Good morning. Imagine a tremendous rockslide. We flatlanders (what those who live in mountainous regions call those of us with the good sense to live in areas with flat, straight, roads) have a difficult time imagining such a thing. But a rockslide is what happens when a part of a mountain suddenly falls down. It is an irresistible, unstoppable force. If a rockslide is coming you either get out of its way or you will be buried.
I think that a rockslide may be an appropriate image for what our Lord intended for His message of salvation. The Good News of God’s grace being poured out to all who will accept it is such a powerful and immense truth that it should be an irresistible force in this world.
When the Lord’s disciples were suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit of God on that Day of Pentecost, the Good News came gushing out from their mouths. Peter’s message is the one recorded in Acts chapter 2, but we are told that all of them left the upper room sharing the message of Jesus. There is a long list of languages given in Acts 2:8-12, and every hearer of the Good News of Christ heard the message in their own native tongue.
The message of Christ in those early moments was like a rockslide, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. Acts 2:41
But as the church, the Body of Christ, grew and spread out, the rockslide gave way to stagnant stones. The apostle Paul spoke to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3-5 in this way: For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Paul is telling Timothy that the rockslide of the Good News will give way to human traditions and teaching, that people will want to listen to those things that please them rather than what will guide them to eternity in Christ. But Paul challenges the young man to hold the course, to preach the truth, to endure even when the going is difficult. I think that Paul sees Timothy as a pebble on the side of a mountain of truth. One pebble that is holding back a greater rock. But when that pebble does its work in the proper way, it will trigger that rock to move. And that rock will nudge another, which will cascade into another, which will cause a powerful reaction, a rockslide.
You and I may be like such a pebble. Who knows what kind of powerful reaction God will cause if we are willing to share the Good News. What kind of powerful reaction will God cause if we are willing to trigger the event?
Please consider this day how you can be that pebble!