The Cry of the People

It is no accident that the first recorded words spoken by Jesus after He came out from the wilderness had to do with the pain in human life. He said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).

Twice He spoke of preaching, once to introduce the message and the second time was its conclusion. The four points of the message can be simplified into four words: the broken, the bound, the blind, and the bruised. His fundamental message was one of hope, help, and healing. The example set by Jesus took Him right into the fray. Although He proclaimed His message generally through preaching, He came down from the pulpit to mingle among the people and to meet their needs.

When Moses came to Egypt to deliver the Children of Israel to the promised-land he found a people who were crushed by bondage. There were countless restrictions arbitrarily imposed upon them. Their labor was great. They had no rewards or good words – just bondage. Yet God had provided them liberty, healing, freedom and rest as their inheritance. It was the task of Moses to deliver them out of bondage into the freedom that God in his sovereign graciousness had planned and provided for them.

We cannot improve upon the agenda of Jesus. We must not see people as tools to achieve a great agenda of our own – even if we have that agenda dressed in spiritual garb. The people that Jesus came to minister to were his agenda, not His tools. When we become obsessed with building great churches we, like the taskmasters of Egypt, will inevitably place heavy burdens and restrictions upon the people, believing the end result will make all feel it has been worth it all.

If we have that mentality, we will bypass the deep needs of people through either failing to see it, failing to hear what they are saying, or ignoring their cries while we apply the whip of words, duty, or guilt to backs already burdened to the point of falling.

Every church ought to have a genuine Year of Jubilee (the acceptable year of the Lord) as did (and do) the Jews. In its simplest terms, the Year of Jubilee was a year a REST for the land, RELEASE of the captives and bondservants, and RESTORATION of property to the people to whom it was their heritage.

If we are to do the work that Jesus did, we would work with the people to see what their burdens were and help them find the rest He offered. Jesus invited: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). We would help people find freedom from bondages imposed by Satan. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8b). We would help them to find the restoration in their lives of all that had been wasted through their time of trauma and/or rebellion. “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer worm, my great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25).

Our people are crying out for help. We need to have eyes to see what is happening in their lives and ears to hear what they are saying. If we would do that, we would discover why it is so difficult to develop people with sure foundations and with a heart to do the things of God. We, like Jesus, must take first things first.

Unfortunately, all too often, we don’t see the need for deeper ministry to the individuals of the flock nor are they, in many cases, adequately equipped for the job. Obviously such ministry is more than one or two men can do even in a small church. The ministry has been so compartmentalized we fail to see that healing and restoration is to be the work of all, not a few professionals. It should be our intention to provide such training for responsible people to perform these ministries in the church. The churches that are embracing and applying this ministry are seeing great blessings as a result. It must become a priority of every congregation that many be raised up and equipped for the ministry of healing and restoration. If we follow the agenda of Jesus we will do precisely that.

God give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Jeff

• Jefferson H. and Norma R. Floyd • Jubilee International • P. O. Box 572 • Noblesville, IN 46061