You fool! Tonight you die.

Anyone else watch 'Song of praise' on Sunday (26/07/09)? No, I thought not but I think you may want to watch this weeks (here).

The reason I feel its worth a watch is because of its interview with Duncan Bannatyne, from "Dragons' Den".((You can find the interview at 10.24 mins). According to my *cough* reliable *cough* source his wealth was estimated at £320 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2009.

Duncan tells a story of when he was in Romania doing charity work in an orphanage. He describes the awful condition he saw the children in and so funded an orphanage himself, now called 'Casa Bannatyne'. He states that he still takes a great interest in them over the 13 years past and is indeed going to a wedding of one of the orphans soon. Sounds like he's doing great work, but he then goes on.

He describes how at one time he was there and feeling quite emotional so he went around the back of the orphanage by himself. Whilst he was sat there God came to him! He describes it himself as an apparition. He tells us that God said, "It's time you joined us and became a good Christian." (Not sure if the 'us' was a divine revelation of God's Trinitarian nature or a Scottish abuse of the English language, either way still cool.) It's even more exciting as he is later asked whether he had ever though about religion and he said 'no'.

All very exciting so far but please hold your horses!
Duncan then says, verbatim:
"I thought about it for a few minutes and I said 'No, I'm not ready'."

I thought to myself, 'Ok, so he was a bit scared at the time but in a minute he'll say how God met him again, or how he realised what a fool he had been and ran to God.' Unfortunately not. He merely describes how he think God knows who he is and that's it, and say that he thinks it's a relationship with God. Even he doesn't sound too convinced by it.

It reminded me of a story Jesus told, which I'm sure you are all to aware:

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."

14 Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" 15 Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions."

16 And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

18 "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '

20 "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

21 "This is how it will be with those who store up things for themselves but are not rich toward God."
Luke 12:13-21 (TNIV)

Now I know one can argue the this doesn't apply to Duncan as he is a Philanthropist but I believe it does. What is he not ready for? Now perhaps he's happy to give up his money but there is something he is not ready to give up. "What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul?" (Matt 16:26 TNIV). Lets pray for Duncan as ask that his heart may be softened and that our brothers and sisters around him will reach out to him and spur him on. What if it is tonight that he dies? Can we really say we wept that he was lost? That we tried our best to bring him into the Kingdom?

Till next time!