Scriptural Text Luke 16:19-31 In today’s society everybody has a cell phone, every where you look someone has a phone up to their ear, whether in a car, walking, standing at a bus stop, riding the subway, in the airport, hallway of court house, some of us ladies can attest to being at the hair salon, in the chair and the stylist is curling with one hand talking on her cell phone with the other. Technology has made it possible for you to be anywhere and still having a way to contact your children, husband, boy/girl-friend, office, order in food, business calls. It doesn’t matter what you need the phone for, it’s small enough that you can comfortably take it with you anywhere you go.If you watch television, you know that you spend more time watching commercials than the actual program you’re trying to watch. There is a commercial that catches my attention a lot and that’s the Verizon commercial. The one where they are discussing the fact that Verizon has a wider range of reception than any of their competitors.You know how the commercial goes, they are going places all over the world, like in a taxi cab through the crowded streets of what looks like New York, to the top of what looks like a big hill out of the reach of people, down through the sewers under the city, on a crowded subway and so on. The point of all of this is to prove that the reception is good no matter where you go, or what you go through, (tunnels, down through the sewers). As they go from place to place they test the service by saying the phrase over and over again….”can you hear me now?” In one commercial it seems that one of Verizon’s cellular phone subscribers is meeting with some pretty rough people and was told to come alone, they are in a secluded area and the bad guy looks behind the man and says, “I told you to come alone.” The guy makes a comment about the fact that he was alone and that, what he is actually looking at is the network. Or the ability of the Verizon company to make his cell phone reception available to him no matter where he goes.Let’s look at the text, Luke 16:19-31. Here we have a rich man that dressed in fine linens, and a beggar named Lazarus who lay at the gate full of sores, who ate the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. The beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom; the rich man died as well and was buried.In hell, the rich man looked up as he was being tormented and he saw Abraham with Lazarus in his bosom. He cried out to him saying, “Father Abraham have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame.But Abraham told him, “Son remember that thou in thy lifetime received good things and Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.But besides all of this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from here to you cannot; neither can they come to us that would from there.Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou would send him to my father’s house, where I have five brothers that he can testify to, so that they won’t wind up in this place of torment.Abraham said to him, they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.The rich man said, father Abraham, if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.And he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets (“Network”) neither will they be persuaded through one risen from the dead.When I think of the countless amounts of people that followed Jesus in his day of walking the earth, they remind me of the “NETWORK,” those people that were able to hear first hand the things he’d done, as well as see some of them personally.We know that Jesus doesn’t walk around on this earth today in an earthly body, performing miracles, healing the sick, or teaching in the synagogues. But instead he’s left us the “Bible” the word of God. He’s placed in us a comforter, someone to lead and guide us, along with the Bible and the countless men and women on the pages, that have followed him, that have seen what miraculous things that he’s done as a testimony of who he was and how he lived.He even went so far as to say in his word, John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.Over the many years since the life and death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, he’s called men and women all over the world, to preach the word, the good news, the gospel to those who don’t know him, to those who once knew him, but because living holy doesn’t sell as well as living worldly, they fell back into the long and strong arms of sin. Walking absentmindedly into a deeper relationship with the world, with sin, believing they have all the time in the world.I stopped by to tell you this: God is still alive and well, everywhere you look, there is a church billboard advertising church service, the radio has gospel shows, television has tel-evangelist’s on it at every turn. The mighty men and women of God are bombarding the airways with the Good new, with the Gospel, with the words off the pages of the Bible, words encouraging, pleading with the sinner, to turn. To seek the face of the Master, no matter what dark corner of the world you are in, no matter what lifestyle you believe you are trapped in, no matter how high you’ve gotten, on drugs, or just life itself, no matter what sewer you have fallen into, crawled out of. If you fall on your knees, or just bow your head, or just close your eyes. Your connection to the most High God is never broken, there is always service, no roaming fees apply.If you just call his name, he’ll answer, look behind you he’s there, the network is there. Try him, call out to him….. There is no place on this earth you can go and loose connection, at anytime, any place, any situation, or circumstance, he’s there, he’s saying always at every turn in your life, “My child, can you hear me now?”He’s waiting on you to answer, the connection is there, you “CAN’T” be out of range, because no matter what you’ve done, who you’ve become, no matter how dirty your secret is, he’s there, he’s there for you. Stop hitting the ignore button, stop sending him to your voice mail, thinking, I’ll call him back later, everything is going well right now, I really don’t need him right now…..people, we aren’t promised tomorrow….He’s calling you now……won’t you answer???He’s constantly, constantly calling, “My child, can you hear me now?”On the subway, at the crack house, on the corner, in the dirty motel room, when you think you’re at your lowest, the “Network” is still there and he’s calling to you…..“My child, can you hear me now?”He’s already done what he needed to do to ensure you the right to the tree of life, all you have to do is turn, turn from your wicked ways, 2 Chronicles 7:14Once you turn, once you trust him with your life, he can and will carry you through, he’s already carrying you….your in his permissive will, not his perfect will. He’s calling you, check your phone service…..who’s your carrier….change carrier’s, keep the same number, where you are right now, you don’t have service……Oh but when you allow Jesus, to walk into your life, once you allow him into your heart, you’ll never drop a call again, …He wants all his children to be saved, he wishes that we all would join him in heaven….Don’t make the mistake of having your phone service disconnected….Don’t wait until it’s too late,until you forfeit your inheritance, until you are laying in torment, until, there is no way to cross over and save you…why wait until your praise has no power, or your prayer has no purpose, why wait until you are in the dead zone?……he’s calling…..won’t you answer….he’s calling….. “My child, can you hear me now?”“CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?”
Hi Cynthia I haven't written to you in months, hope all is well. I really really enjoyed this blog post seems as though you were speaking to me, especially the part Your connection to the Most High God is never broken; now I just have to get that down in my spirit. I also like the way you compared the claims of Verizon to the only real reliable network :-) changing carriers should be a priority and using illustrations of natural things can always unlock the "mystery" of spiritual things. Thanks al ot and please post again. Angela
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