Reconstruction

Why do you think you’ve been blessed with the talents, disposition and abilities that make you uniquely you? Why do you think you have the advantages you have? What about the tragedies in your life-why did you have to go through them?

One evening in the Fall of 1981, I opened Concentric Circles of Concern, by Oscar Thompson to read a chapter or two. I finished the last page around four o’clock the next morning. I literally couldn’t put it down.

That book radically changed my ministry, for me, it put the personal back into personal evangelism. I didn’t know what it was about that book that was so compelling. I didn’t know, that is, until I heard Jerry Sutton tell a group of students about Dr. Thompson’s last days.
Dr. Thompson was a professor of Evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Sutton was his grader/assistant. As Dr. Thompson’s cancer progressed, he turned his teaching responsibilities over to Sutton, but Dr. Thompson didn’t give his witnessing responsibilities to anyone-he kept right on sharing his faith through his tragedy. He ministered to the hospital staff, to the doctors and to other patients.

I can’t recall the number now, but I distinctly remember Mr. Sutton telling us how many people Dr. Thompson lead to the Lord during the final days of his life. It was a significant number.

I never got to sit in one of Dr. Thompson’s classes, but I did learn a lot from him. Some of it early one morning in 1981, and some of it by hearing about the way he conducted himself during his final days.

“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14

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Lord Jesus, that you for the guidance you give us about how you want us to live. Thank you for empowering us to love one another and receive your love. Thank you for loving us enough to die on the cross for our sins.

Thank you Lord for calling us to be on mission with you. Help us, oh Lord to discover and pursue our life mission—to walk squarely in the center of your will for our lives and to please you with the choices we make. May we live our lives in total dependence upon you—for you are the source of our strength. May our lives be fruitful and bring you glory.

In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
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Robert Preston Taylor had reason to pray. During World War II, he served as a chaplain in battle, participated in the Bataan Death March and spent more than three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, they also dropped bombs on Manila, where Taylor was stationed. Later, Taylor would receive the silver star for helping rescue the bodies of five fallen soldiers.

Taylor knew more hardship. He was one of only 4000 that ended the Bataan Death March out of the 80,000 that began it. During the march, the prisoners were forced to walk 55 miles without food or water.

In the POW camp, worship, including burial rites were outlawed, but Taylor continued to minister. When the guards discovered that Taylor was smuggling supplies in to the soldiers, they put him in a 4-by-5-foot bamboo cell to live, where he had to compete with the mosquitoes and maggots for space. They left him there for two months.

Taylor prayed, “Lord, if you still have a purpose for me, let me live.” On one of the few occasions his captors let him out of the box, he leaned on a bamboo stick to support himself and quoted scripture to the troops. When he asked the POWs to bow for prayer, the guards threw him back into the box. Taylor was near death.

The POW’s began a prayer vigil, praying for their Chaplain around the clock for two weeks. God answered their prayers and Taylor recovered.

In a chapel service at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Brigadier Gen. Jim Spivey, a church history professor, told Taylor’s story to challenge the student body. He said, “Taylor’s recovery became a symbol of hope throughout the camp. They saw God answered prayer in the miracle of his recovery, and a revival broke out in that POW camp.”

Sometimes God is honored by keeping His people from suffering. Other times His is honored by sustaining them in their suffering and inspiring others to greatness because of it.

Job 42:10 “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before.” [NIV]

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And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:44 )

The other gospel writers don’t mention the physical effects of Jesus’ night in the Garden, that He had “great drops of blood” fall from his brow to the ground, but Luke did. A detail a doctor was likely to notice.

Throughout history, there have been reported cases of hematidrosis, a bloody sweat that emits from the forehead of a person under extreme emotional stress. When the tiny blood vessels of the forehead rupture from the stress, it combines with sweat and forms the bloody sweat.

The stress would have to be intense for hematidrosis to occur. A stress like facing death.

But Dr. Luke does not report a bloody sweat dripping from Jesus’ brow, he says there were “great drops of blood.” The blood was already coagulated. The Greek word Luke used that is translated “great drops” can also be translated clots. The stress Jesus experienced was so great, that his tiny blood vessels didn’t just rupture and form a bloody sweat, rather, blood clots fell from his brow on the ground.

What kind of stress would result in blood clots falling from His forehead to the ground? The stress of facing death on the cross and taking on the sin of the world.

Soon, the Roman Soldiers would thrust a crown of thorns upon His head, beat Him with a cat-of-nine-tails and thrust spikes through His hands and feet, and He would bleed again. But those wounds would be inflicted from without.

At Gethsemane, His wounds came from within. The stress was so great, He bled “great drops of blood.”

We will never know what He experienced to pay for our sin. Not at the cross, and not in the Garden. We will never know because we don’t have to. We don’t have to, because He did.

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When Herod’s persecution broke out against the church, James was killed and Peter was thrown in jail in preparation to give him a fair trial before they killed him too. The night before Peter’s trial, he slept, chained between two guards, when the Angel of the Lord appeared and awoke Peter. When he awoke, Peter followed the angel’s instructions. Half awake and half asleep, he put on his robe and sandals and walked with the angel past two sets of guards, out of the prison. The angel escorted him to the city gates, the iron gates opened by themselves and Peter walked into the city, and when he did, the angel left him and Peter was left standing alone a free man.

Where do you think he went?

He went to where he knew people would be praying for him, he went to Mary’s house. Rhoda, the servant-girl, sat listening to the prayers of the church for Peter. When the knock came at the door, she ran to answer it. Who would it be? Another member of the church coming to pray? The Romans coming to break up the prayer meeting and arrest others? No. She recognized his voice, it was Peter. Overfilled with joy, she failed to let Peter in, but instead, ran to tell the adults that Peter was there.

They didn’t believe her. They said she was crazy. But she insisted. They explained it away by saying it was an angel. But Peter kept knocking, so finally the adults went and opened the door and sure enough, it was Peter. Can you imagine the chaos? Instead of going to find out what really happened, they stood their arguing among themselves. More opinions than faith! Sound familiar?

Finally, they answered the door and let Peter in. He didn’t stay long, just long enough to tell them to pass the word along and he left.

God doesn’t always answer our prayers with a “yes” answer, but when He does, it shouldn’t surprise us.

Matthew 7:7 (NASB) “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.”

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