The
Lost Passion
by Major Howard Webber
part 1 of a 3 part series
We cleared the last lamp
post in the World – Invercargill (New Zealand) - on a boisterous dark
evening when General Booth came on board. I saw him walking
backward in the dusk over an uneven wharf, his cloak blown
upward, tulip fashion, over his grey head, while he beat a
tambourine in the face of the singing, weeping and praying
crowd who had come to see him off…I saw no more of him till I
picked up my P. and O., which happened to be his for Colombo,
at Adelaide. …I talked much with him during that voyage. Like
the young ass I was, I expressed my distaste at his appearance
on Invercargill wharf.
‘Young feller,’
he replied, ‘if I thought I could win
one more soul to
the Lord by walking on my head and playing the tambourine with
my toes, I’d…I’d learn how.’
-
‘Something of Myself’
by Rudyard Kipling
‘Soul saving is our avocation, the great purpose and business
of our lives,’ Booth wrote to his soldiers[1]
Founding Passion
The passion of the early
Salvation Army was that of its founder - to get people saved,
saved from a fate far worse than death, whatever the cost,
however difficult the task. What has happened? Jesus Christ’s
mission statement was a very simple brief one, ‘The Son of Man
came to seek and to save what was lost,’ (Luke 19:10) and he
called us to be partners in finding men for him, ‘go and make
disciples of all nations’. (Matthew 28:19) St Paul referred to us as “fellow workers with
God.” (2 Corinthians 6:1) Christ’s greatest desire was and is
to see men and women reconciled to God. He made it quite clear
too that it was indeed man’s greatest need, and that they
could only be reconciled to God through him.
We do a wonderful work
providing social care and helping the community; we are loved
and appreciated for the good we are seen to do, all
commendable. But where is the conviction, the passion, the
burden that we once had for the lost? What has happened to the
prime purpose for which God created this army? Has the
objective on which our movement was founded been smothered by
a multitude of other objectives, interests and concerns?
The things that distract
It
was George F. Dempster who wrote, ‘All about us are the means
of fulfilling God’s high purposes, but we miss them, being so
preoccupied by lesser things, to which we ignorantly attach
such importance, that they entirely blind us to the things of
real value.’[2]
Again, ‘he calls us to be ‘fishers of men.’ This is his
commission still to the Church on earth. But we are too busy,
too encumbered, too distracted often, to even hear his voice.”[3]
So
often, it seems to me, that we are more concerned with
ourselves as a movement; our image, promoting ourselves,
worrying about our future as our numbers diminish, and
maintaining the public’s financial support for the good we do,
than the eternal welfare of those who are lost. Look at the
reaction that occurs when we have a financial crisis, yet how
exercised are we for the far more serious ongoing crisis that
there is of millions eternally lost around us? ‘Loyalty to
organisations, movements, has always tended over time to take
the place of loyalty to the person of Christ.’[4]
Passion rediscovered
Jesus said, ‘Whoever
wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for me will find it.’ (Matthew 16:25) I believe his words
apply to both corporate groups of believers and individuals.
Christ’s heart was filled with compassion at the sight of the
multitudes; ‘they were harassed and helpless, like sheep
without a shepherd.’ (Matthew 9:36) When he looked upon Jerusalem he wept over it, crying, ‘if you,
even you, had only known on this day what would bring you
peace.’ (Luke 19:41-42) Is that how we feel when we look at
the crowds in the high street, the faces in the queue in the
supermarket, those on the bus or train? I believe that if we
were much more concerned and burdened for the issues that
concern and burden God most, we would be a far more
God-honouring army, and God would honour us and take care of
us, as he promised he would; ‘those who honour me I will
honour.’ (1 Samuel 2:30)
[1]
The
Salvationist, January 1879
[2]
George F Dempster ‘Lovest
Thou Me?’ p128
Hodder
& Stoughton
[3]
George F Dempster ‘Until
He Find It’ p44 Hodder & Stoughton.
[4]
Francis Schaeffer
letter 12th Nov 1954
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