Message 14 October 2012 PM
People sometimes complain about various things in church.
Someone didn’t greet me, someone spoke against me, someone hurt my feelings.
Sometimes we may even face a little persecution as people scratch our car, or let the tyres down or scream abuse at us just for being a Christian. But compare this with real challenges faced by God’s warriors the early days of the Salvation Army.
GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH
In 1865 Booth was in the East End of London, preaching to crowds of people in the streets.
Booth soon realised he had found his destiny, and later in 1865 he and his wife Catherine opened ‘The Christian Revival Society’ in the East End of London, where they held meetings every evening and on Sundays, to share the repentance that salvation can bring through accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to the poorest and most needy, including alcoholics, criminals and prostitutes. The Christian Revival Society was later renamed The Christian Mission.
TOUGH CONVERTS
At one stage it was hard to find a new convert who hadn’t come out of jail, been a prostitute or a thief or a beggar before turning to Christ. Booth’s converts rarely ever backslid. In the first 16 years of the Salvation Army 250,000 came to Christ in England alone. Their war-cry was “Blood and Fire”
Slowly The Christian Mission began to grow but the work was difficult and Booth would “stumble home night after night haggard with fatigue, often his clothes were torn and bloody bandages swathed his head where a stone had struck”, wrote his wife. Evening meetings were held in an old warehouse where urchins threw stones and fireworks through the window. Outposts were eventually established and in time attracted converts, yet the results were discouraging. The Christian Mission was just one of about 500 charitable and religious groups trying to help the poor and needy in London’s East End.[6]
Booth and his fellow brethren in Christ practised what they preached and performed self-sacrificing Christian and social work, such as opening “Food for the Million” shops (soup kitchens), not caring if they were scoffed at or derided for their work.
MY PARISH
Booth preached inside the pubs in the poverty stricken East End of London.
He was thrown out time and time again. One time after being thrown out of the pub with force and landing in the gutter he was pelted with rotten fruit and eggs.
He took off his hat and held to his chest and looking up to heaven he exclaimed, “Lord I have found my parish”
THE OPPOSITION WAS FIERCE
As troops marched down the street singing and playing their instruments, it was common for people to throw fruit vegetables and even dead cats at the joyful troopers.
In one season of the fiercest opposition Booth commanded his troops in one part of England to stop marching down the street as the rocks thrown by protesters caused great injury to the troopers. They marched all the same and joyfully bore the marks of their persecution.
When his daughter Evangeline was just 17 years old she went to Paris to preach the gospel with a few other young women. She would go into the pubs to preach but was thrown out over and over again. One night she tried again and they said to her if she did a jig on the bar they would let her preach, so jig she did and followed it up with a fiery sermon in French – her second language.
When Booth was starting the Salvation Army God gave him a vision.
Here is a reinactment of the vision God gave him….. http://youtu.be/xOf4Slt7S20
Soon Booth was sending Soldiers out all over the world. George Railton went to America in 1880.
Here is a part of their history on film… http://youtu.be/7coHc9SUcvY 1.40 mins to 5.39 mins
One day in later life General William Booth was walking home, he was tired and old and on passing the bridge near his home he noticed a beggar sleeping under the bridge. Upon reaching home he chastised his oldest son Bramwell Booth who was about 40 for not seeing the beggar earlier and bringing him home for a meal.
Booth had a cry, this is what he lived and this is what he spoke…
I’ll fight
http://youtu.be/j9e0AFcsMyI 1.00 min
When lives like this one inspire us to live for Christ. Don’t be a complainer with tiny little troubles. Don’t think that life is just to be lived for our pleasure, the lost are calling out for help. Don’t be afraid to stand up for Christ, Australians are longing to see real Christians. We serve the same God that William Booth served. He changed the world with passion and service, it’s time for us to do the same.
craigmanderson 