From across the sea

While scrolling through a Viber Chat group, I immediately took note of a link/video shared by Mr. Dick Pascual, veteran Journalist and columnist of The Philippine STAR who is presently residing or retired abroad.

Aside from the post having been shared by Dick Pascual, the title of the video certainly got my attention: “My LAST Words to the World – John Lenox” – YouTube.  Curiosity got the better of me and so I stopped my Sunday morning chores to watch and listen and it was worth every second and minute of my time especially on a Sunday morning when we dedicate the day to God. Here is message given in 2019 when asked what would be his last word for his children?

“Our lives rush past. We’ve become fixated on digital equipment that’s robbing us of time. People say to me they have no time. They have lodes of time. If you want to know how much time you’ve got? Just ask yourself the simple question: How much have I spent last week fiddling with a piece of digital equipment and doing things that have no relevance whatsoever to my profession or my life and then say have I got any time.

We’re robbing ourselves of the most important thing in life if we’re Christians, and that is seeking fellowship of God through his word. You will never make any impact in this world by reading the Bible for five minutes before you jump into bed. And I am brutally practical.

You husbands will never make any impact on the world if you are not praying with your wives and leading your families spiritually. You just won’t. it’s not possible to develop a deep relationship within a family that is not triangular; that is, it does not include Jesus Christ at one corner. And we can seek to repent of these things and really begin to make time so that in that sense we get to know God.

I used to think that that science and all of these arguments were much more interesting than the Bible. I discussed it with my mentor David Gooding, and he said “Would you like to do a bible study?” And he invited me to do one. One night transformed my life. Completely! in Cambridge. Where for the very first time I met a person who took scriptures seriously.

He entered a dialogue with “Matthew”, and it was just mind blowing how he began to open the treasures of scriptures, but it takes input and work.

Many of you people are professionals. Think of the work you have to do to get to where you are. If God has given you that kind of mind, how much of it are you using on him. What worries me silly is people who rise in their professional career, but their knowledge of scripture remain on a basic baby Sunday school level.

So, the moment their peers raise any questions, they instantly detect that they have not thought it through. And that silences them often forever sadly.

So, it is a clarion call and a way of pushing against this tide of mediocrity where we don’t take God’s word seriously. So, what that tells me when I find it in my own heart, is I don’t really love God. All this talk about going to heaven, I’m going to meet with Christ, If that happened to you now, what would you say to him/ what would you talk about? It is very serious stuff.

C.S. Lewis says, all the leaves of the new Testament rustle with an expectation of eternity and if we’ve never sensed that, the word of God is given to us to make eternal things real and we need to spend time immersed in it, prayerfully reading it with other people and alone.

I had a very close friend in Cambridge years ago, we agreed that whoever died first the other remaining person would preach at the funeral. He thought I would die first because I was quite older. But I never forget the day when he called me and with tears in his eyes and said I got a tumor as big as a grapefruit in here and that’s gonna be it. You’ll have to take my funeral.

I said to him, what shall I say? Without hesitation he said this “Tell them. Tell them what we did as students in Cambridge, to pour over the word of God prayerfully and wait on God until his face appears and then they will have something to say.

Do you want something to say? You’re a pastor, teacher, Sunday school? If you want something to say, there is no shortcut. I will never forget those essentially last words to the world, and I’ve repeated them many times. That was what transformed me. It wasn’t reading all the philosophy in the world although I love it and find it interesting and it’s a way of building bridges in dealing with difficulties.

But in the end, unless God is real in his word, we’re missing the central fellowship that he offers us. So, thank you very much and God Bless you All.”

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In summary, the post closed by saying “Dr. Lenox underscores the importance of pouring our time in the Scriptures prayerfully, studying and understanding them in order to become an effective witness for Christ in our own domain of vocation. Only when we take the world of God seriously can we have something to say to the world.”

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