THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER
"Search the scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. " (John 5:39)

VOLUME 4, NUMBER 16, APRIL 18, 2004

HAVE YOU NOTICED?

            I think that we would all agree that there are some very good things happening at the Northern Kentucky congregation of the Lord’s church.  We are growing.  There is no doubt about that.  The growth has presented some problems as far as classrooms and parking are concerned; but those are the kinds of problems that are good to have.  There have been some conversions, many people have taken the correspondence courses (thanks to Vickie Raymer who grades them), and we are almost ready to start broadcasting a 28 minute television program at different times on channel 25.  Men have prepared themselves to serve as deacons and elders, there is a lot of personal work going on among the sick, very few services go by without some visitors, and there certainly are no plans to slow down in the work at all.

            Let me present some numbers now: 170 – 140; 171 – 145; 176 – 140; 165 – 127; 175 – 134; 192 – 143; 171 – 135; 172 – 109; 180 – 124.  Do you know what those figures are?  They are the attendance figures for Sunday morning and evening over the last ten weeks.  I threw out the low because spring break caused an unusually low number.    Sunday morning averaged out to 175 people.  (It was actually 174.6, but how do you count .6 of a person?)  Sunday evening averaged out to 133 exactly.  That is a difference of 42 people.  That is a 24% drop in attendance Sunday evening – almost ¼ of the people here on Sunday morning are not back on Sunday night.  Taking into consideration those who work on Sunday evening and cannot come back, and those who are unable to drive at night, and those who become sick during the day on Sunday, and let us not forget the visitors from Sunday morning – that is still way too big a difference!  Where were you last Sunday evening?

            Brethren, the bible indicates and experience proves that the devil never stops working.  I personally believe that he takes dead aim at congregations that are growing and working hard.  Peter tells us in 1 Pet. 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”

            What an interesting analogy!  Satan as a hungry lion on the prowl, searching for food.  If you have ever watched a National Geographic program about predators, you learned that they stalk the weak and sickly of a herd or flock.  They will also attack the babes, and pounce on them.  In this way the hunters will slowly shrink the size of the herd.  Satan is the same way.  Are any of us so strong that we don’t need the strength and support to be derived from worshipping with our brothers and sisters in Christ every chance we get?  Continuing the analogy, do any of us want to linger behind the fold, isolating ourselves and making us targets for the devil?  In nature the ones who do not eat are the ones who become weak and sickly.  Peter exhorted us in the same book to eat.  Remember 1 Pet. 2:2, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”

            When we were children growing up our parents had the responsibility to provide for our physical needs.  They were charged by God to give us the food necessary to grow.  In a spiritual sense, the elders have the same responsibility.  In Hebrews 13:17, we find, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”  Sunday evening and Wednesday evening, as well as each night in a Gospel Meeting, are “feeding times” for the soul organized by the elders.  Without ample supplies of spiritual nourishment, we will die.  As a parent, are you seeing to it that your children are getting all the spiritual nourishment that they need?

            Where were you and where were your children last Sunday evening or Wednesday night?  Where are you regularly on Sunday and Wednesday evening?  If you are here, God bless you.  If you and your children are not here and honestly could be, Satan wins that battle.  The really frightening thing about it is that he wins in ways we don’t even know yet.  When the kids grow older and might want to forsake the Lord and try out the world, what do you think they will remember?  All the times you faithfully went, or the times you let Satan win and keep you from feeding on the Word?

                                                Greg Litmer

THE BRIDGE BUILDER

(Will Allen Dromgoole)
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide –
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”