“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” 2 tim. 4: 3-4
If chapels, and churches, could cry, this one would. Not that chapels cry. Not that churches cry. Or do they? Shouldn’t they? Of course, they weren’t born to cry. They weren’t created to cry. They weren’t built to cry. But they were built with purpose, weren’t they? And if they can’t cry for themselves, I wonder, isn’t God weeping over them? And shouldn’t we be? And shouldn’t we be doing something about this? Like when it comes to the crying chapel I visited one day. Oh, how I wept in my heart. I was choked up inside my heart. Inside my soul. When I saw what I saw that day. When I experienced what I experienced. When I not only walked inside the little quiet and seemingly peaceful hospital chapel in a town just outside New York City. The same town, and the same hospital, and the same chapel, I had walked into decades ago when I was totally broken. Totally beyond human repair.
All those years ago, I had gone into the emergency room for dehydration caused by anorexia. Second emergency room visit in a week. I told them not to release me. They didn’t have an eating disorders unit. I would have to go to another hospital for that. But I was such an irrepairable mess that I told them they had to keep me. So in paper slippers and a paper robe I checked myself into the voluntary psychiatric ward. And sometime during that season of my life, as though it could be called a life at all, I wandered into that chapel, and wandered up to the front, and wandered to the Bible, a Bible I knew nothing about, about a God I knew nothing about, about Jesus Christ with whom I had no relationship at all, and whatever I read in those pages, or on that one page that had been laid open, I remember absolutely nothing. Except this. I was drawn to it. Whatever lay inside, I was drawn to. It was as though a hand from heaven were holding me up, standing me up, leading me forth, to those pages, to that Bible. To what would be one of the only breaths of hope I had back then before the Lord led me to Himself and into a forever relationship with Him.
All these years later, I knew of course the same Bible would be there. In the same chapel. Same hospital. With me all different now. Rescued by God. Redeemed by Jesus. Filled with His hope. In forever fellowship with Him now.
But there was a problem. No, not just a problem. A tragedy. A reason the chapel should have been crying. If chapels, and churches, could cry. A reason I wept in my soul.
The Bible was gone. A little empty table sat lonely at the front of the small chapel. No Bible. Empty. Lonesome. Missing God’s Word. Why?
Because our world today is trying to take Jesus out of everything now, isn’t it? Even out of churches and chapels, out of homes and marriages, out of schools and hospitals, out of conversations and interactions, out of sports and newspapers, out of everything that lives and breathes and exists, out of humans, out of humanity, though Jesus Christ is THE ONLY WAY to a forever relationship with God, the ONLY escape from forever in hell and the lake of fire.
I was heartbroken. To walk into a chapel that bore such an incredible memory for me, oh, how excited I was to walk in there and stare down at the Bible I had been drawn to all those years ago.
I looked in the rows of pews. Little books lay there. Religious books, however. Not Bibles. I found no Bible in the entire chapel.
I walked out with tears in my heart.
Can we not see? Do we not realize? Do we not know? Or do we know and turn our backs anyway? All hell has broken loose in this world. How much longer will humanity keep its back turned on God and expect to get away with it. He will only hold back His wrath so long. And then desruction. Then the end of the world. We will only end up in one of two places, you know. Heaven forever with God for those who believe Jesus Christ is Lord, who died on the cross and was raised from the dead, to pay for our sins for us, genuinely turning our lives over to God and HIs ways forevermore, and hell for those who keep their backs turned to Jesus, hell forevermore, in everlasting torment, forever apart from God almighty.
How many of our churches now have left Jesus Christ outside, have barred Him from entering, or who toss around HIs name, and throw around scriptures, but who are either so bound in false religion and false teaching or have so sugar coated and watered down God’s TRUTH that those who pass through the doors are deliciously yummily lustfully having their ears tickled, and enjoying their Sunday mornings in church before off to the picnic hour and football games and oh, yes, oh my, yes, this world is in dire straits right now.
I have a message for all of us, and it’s not mine, it’s God’s.
Turn away from your sins, confess you are a sinner, turn away from a lifestyle of sin and worldly living, believe Jesus died for you on the cross and was raised from the dead, and TRULY LIVE YOUR LIFE FOR THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. Be forgiven. Be promised everlasting life. Be with God forever.
Or else. Spend forever in hell and the lake of fire.
Friend, the clock is ticking.
Living for Jesus isn’t about a church. It’s not about a chapel. Of course our churches and chapels should be filled with worshipers of God living for Christ, with the doors wide open to welcome in others to hear they must repent and follow Jesus forever. But at the end of the day, it’s not about a building. It’s not about a little table with a Bible on it.
It’s about JESUS CHRIST IS LORD FOREVER, and we MUST – we MUST – WE MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST – give our lives to Jesus forever!
Before it’s too late………….
Tick tock goes the clock………..
We’re running out of time………………..
Repent and give your life to Jesus forever! Believe in Him as Lord. Follow Him as Lord. Live for Him as Lord for eternity!
Be in God’s presence forevermore!
To God be the glory, to God be all glory, oh, hallelujah, hallelujah, praise be to the Lord forever and ever Amen!