the people drown.
You must agree with me that this is a perfect and yet a very sad picture of life in the Christian Church. We seem to start off really well with the proclamation of the Gospel being our priority but as time wears on our resolve wanes and the desire to reach the lost which we once had deserts us and we turn our gaze from without to within.
Maintaining a witness is not an easy thing especially when we are surrounded by such apathy and materialism but Christ’s commission means that this is a lifetime commitment and we need always to be diligent and destroy anything that will come in to stunt that commitment. it would be awful if God must open another church in the next street because this one has died.
Haiti
The debate has been raging as to ‘where was God’ in the Haiti earthquake. I was sent this quote from the philosopher David Hume and asked what my opinion would be as the archbishop[??] had very little to say on the matter. Echoing Epicurus this is how he put it:
“Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then He is impotent! Is He able but not willing? The He is malevolent! Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?
Now about this question I can’t understand why the archbishop did not have an answer so I will attempt to give my answer.
Reading the Scriptures this is how I would put it:
First of all there is a theological answer which takes us right back to the book of Genesis and the fall of man. As sin entered the world through Adam part of the judgment of God was to put a curse upon the earth which meant that the earth and everything on it now has a finite existence.
The earth itself is suffering from this curse and is naturally running down and will one day die itself. Jesus warned that this aging process of the earth will show in an acceleration of earthquakes. So we are only seeing what He told us would happen.
It also means that we will all grow old and die around the age of 70. I would say that more people die of old age every day than from earthquakes.
Now if we want God to intervene in earthquakes does it mean that we will then want Him to intervene in the aging process of people? And so where does He stop? - Remember it was His curse as a judgment on our sin that started the aging process in the first place. Are we now asking God to save us from the consequences of our own sinful choices?
Now, if you believe in God, then that is the state of affairs as far as the Bible is concerned - if you don’t believe in God then you’ve no right to question His character in the first place!
God’s answer lay in the fact that He has sent His only Son Jesus Christ into the world to take away our sins and the eternal consequence of our sins by the sacrifice of Himself upon the cross. Whereby He is now offering us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.
This is His only answer to the problems that we all face in this life.
But there is also a more personal answer.
We all want God to intervene in the tragedies of life as long as His intervention doesn’t impinge on our own lifestyles. This tragedy wouldn’t have been half as horrific if it had happened, say, in San Fransisco - because there they have spent billions of dollars in the design and construction of buildings that will withstand the force of earthquakes of the size of this one. These people, who live on a recognized fault line, have had no such inward investment in fact they live on approximately £1 a day.
Now I wouldn’t call you greedy but you wouldn’t get out of bed for anything less than £50 -£60 a day . I wonder if we would be so keen for God to intervene in this tragedy if His intervention would mean that from now on we would have to share our vast resources with those who have nothing? I don’t mean give a donation or raise a vast sum [which is commendable] but share our resources.
More people die every day through the greed that exists in the world than through earthquakes.
For instance I am appalled that Simon Cowell has allegedly offered Posh Becks $1million to appear in just one of his shows. There lay the problem that exists in this world.
I would also say that more people die every day and more lives are ruined every day from drink related illnesses , smoking, illicit sexual relationships, over eating, laziness etc than die from earthquakes. Do we now want God to intervene in our own lifestyles and curb our own appetites and pleasures or do we want to keep that to ourselves and tell Him to mind His own business?
God gets blamed or His character questioned every time a tragedy like this occurs - but I would tell you that if He intervened to stop such things then we would like Him even less than we do now!!
Having said all that my heart goes out to these people the same as yours and my prayer is that out of this terrible tragedy something positive will begin to grow.
