I’m really feeling bad and am trying to get well in order to get to Huntsville Texas this weekend in order to attend a Bill Glass Weekend of Champions prison ministry event. I’m scheduled to go on death row and some other prison yards and it is my favorite prison event of the year.
I spoke to someone about this and he told me that I should be more concerned about my health than “a worthless bunch of criminals”.
Hmmm . . .
In Matthew 25:36 Jesus states: For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.‘
“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?”
“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.‘”
So if I were say, “I have to get better in order to go visit Jesus Christ this weekend, would it make a difference?”
The truth of the matter is that many wouldn’t do it even if it meant that they would be honored by being given a Divine appointment with our Creator. The golf course beckons, soccer games, board meetings, fishing is happening now at Honey Lake, turkeys are gobbling and the youth spring turkey season begins this weekend; there are many reasons we can find to avoid serving our God.
The Bible urges us to get our work completed, because soon it will be “night”; John 9:4 – We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.
About a year ago I went to death row in Huntsville with two other platform guests and the then Director of the Texas state prison system, C.F. Hazlewood. We visited about 100 inmates and led nine of them to the Lord that day. I could feel evil as soon as I walked through those doors; (just as one can feel the Holy Spirit in many churches, one can feel the presence of sinister, foreboding dark spirits that roam death row). One of the inmates told me that evil was everywhere in that place and many of them discussed it, (even though there is extremely limited inmate to inmate communication allowed to them, and what little there is consists of shouting through steel doors.)
We visited every inmate who had received a date with death that day and as far as I know all have long since been executed. The “night” to which Jesus alluded has long since descended upon them and now they face eternity either in heaven or hell.
One guy we visited had been horribly sexually abused beginning when he was just a very small child. His father used to sell him to his friends when he was just 5 or 6 years old. The men would repeatedly rape him. One time his mother tried to stop it and the small boy witnessed his father cut her head off with a machete. He was trying to trade the boy for a bottle of wine. No small wonder the little boy went on to become a killer himself and finally ended up on death row.
C.F. baptized him in a cattle water trough in the narrow hallway of death row just hours before he was given his lethal injection. He asked C.F. to hold him underwater just a little longer than normal because he wanted to soak it all up. I saw the photo of his handsome shiny black face when he emerged and he had a huge wide smile on it that nearly glowed. Halleluiah!
Need I say more about why I’m trying so hard to get well before this weekend?
Gal. 6:9
Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary . . .
March 4, 2014 – Click here to listen