A Burden For Lost Souls
Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.
Matthew 9:38
In the 16th Century, a man named John Knox was used by the Lord to bring many people to faith in Jesus Christ in Scotland. Those days were hard days for the true church. Bloody Mary was persecuting true believers in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. Many hundreds were burned at the stake for their faith. In the midst of this horror John Knox stood out as a beacon of faith, courage and zeal for the Lord Jesus Christ. At one point, as he prayed in the garden outside his church in Edinburgh, he was heard to pray “Great God, give me Scotland, or I die!” His burden was so great for His people that he would rather have died than see them go lost and going to Hell.
The passage before us today, presents a woman with a similar burden. Hannah was not interested in souls; she was interested in babies. Her story has something to say to the church today. We are interested in souls! Like Hannah, the Lord seems to have closed the womb of the church. Hannah's, barrenness, her burden, her brokenness and her blessings, show us how God can move us from barrenness to blessedness if we are prepared to be faithful to Him.
Every time God opened a closed womb in the Bible, a great character was born; Isaac, Joseph, Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist. Who knows who will be saved in your church if God were to open the womb and save souls there?
When the church gets properly burdened and broken before the Lord, He might just open the womb and let us hear the cry of newborn babies.
Bible Reading
1 Samuel 1:1-18.
Prayer
Father, Give me a burden for lost souls, I pray. For Christ's sake. Amen.
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