Sermon - Isaiah 55.6-7

At the age of 24 Rev. Francis Asbury, an Anglican priest, came to America.  In the days prior to the America Revolution John Wesley, the leader of the Methodist movement, sought preachers to send from England to the colonies.  Francis Asbury volunteered.

The small Methodist movement in the colonies had a great need.  The Methodists in the American colonies depended upon untrained and unordained preachers for leadership.  They depended upon the priests in the Church of England for baptisms and communion and other rituals.  But these Anglican priests were being driven home by the tense political climate of the days before the Revolution.

The Methodist movement in America requred a great leader - one who could reach both rich and poor, slave and free, ritualist and enthusaist.  When John Wesley asked for someone to go from England to take responsibility for bringing scriptural holiness to the colonies, Francis Asbury stepped forward.

During his life he rode more than 270,000 miles on horseback, preached 17,000 sermons, and ordained 4,000 ministers.  He could preach by the glow of a campfire to rough frontiersmen, or preach in the stately Methodist churches in Baltimore.  he was one of the first Methodist bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church, that later became the United Methodist Church.

Francis Asbury found 600 members of the Methodist societies when he came to America.  At his death there were 200,000.

The life he lived was fabulous in all respects - beauty, danger, spiritual glory, and adventure.  He had brushes with Indians, preached to rough frontiersmen, rode the lonely circuits, and organized churches.  Asbury made his way through pathless forests, swam rivers, encountered storms, endured heat and cold, and at the end of a hard day often had to sleep in a tree or curled in front of a campfire.

Asbury writes of one of the few times he could sleep indoors during his travels:  "The house is 20 by 16 feet; there are 7 beds and 16 persons therein, and noisy children.  I dwell among thorns."

Why did he do it?  In his own words, he writes, "I have done it for souls; if I had done it for silver, there is not enough in the new world to pay me."

Is it any wonder that the favorite scripture of this man was Isaiah 55.6-7?  He preached on it often.

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

This is the scripture of a man who was eager for others to find God.  It pleads with urgency for commitment.

Today, let us allow Francis Asbury to preach to us.  We can imagine what he would tell us this morning.  We can imagine him standing before us in his black suit, long hair tied back, speaking loudly and urgently to us in his thick English accent.  He would share with us his favorite verse.

"Seek the Lord whhile He may be found, while He is near."  Is it possible that at sometime God may not be found?  Will God hide himself from us?  These words lead us to think that it is God who strays from us; but on the contrary, it is we who stray from God.  There may come a time when we no longer want to find God.

How does this happen?  It may happen by atrophy.  Just as a person can loose all feeling in his nerves so that he can no longer feel hot or cold; so can a person lose all feeling in his spirit so that he can no longer distinguish good and evil.

Or it may be by erosion.  This is the gradual wearing away of the soul.  A good example of this is the way in which our culture has allowed the steady decline in moral values.  Through the pressure of groups, movies, television, newspapers, radio, pornography, and so on we are now conditioned to accept perversions, moral aberations, and obvious sin.  We zealously purge all religion from education and yet open the classroom to all kinds of strange suggestions in the name of human rights.

Not only may we be separated from God by atrophy and erosion, but by moral fatigue.  We become too tired to fight.  The world's evil is so wide, so subtle, so persistent that we surrender because we are too tired to fight.  Before a person reaches the age of 18 he or she will have seen 120,000 acts of violence and 13,000 murders on TV.  We spend more time watching TV than we do in school or in church.  But how do you fight it?  Most of us just give up.  And our inaction may very well separate us from God in that we become embarrassed to stand before God because we did not stand for God.  We did not fight back.

Finally, we may be separated from God by losing sight of the vision or the great purpose of life.  I may forget that I am a part of God's purpose and may think my efforts to be too small to matter.  Let us not lose sight of fulfilling God's purpose in Creation.

By atrophy, erosion, moral fatigue, or loss of vision I may be separated from God.  But we do not want separation from God.  We are here today because we want to draw near to God.  How do we do that?

The scripture continues: "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and return to the Lord."  This is what must be done.  It is we who have moved from God.  We must return.  God does not move in the sense that He does not change the rules or lower the standards.  We must decide to return.  And we must decide while God is near - while we have not yet gone too far from God.  We must decide now.

The blinding light of the Damascus Road would have never come to Paul again if he had not repented then.  The burning bush would not have appeared again to Moses if he had not turned to see it then.  The call to Isaiah to be a prophet would not have come again to Isaiah if he had not then said, "Here I am, send me!"

We are called now.  We must decide now before we have gone too far to hear the call again.  And what do we decide?  The scripture says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord."  We decide to forsake wickedness, unrighteousness, and evil.  We decide to repent and to return to God.  We say, "God, I do not want this other power in my life.  I want you."

This scripture calls for repentance.  But don't stop there.  Many people throughout their lives agonize over their wickedness, sins, transgressions.  They never get beyond repentance.  But the scripture in Isaiah continues:  "The Lord will have mercy.  Our God will abundantly pardon."

If we are open to God's love, then God will renew our lives as they should be.  Our effort is to repent.  God's effort is to have mercy and pardon.  We receive God's mercy thorugh faith in Jesus.  in Jesus our sin dies and our lives are resurrected.  We are born anew.  We need not continue mourning or feeling guilty.  God will have mercy.  God will abundantly pardon.

Is it any wonder that Francis Asbury was on fire for the Good News?  Is it any wonder that this great preacher carried in his heart this wonder passage from Isaiah?

Asbury began his adult life as a blacksmith.  But soon he came to preach in the Methodist societies of England.  In order to go to America, Asbury had to leave his sweetheart, Nancy Brookes.  Due to a mix up, Asbury was unable to see her before he left for America.  He never was to see her, but he treasured the memory of her all of his life and never married for always loving her.

He worked hard establishing the Methodist movement in America.  The Unnited States government lists Asbury as one of the 66 greatest Americans.  There is a statue of him in our nation's capital.

He traveled throughout Kentucky.  No doubt he traveled in the territory that eventually became our land.

On March 24, 1816, Bishop Francis Asbury preached in the Methodist Church at Richmond, Kentucky.  He was 71.  He had to be carred from his carriage to the pulpit and be seated on a table in order for him to hold himself upright.  It is said he preached for an hour with great feeling.  I would imagine that he used Isaiah 55.6-7 as his text.

On the next Sunday he died.  As he breathed his last, one of his ministers asked him the question that the old Methodists used to ask each other, "Do you find the Lord Jesus Christ to be precious?"

Asbury could not speak, but summoned his strength to raise both of his hands as a sign of victory.  He still carried in his heart his favorite scripture, the one he would share with you if he were here.

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

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