More from Charles Simeon: here he is talking about the responsibility of being a minister and how serious it would be to be a lazy minister. The words are John Piper's, who's written a book about him called 'The Roots of Endurance':
'The pastor is like the keeper of a lighthouse. Simeon painted a vivid picture of a rocky coast strewn with dead and mangled bodies with the wailing of widows and orphans. He pictured the couldn't-be-bothered lighthouse keeper being brought out and the answer for all this given; 'Asleep!' Wakeful endurance was a life-and-death matter for Simeon. He dared not have a casual sleepy-eyed approach to ministry.'
In other words, he believed Hebrews 13:17 - 'Your leaders...keep watch over you as men who must give an account.'
It's useful for all of us who are in ministry, be it being an archbishop or a vicar or a youthworker or a Sunday School teacher to think each night when we go to bed; 'Have I done everything I could today to care for those in my charge?' We may choose to ask that question of ourselves or we may choose not to; but one day, on the Judgement Day, God will ask it of us whether we like it or not.
Makes you think!
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