Here is an article I just read that is well worth rewading and discussing -

[b][size=medium]Wake Up And Do Something![/size][/b]

This picture was taken by photographer, Kevin Carter, in 1994 and won a Pulitzer Prize. The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards a United Nations food camp located just under a mile away. The vulture was waiting for the child to die, so that he could eat it. The world was shocked when it saw this picture. No one knows the outcome of this situation (including Kevin Carter, who left the scene immediately after taking the picture.) Carter committed suicide three months later after suffering severe depression.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2447/1758/1600/Starving%20Child.jpg

When my wife, Melanie, called me over to her computer to look at this picture and read the above caption, the same thought immediately came to our minds. [b]"This is exactly what many in the church are doing today!"[/b]

How could this man see this child literally "crawling for his life" and merely snap a picture and leave the scene? How could you reconcile in your heart that it would be okay for this emaciated little child to fend for itself in the face of starvation and the threat of being eaten by a vulture and just going about his own business?

Did he reason to himself; "I am not here to feed or resuce people, that is someone else's job, responsibility or gifting." or "If it is meant to be, then the child will make it to the food camp." or simply, "There are so many in this condition, what I could do would not have any great impact."

I wonder if he had to ask himself te same question afterwards? Was the realization that he could have done something the thing that pushed him over the edge and caused him to take his own life? Did the guilt of seeing the child about to die and just walking away plague him to the degree that he could not cope any further?

What about you? How many salvation starved people do you casually pass on a daily basis as they struggle to find the only spiritual food that can keep them from dying and going to hell (Jesus)? How many people have passed by as the vulture of this world (Satan) waits to pounce on their fallen, starving souls and you just walk on by without lifting a finger to help?

Do you ever say that winning the lost is the responsibility of someone else? Do you say that your job (or gift) is doing something other than rescuing the lost and dying as they struggle in their sin. Maybe you have been called to do something a little less intense (like just take pictures of the problem).

On every street, in every shopping mall, school, and place of business, there are multitudes just like this starving, dying child needing you to do something MORE than just gaze at their situation. They need YOU to chase off the vultures of death, hell and destruction and carry them (if you must) to the only place that they can be fed (the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ).

If you don't...you have already committed spiritual suicide. Do you think that the parent of this child would look at the Pulitzer Prize winning photograph and say, "Well done!"

Neither will God, the Father.

Ezekiel 3:1818 When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood."

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Patrick Ersig

God Be on you Patrick.

We cry for the burden, we stay before His face on ours, and when the burden comes, the pains strike so sharply and deeply, they look for words of expression, and we scream out in the pains of this, but we find it has to be cried alone to the Savior and only He can lift us back up off the ground and show us what to do with this agony, to work out this pain in the direction that it should and must go and not let man or demon to tempt away for relief from this pain. The pain is something most do not want, it is human nature to escape pain, most especially pain of this degree and when it does touch, the normal reaction is to shake it off and change the subject and move on to another topic. The pain increases to the degree one stays there and won't leave His presence until they receive - wanting His eyes to see His creation.
We feel we can't carry that much pain alone. We find out that when we share it, others say it is not for them, it is not their calling and that you should keep it to yourself, for it's for you, not them.
God Bless you Patrick. I pray He give us all the strength to walk alone if need be and be able to first understand that if we really did pray, this pain would weigh to an almost unbearable degree and we would cry out and move, but not wait for the others to do something, for that is what the problem is.
Do not let hell or high waters ease this pain, because Satan is the great anesthesiologist to drown/numb out God's Heart for souls from us.
We'll stand before Him alone on that day to give an account. We MUST walk/do alone now, so that we 'can' stand before Him then.

God Bless you Sir.

You are absolutely right.

God forgive us.

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Melissa

Hi everyone.

There's a message by Ray Comfort where he qoute's Charles Spurgeon as making this profound declaration

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Christopher Joel Dandrow

Thank you Patrick for posting this,

I don’t recall having viewed this picture before, and certainly not with the words that followed. One sentence among others that I have considered all day after reading it was this:

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Tony Sexton

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Patrick Ersig

Patrick,
Just noticed us asking "Does God Speak ?"

How do you think HE SPEAKS ?

Does He spend hours discussing this or that or does HE complain of what is lacking - as He's done through this article above ?

When HE speaks ... as HE has in this thread ... [b]as HE has in no other thread that I've seen on any Forum out there, since I've been on the Internet[/b] ... do you think this was in a "still small voice" or in "the Thunders" ... and was it a "complaint" or a gentle word ?

Do you look at all the topics on Forums and get grieved ?

Do you see Christians "talking" endlessly and do you see a "reward in Heaven" on that Day for all of this "talk" or the lack of it on threads like this one ?

Do you see that each decision we make during our days ... is being "weighed against ETERNITY" ?

That each decision and following action has Eternal value or it Doesn't ?

Are we discussing His Word, as in "thus saith" ?

Are we discussing His Heart for humans ?

What has God said with this Picture and Thread ?

Is He trying to show us the worse Lie that we've ever had shown to our spirit or conscience in our "Christian" lives ?

Did the Prophets not stand up to Lies continuously or did they sit and debate non-eternally-essential nonsense in sweet tones only ?
Oh, but isn't that why they killed them all ?

I think God "is complaining about the problem and complaining about the lie" and to have the Mind of Christ is to do the same as this Author Above has done.


[u]Thank you Brother.[/u]

Adios ~ Go with GOD.

very sad picture

may God break us and use us to fulfill His will. i agree with all that has been said and agree that we need to do more, but just to swing the pendulum back the other direction - we can only do what God has ordained. yes, we need to do more, but we can not beat ourselves up and sit around feeling bad for ourselves and what we haven't done with our time or resources. i am not accusing anyone of this nor calling anyone out. i just want to encourage us to not dwell on what we haven't done, rather focus on what has yet to be done.

may the Lord make our hearts break and become more like His.

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Ben Fuehrer