Blood Filled Hands

What in the world does “Blood Filled Hands” mean?

It all started when I was in Junior High school in Rome, Italy. There were zero Christians in my whole school of over one thousand people.  There I was, a tall and skinny little kid who knew the gospel, but never once shared with anyone the good news I had.

Now as a Christian, I knew that all my friends needed to hear about Jesus and the Bible, but as a human I wanted to be liked and to fit in.

Let’s fast-forward four years now.  I am a senior in High school in America, in the city of Bradenton, Florida. I dislike going to church anymore and the only reason I act like a Christian at least when I am at home, is because of my great love for my father. I am really into soccer and somehow I get a school in a small city in Oklahoma to offer me a scholarship.  At the same time, my dad tells me about this Bible school in Italy where you take 10 weeks to read the whole bible and evangelize.

For some reason, probably because of wanting to please my dad and to be able to see my Italian friends I decided to go to the Bible school. I also had never read through the whole Bible and it had been years since I had opened the Bible to read it from my own choosing.  I never evangelized before and didn’t really know how to do it.   So I decided. I packed my bags and I was on a plane to Italy.

Slowly as I read through the Bible I was astonished!  God is so sovereign in everything.  In order to do anything in this life a man needs to depend on God.  But then it came: Ezekiel 3:18.  The reading of this verse changed my life.

18“When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.”

Does this include my junior high friends?  Does this include a man I start a conversation with on the bus?  Does this include my neighbor?

Many Christians are walking around with blood filled hands and they don’t even know it.

After I came to The Master’s College, I learned about how to study the bible and how important it is to stay fair to the passage and make sure we teach what the author intended.  It is clear that Ezekiel 3  is talking to the prophet, but if you read Romans 20:25-26 it says:

25“And now, behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, will no longer see my face.  26“Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men.

We see here Paul using that same idea from Ezekiel.  Since Paul has preached the Kingdom, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, that he is innocent of the blood of men.

So there I was, 18, crying my eyes out.   That night I didn’t get much sleep at all, wondering about my junior high friends, wondering about all the people that I could have warned, but there was nothing I could do.

Only one thing I could do, and that was that i would never lose another chance again.  If it was possible and the opportunity arose , I would not leave a conversation with someone without them hearing the gospel.  And by God’s grace I still greatly desire to never miss an opportunity to share God’s wonderful news.

What about my junior high friends?

As soon as I had learned this, I prayed to God that He would forgive for not sharing the gospel with them, and I prayed that somehow He would send someone to share the gospel with them (I thought I would never see them again).  In 2008 Italy opened the Italian version of Facebook, and it boomed.  One by one my junior high friends joined facebook and slowly they all added me as a friend.   I didn’t want to just share the gospel on facebook as that could be potentially awkward.  Without me knowing, they had all decided to meet in October in front of our old school for old times sake.

Every October My father and Aurora Ministries organize a yearly FOCUS conference for the Italian church to learn more about the Word of God.  I had the privilege of taking part in this conference.  It just so happened (by God’s grace!) that the day the conference ended was the night that my friends had planned to meet.  As soon as they found out that I was in town, they were all excited to see me again.   Two of them  drove all the way over to my hotel in Rome and picked me up.  So there I was in front of my old school and 15 of my old class mates were standing there!

I couldn’t believe it!  I was so excited that I was ready to just pull my bible out and start preaching, but then when i realized that  it would be extremely awkward for them…  I decided to wait.   Slowly, as the night kept going, God gave me a chance to speak to each of my friends in a more personal way.  Whether it was in the car with two of them, or later at the restaurant, slowly but surely, by the time they brought me back to my hotel I had shared the gospel clearly with each of them.

That night I didn’t sleep much either!

Why do I share this story with you?

Well its simple.   It is time that some of you wash your hands.  We all have some people in our lives who need to hear the gospel, or else because of what the word of God says, they will be going to hell and pay for their own sin. God doesn’t require you to save them, all he requires is that you warn them.  You need to warn them that their sin causes them to be separated from God, and nothing they can do can bring them to God, except by trusting in Christ.

There are many people out there, so God obviously doesn’t want you to share the gospel with everyone in the whole world.  What He does want, is that you will be faithful with the people that cross your path.  You shouldnt need someone else to share the gospel with your family members, or someone else to share the gospel with people from your work, or someone else to share the gospel with your classmates.  It has to be you!

IF NOT YOU -  WHO?

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