Preaches the Gospel
I am an independent evangelist and pastor, who is going to open up a new church in a rural district and who lives on an annuity now, but I had to work for living before, so that preaching on Sunday morning I had driven a taxi for more than a dozen years.
Next preachings are delivered on the basis of my own experiences as a taxi driver in those days.
1.This world is a preparatory school to heaven
2.Taking the wrong way
3. Believing by knowing, we will know much better by believing
1.This world is a preparatory school to heaven
In England taxi driving job is an occupation of high esteem, for it is regarded as a job which succeeded driver of carriage for princes and nobles. Accordingly, it is hard, people say, to get the occupation in the country.
On the other hand, in Japan people had considered up to recently but not now I think that taxi drivers are successors to "kagokaki in Japanese" that is palanquin bearers on whom people had conceived the image of ruffians played in period films of Japan. Therefore, my family members and relatives implied that I should quit the job and get another one right away. As for me, I thank the Lord, for this job offered me not only salaries, but also a gymnasium for building a Christian character in me. Meeting and dealing with many and unspecified passengers every days were, as it were, being polished by sand papers in order for me to become a precious stone for the Lord.
Moses who was the leader of Israel in the time of Exodus of the Old Testament had been brought up as a prince of royal family of the king of Egypt Pharaoh. He intended to be a leader of Israel to set them free from the bondage by Pharaoh at about forty years old. But they did not understand his intention. So he went to the wilderness of Median in a remote foreign country, where he lived as a shepherd of sheep for another forty years. The job of shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians (Gen.46:34). The noble character of Moses, which was shown in the last forty years of his life from 80 to 120 years old as the leader of Israel, was built up primarily in the forty years of the shepherd period.
Our Lord Jesus lived as a carpenter of a village Nazarene in Israel until He showed himself as the Christ. The character of Him as the Son of Man and the Savior was shaped from everyday life of his home town.
The Bible tells us that our life in this world is the preparatory one to Heaven, that is, the life of trainee in the gymnasium called the world. We Christians are travellers and sojourners in this world (Heb.11:13). Our true citizenship are in heaven (Phil.3:20).
Train yourself in godliness, for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise, for both the present day and the life to come(1Tim.4:7,8).
2.Taking the wrong way
This is my story of failure as a new taxi driver
I took a wrong way at the entrance of toll super thruway. At the time I had to choose the way toward Tokyo, I entered the opposite direction. As it was the second time in my life to enter a thruway, I had failed to notice the guidepost. It was after I had driven for several minutes that I realized my wrong choice. I was astounded at the sight of mountains in the distance which nobody could see on the way to Tokyo. As the passenger riding on was not on the urgent business, he was generous enough to forgive my blunder on the condition of my adjusting the fare and toll. It was the experience when I was a novice taxi driver and which would have been greatly troublesome to the passenger.
There are wrong ways in the life which many people choose. They do not realize the error of his choice while they are alive, and it is when they die that they know his failure.
It is the life itself of those who do not know the way to the heaven which they should walk that is Jesus Christ or those who ended their lifetime ignoring Jesus Christ the Savior. The Bible tells us that we are all destined to be judged by God according to our deed, talk and thought we had on the earth. The law of the state can not judge the inside of hearts of people, but God who looks into hidden places knows the hidden thought of men.Heb 9:7
However those who believe in Jesus do not be judged their sin, and are moved to heaven right after their death, and are permitted to live the eternal life of paradise in the new heaven and the new earth which are re-created after the second coming of Jesus. Because Jesus Christ who had lived the complete sinless life had paid our debt of sin by His death on the cross. Rom 4:25-5:1
We Christians can be convinced of our salvation by neither our own ability nor the teaching of the people, but by the testimony of the Holy Spirit inside our hearts which we hear while reading the Word of God, i.e. the Bible and chewing the cud like sheep. Eph1:14
3. Believing by knowing, we will know much better by believing
One of some acts of the passengers which annoys taxi drivers is that making stop the taxi on the way of running they tell us "Wait a minute here, I will come back soon and ride this one again". If the passengers are acquaintances of the taxi in the rural districts, it will be permitted for them to ask like that. But we can not drop off passengers without receiving a charge whom we had met in the large city like Tokyo for the first time. There are some passengers who get angry saying "Don't you trust in me?",when I ask them to get off after paying the fare. I used to ask them whether they lend money to anyone whom they met for the first time or not, for permitting passengers to get off without getting the fare is the same as to lend them money. Then ordinary people agree and pay.
In the society of people, reliability is valuable.The company which lost it goes bankrupt. It is because they heard from the mouth of the parents and they believed that the children know their birthday. If the student doesn't trust a teacher, they can not get knowledge.
It is the same with the relation between God and man. Bible says "Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). God does not force us into believing in Him whether we will or not. He created man not as an beast living by instinct, but as a being having free will to be able to choose the way to go.
Then why and how did Christians become believers in Jesus? It is because we met Him personally and kept company with Him and knew Him to be trustworthy with the same reason as we know and trust in relatives and friends. Then how do Christians keep company with Jesus? By reading the Bible which are the word of God and by praying in the name of Jesus we know God to be alive who answers our pryer. We recognize that the lord of love really lives who died on the cross not for other people's sin, but for our own sin and resurrected from the dead.
"It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world".John 4:42
The more we believe in Him, the more we know Him. It is just the same with our daily human relationship. We know God and Jesus more deeply by the new life given from above as children of God and by the Holy Spirit who was sent to our hearts from Jesus and is living now within us.
"Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God". 1Cor 2:12
16 April 2006 Published
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