Hold The Rope | Pastor Joel Wolfe

Father and Jesus Name are God. I ask you right now to take my

words and just put them on the wind of the Holy Spirit into our hearts.

God, I think you right now that you're going to hear These people

are going to hear you, not me. God, I think you right

now, you're going to move hearts, You're going to move lives. Lord

Jesus, I thank you for that in Jesus name, and everybody said,

Amen, God is so good, all right. A story is told of

a family holding sorry on holiday by the sea, and of a sweet child

playing with her younger brother in the open plateau on the edge of the ocean.

They began a playful game of chase. The giggles and laughter turned into

shrieks of fear as the earth gave way and the two tumbled thirty feet down

a steep crag, landing in the underbush along the shoreline of the crashing tide.

Their older brother ran for help. The family gathered at the top,

knowing that time was short to rescue the children from the surging tide. As

the trapped children were crying out in fear and desperation, the father got a

rope from his supplies and made a plan. One of them would go over

the edge tied to the end of the rope, while the others holding the

rope would let him down. They looked at each other, knowing that this

was a defining moment. Decisions made and actions taken would be recounted for years,

and the storyline would be won either of strength, courage and bravery,

or weakness, fear and great loss. Everyone's lives were at stake. Those

below would be lost, the ones going over the edge would be at great

risk, and those standing at the top would be called on for great effort

and sacrifice if all were to be saved. It was decided that the youngest

or the oldest son would drop over the edge and his father and the father

and the rest of the family would hold the rope. There was no tree

to tie off to, so it required everyone to be all in. The

oldest son had never done such a thing and knew that now was not the

time to back down, but to step forward. Time was short and strategies

were made. The children below were wet, cold and desperate. One wrong

move and they would topple into the sea. Too much more time and the

sea would take hold of them. They were helpless and headed towards eternity.

Without intervention, the son took the rope and tied it around his waist and

adjusted it. The rest of the family grasped the other end of the rope,

and with the father at the anchor position, they knew each one needed

to give it all they had. They could not give up, they could

not fail at all. Hinged on their grit and determination, every single one

of them, they lowered the sun over the edge. As the waves crashed

and the children cried out below. The family couldn't see the progress, but

they but could only listen as the sun called out the situation. It was

slow going, and their strength held. As the sun reached the children,

he fastened them to the rope. They all held on to each other and

the signal was given to begin hoisting them up. The burden was heavier.

The weight on the of the precious cargo took its toll upon those on top.

Extra help was needed, but none was to be found. Their backs

were weary and their hands began to bleed, but they would not let go.

Slowly, they pulled and held, pulled and held, pulled and held,

regardless of the costs to themselves, because it wasn't about themselves, it

was about the lives on the other end of the rope. At times their

feet would slip and they felt they were nearing the edge themselves. After what

seemed an eternity, they succeeded, and up over the edge tumbled the three

children, whose lives were worth all the sacrifice. They had succeeded. The

oldest had been willing to go over the edge into the unknown. Others remained

at the top and held the rope. Those facing tragedy were saved. The

story of that day became their history, and their history that story was to

be told over and over again. William Carey was born in England in seventeen

sixty one. He was born into a family whose father was a weaver by

trade. He loved school when he grew up, he loved school. He

started school, he started going to school and studied hard, and he loved

it. He absolutely loved school, but he was only able to attend until

his twelfth year, when he was twelve years old. At that point he

needed His parents took him out of school and put him into an apprentice to

become a cobbler because the family needed the finance. Well, his love for

learning did not end. He had a passion for books and he read everything

he could get his hands on. He loved books on travel, he loved

books on other places and countries and adventure. He would read everything he could

get his hands on. He had another love, and that other love was

for languages. He spent his any time that he had outside of his apprenticeship

learning about languages, different languages, learning them. By the time he was

sixteen, people, by the time he was do you remember being sixteen?

What were you doing at sixteen? Let's get my driver's license. I was

studying the Dol book right. Well, this young man by the age of

sixteen was fluent in Latin, Greek and Hebrew at the age of sixteen.

So he continued to do his apprenticeship and graduated became the town cobbler there.

But that wasn't the end of William Carey. Let me just say that where

you're at right now, the job that you're in is not the end of

you. It is the means to the end for the purpose of God.

For your life is why you are on this earth. So he got married

and he had a couple of children. Sweet lovely wife named Dorothy, Dorothy

and William. But he knew he wasn't finished, and so he felt the

call to go into ministry. And so he took on a pastor of a

small local church, and that was really the passion of his life. He

did his cobblering, his shoemaking, right, y'all know that cobbler is the

one that makes the shoes. He did that all week so that he could

spend the weekends with the Kingdom, with the people of God, and he

would study the Word, and he would study the Word. And as he

was getting into the Bible, and as he was getting to the Word,

he found that there was a certain passage that wouldn't let go of him.

How many of you have ever had a passage that won't let go of you.

You think you're the one reading the Bible, the Bible is reading you.

In reality, that passage that he was so enamored with and so taken

with was Matthew twenty eight, verses eighteen through twenty. Then Jesus came to

them and said, and all authority in heaven and on earth was given to

me. Therefore go and make decisions at disciples of all nations, baptizing them

in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and

teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with

you always to the end of the age. That passage gripped his soul.

And it is very, very unique because during this time, in the seventeen

hundreds, the church had begun to believe a lie, the church in general.

Can you believe that the church can believe a lie? Sometimes the enemy

can get in. And what had happened was is people had gotten into the

church and had said that the Great Commission was just for the disciples and the

apostles. It wasn't for them today. But William Carey couldn't let go of

that scripture. And so the next Sunday he got up and preached on it

again, and the next Sunday and the next Dudy he started annoying the peace

people. The people started getting literally annoyed. Everybody say annoyed? Have you

ever been annoyed by the preacher? Has the preacher ever just bugged you by

what he wants to say all the time? Come on, so right,

oh, my good chase is bugged right now? Probably so he would get

up. In fact, the people got so annoyed that one of the board

members came up to him, the guy who writes the checks, right,

and he said, postor carry. I am going to tell you right now

that if the Good Lord wants to save the heathen in these distant lands,

he'll do it himself without the help of you or me. And William Carey

said, oh, I got some more work to do. So he went

home and planned the next sermon, got up the next Sunday and annoyed them

again that the lost are lost and dying and need to hear the word of

the Lord. He began to feel a deep burden for India. India started

leaping off the pages, and he knew with all of his reading, he

knew that India was lost and in deep darkness. They were embroiled in idle

worship that was just filled with evil in this country. This country was completely

lost in darkness. But he felt like he must go. He knew though,

that if he went to India, he could not go there alone.

India would eat him alive. He knew he needed help, so we went

to one of his associates there at the church. One of his friends who

had been actually not annoyed as he was preaching, but instead was eating up

every word. His name was Andrew Fuller. And he went to Andrew Fuller

and he said, Andrew, I believe very strong that the Lord is calling

me to India. I believe very strongly that Matthew twenty eight is for today

and for now. And if we don't, who will? And he said

to him, he said to him, He said to him, India is

a very deep, black, dark pit filled with beautiful, precious jewels.

If I am willing to go down into the pit, will you hold the

rope for me? Will you hold the rope? He knew he couldn't do

it alone, and so Andrew Fuller said yes. William Carey packed up his

lovely wife, Dorothy, and his three children and they got on a steamship.

And for five months they were on that steamship to reach India. It

was terrible, the horrible things that happened on that ship. They arrived,

they got out, they got immediately sick. This place was filled with malaria,

a heat, all sorts of germs and disgusting things. And they even

lost one of their children within that first year, little Dorothy, who her

mind was weak. When he married her, he knew that he was a

man of great patience and of great love. But once they got to India,

within that first year, she lost her mind entirely. She went incredibly

insane, and there was no place to put her. So he cared for

her. And what she would do is that she would follow him around at

the house and out in the marketplace, everywhere he would go and mock him

and yell at him and scream at him. But the man of patience and

love and determination loved her in spite of for the first seven years he had

zero fruit, not one soul saved, not one soul cared. He was

there banging it out because God had called him. During that seven years.

In the midst of all that he was fighting, he decided that he needed

to learn the language. So he learned all as many languages as he possibly

could, the dialects of that area. Then those you know what he did,

he actually wrote out and made up. He wrote the alphabet for these

languages in the area. They did not have any written alphabet, so he

made up a written alphabet. He wrote dictionaries off of the words that he

would write out and figure out. This man was a genius in the midst

of the pressure, in the midst of the hard times. This man was

working so hard for the kingdom. He did this, he wrote, He

translated the Bible. Then, come on, people, how many of you

can have the hardest time just reading the Bible through? Once? He translated

the Bible into three of those languages. Then after about five years or six

years, with all of his manuscripts, they burned in a fire. Okay,

I'm done, put me on the next ship, head me home.

I'm done. But you know what he said, I'm gonna do it again,

and this time I'm gonna do better. Lord for you. He refined

his his He refined it all, He refined his translations. He did it

again. Three after seven years, three Bibles were translated. All that time,

he had no clue about what was happening at home. He thought he

was alone doing his best. But I am here to tell you that at

home, Andrew fell Fuller took his job very seriously. He began to preach.

He began to go around to other churches, preaching the Great Commission,

waking up the church, shifting the church in the West back towards the Great

Commission. It took him a while, but he made a change, and

those churches began to take up the cause, and their hearts began to stir,

and they began to weep for the lost. And one day, after

seven years, a steamer pulled up and three families got off that steamer,

Three families that had decided that it was their calling to go to India.

Can you imagine what William Carey felt that day? Money started coming. By

the time he died forty years later, forty years later, he had learned

written out forty two forty two languages and dialects, and translated the Bible for

them. By the time he died, forty two new languages of Bibles.

What a man he is considered, Yes, he is considered to be the

father of the modern mission missionary movement. And believe, can you imagine taking

starting from being one voice in England and changing it. What I hear from

the what I hear from this story is the importance for us to understand that

the lost are lost, that the lost are lost. It's important for us

that as we go about our lives as they did in England, busy lots

to do. We have to understand that the Bible is telling us that the

lost are lost and we are needed. That the lost are crying out,

but we don't always hear it. Our worlds are too loud, there's too

much clamor there's too much going on. We're too busy trying to make our

way. But your passage, you'll just give it up. I have to

make my life work first. Absolutely you do. And God is ever so

involved in your personal life to help you with your personal life. But there's

something in the Kingdom that asks us to listen a little farther than our own

needs that are crying out. There's something in the heart of God that says,

honey, I'll take care of your needs when you start taking care of

someone else's the lost or lost. Romans three twenty three says that all have

sinned and falls short of the glory of God. Romans thirteen ten says everyone

who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. The concept of

salvation in the Bible either saved, salvation save comes up over three hundred times.

Saving someone is very vital to the Kingdom of God. What are we

saving them from? We're saving them from hell. There is a hell.

I can't sugarcoat it. I'm sorry people. There is a hell we walk

in daily. Hell. Hell is any time that we're disconnected from our Father,

God, who made us and knows how we should work. And when

we're separated from him, we will die. We will fall into hell on

a daily basis. When William Carey arrived on the shores of India, they

did not know anything about God. They knew nothing about the heavenly Father.

Do you know what they were doing all the time. They were burning their

widows ladies in this room. If your husband happens to die, they would

look at you and say you're the reason that he died, and they would

burn you the next day. When William Carey landed on those shores of India,

if you were to have twins, twins were born, they would kill

them with in just a little bit because they saw them as evil. The

people of India were living in a hell every day. There's a daily hell.

We walk next to people all the time. They're living in a hell

daily. Under addictions, under pornography, under emotional bondages, people are walking

in a hell every day. I was listening to John MacArthur tell the story

that about three years ago he was getting up to his preach at his church

in La Grace Community Church, and he felt impressed to read Psalm one oh

seven, which speaks about the brokenness of the prisoners and how God wants to

set you free to save you. And as soon as he the service went

on worship and prayer and praise and sermon, and all of a sudden,

when he said Amen, there was a young man at the very back that

ran down the aisle. No, lie, I am not lying to you.

About six three handsome young man, skinny skinny skinny ran up to him

said please, pastor, please, pastor, can I speak to someone?

Can I speak to someone? He said, go ahead, I'm here for

you, he said. My name is Robert Lagerstrom. I am the head

of the La Gay Pride Parade. I've been diagnosed with AIDS. I've been

given six to eight weeks to live. I don't want to die. I'm

scared to die. What will happen when I die? I've been begging everyone

around me to please save me from this hell that I can't get any peace

from. I can't die. What will happen when I die. Nobody can

give me any hope, and one of them had said, go to Grace

Community Church, maybe they can help you. He led him to the Lord

that day. The next week he was in the water baptism tank giving his

testimony of the salvation that he had experienced. Absolutely, the lost are lost

in seventeen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds, nineteen hundreds, and in the two

thousands. They might look different, they might be in the midst of something

different, but they are lost. And the Bible says very clearly that anyone

who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. We have to

hear it. I know Craig spoke of it. As we're driving down the

road and we see the homeless camps, we see the problems. When we

see the issues, can we not get angry at the issues and at the

people, but can we hear the brokenness behind it and begin to intercede for

their souls because they are lost, the lost or lost, the lost or

lost. There's another word that appears constantly in the Bible right next to salvation,

saved save. It's the theme, it's the theme of this whole book.

And that other word is called redemption. Oh, because that's the heart

of God. That's the heart of God. Over three hundred times redeemed or

redemption is in there. And what's very very interesting, we have to know

the heart of God is not to send people to hell when they're evil.

The heart of God is to break evil and release them from that and bring

them into relationship with Him and to heaven for eternity. That's God's heart.

We have to rewrite what people think because they're not thinking truth. There's heresy

out there, just like that heresy about the Great Commissioning Man. There's little,

tiny scriptures, little verses tucked in there all throughout the Bible that talks

about and it has the phrase before the creation of the world, and wherever

those verses are the talk about before the creation of the world. What we're

doing is we're having a little we're peeking in to something that we don't none

of us know about, which is what was before God said let there be

light. And what it does is it describes God's heart. In Matthew,

it says, before the creation of the world, God loved he had compassion.

The heart of God is compassion, and compassion is meant to be spent

on something besides itself. That's what makes it compassion, So that in itself

is the reason why God created you, because he wanted to have loving relationship

with you compassion. In Ephesians that says, before the creation of the world,

he chose humanity, he chose you, he wants you. The Bible

says that before the creation of the world, Jesus was the lamb slain redemption,

and the whole plan is for God to have a close relationship with you,

a human. Could it be that as that plan was laid before creation,

Could it be that all of creation was done within God's heart with redemption

in mind. Could it be that the mountains and the sky and the glorious

beauty out there is in God's heart and mind all made for redemption, crying

out to us saying, I am your heavenly Father, and I love you,

and I am good, and I am beautiful. Look at what I

have done, Look at what I have done. Come to me. Could

it be that you were created with redemption in mind, the redemption of your

own soul first, but then that you would be in the storyline of continued

redemption for others. Could it be that the reason that you are walking on

this planet. Could it be that you are here for a greater purpose than

for your own life and your own world and your own things, though God

is ever so interested in those. Could it be that we are here to

be written in to the redemption story of others? Could it be Carrie William

Carey tied off on the end of the rope and went Romans ten fourteen says,

how then can they call on the one that they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in the one in whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without somebody preaching to them? And how can

they preach unless they are sent? As it is written? How beautiful are

the feet of those who bring good news? I would like to hope and

say and pray that in this room there are those that God is tugging on,

caring, caring for the loss. That maybe He might be calling you

to be the one to tie off and go over the edge. Maybe he

would be maybe you would be the one that He is calling to maybe laid

down the cobbler's hammer and take up the sword of the spirit. Maybe in

this room there might be one or two in here that he is calling to

ministry, and I would say, people of God, if that is you,

I'm not saying it's all of you. I'm not saying that that's where

you have to be. I'm also saying it doesn't necessarily mean it's always going

to look like me up here preaching to somebody, because everywhere you go you

are called amen. But I am saying that if he is calling you,

and he is saying you hear the voice of those crying out, you can

hear it. You can hear it beyond the clamor of life. And maybe

he is saying it's time for you to tie off the rope and go over

the edge. I'm just putting it out there. Every generation needs a William

Carey. Every nation, every people, every tribe needs a William Carey,

somebody willing to go. But I will tell you that if that ain't you,

then the rest of us have got to grab onto the ropes, because

every single one of you are involved in the Great Commission. There's no out,

there's no out. Every single one of us is a place on the

rope to hold on to. If you are not one to go over the

edge. And just let me tell you right now. If you are feeling

that that might be you, I'm telling you you are in the house right

now of great rope holders. And if you come to me and say I

need to go, I think God is calling me. Guess what I'm gonna

do. I'm gonna take you right over the edge and I'm gonna kick you

off, and then I'm gonna hold the rope for you and you're gonna go.

Papa Ron and Mama Shirley came to us that first year. We needed

church members so bad, we needed live bodies. We had a bunch of

empty chairs. We had a few people come through the door, and let

me tell you, we love them because for Heaven's sake, you can't have

a church without live bodies, right And we're like, you know, to

every person that walked through the door. And then when they came up to

us and they said, I think we're supposed to go, I was like,

no, you're not. No, say it ain't. So that is

a liar, that is a lion spirit on you. And then the Mahawans

came and they said, you know, I think we need to go back.

No, you don't. What is up with this sending missionaries out.

I hadn't gotten it in my soul yet, but they went walking right off

the edge of the cliff or not. That rope was starting to go.

I grabbed onto it and I started to pull. I didn't realize that if

I'm not going over the cliff, I'm holding a rope. There's only two

places for you as a godly man and woman. Either you're over the edge

or you're holding the rope. What would have happened if in that family with

the older son over the edge and the children, the younger ones down there.

What would have happened if the other family members up top? What held

for a little bit but then got distracted? You know, I got my

own thing going on. My back kind of hurts, kind of hurts my

hand. I don't know if this is for me. I think I'm gonna

go here, sit down on the frock. Oh, look at this rock.

I think I need to polish this rock. I'm gonna sit right here

and just take care of mine. I will tell you right now, we

have missionaries over the edge. We have people over the edge right now.

They're working hard. They're working hard, and I will tell you I will

preach until you are so annoyed here at new horizon. I will not give

up until every hand is on the rope, every back is pulling, that

your ears become a little bit more tuned into the lost, that wherever you

go, you pray. Everywhere your foot goes for What does it say?

How beautiful are the feet? You know, I don't spend a lot of

time trying to make my feet pretty, But he says, your feet when

you get up and you go to work tomorrow, they're beautiful because they're carrying

me everywhere you go. Will you be a church with me with your hands

on the rope? What does it mean? It means to pray? It

means to see the loss differently. They're not a problem, they're not a

burden, they're not failures. They're your brother and your sister. And we

pray, pray, Pray for the nations, Pray for the law because they're

lost, Pray think about them, give support them in any way you can.

And this church is going to be a great commission church. That's all

stand. Halleluiah, Thank you Jesus, Praise you Father. Have I annoyed

you yet today? Well? Then I didn't do my job well enough Father

God in Jesus name, I pray over my people. I pray that their

ears are open to the cries of the lost. I pray right now that

the people of this church are filled with your compassion. The people of this

church have a heart that beats like your heart. The people of this church

are generous. The people of this church will go, the people of this

church will give, and the people of this church will do. And it's

not just social justice. We bring the gospel and that liberates the soul as

well as fill the tummy and heal the body. Thank you, Father God.

I pray right now you're going to put callings on people's lives. Now,

not all of you are going to go. I'm not gonna let you

because I need you here too. But if God's putting a call on your

life to be a minister, pastor, teacher, apostle, evangelist, what's

the last one, prophet, God's got a call on your life, Lay

down the cobbler's hand hammer and pick it up. Let this church kick you

off the edge and put you where you belong, where you can reach people.

That's where you belong. Every other person in this room grab the rope.

Do what you can pray, give and love. Amen.