LHM Daily Devotion - September 12, 2017 "The Bell"

I suppose there is a tourist who has gone to London, England who has not...

Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries

By Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour

"The Bell"

September 12, 2017

Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip.

~ Psalm 66:8-9 (ESV)

I suppose there is a tourist who has gone to London, England who has not come back with a picture of the famous clock tower which is part of Westminster Abbey. Yes, I suppose there is such a person, but I have never met him.

Everybody I know has a picture of the Tower, the clock face, and a recording of the bells. You do remember that often copied set of chimes, don't you? They sound like this:

That last part, that big bong... that comes from Big Ben, the giant 13 ½ ton bell in the Tower.

Now I call your attention to all this because Big Ben has gone silent. Repairs and readjustments are being made on the Tower, the Clock and its mechanism. That is why, except for rare situations, Big Ben is going to be silenced until 2021. As you might expect, there was a lot of discussion on the matter; but the final choice was simple ...:

...experts were of the opinion that the 118 decibels of the Bell would be damaging to the hearing of the workers. Others suggested that the Tower's ringing, coming out of nowhere, could surprise and shock the workers and cause them to have an accident.

Now it should be noted that even though that iconic bell has stopped ringing, the Tower's clock continues to count down the minutes and hours of our lives. Even though there is no audible warning coming from the Tower, that doesn't mean people can assume they have been given a bonus on their days of living.

The clock is ticking and their time is running out.

They need to be prepared for the day when the last grain of sand runs through their hourglass; be ready for the arrival of that unknown hour which will make the Tower's clock irrelevant and the Big Ben bell unnecessary.

And how can we be prepared?

If we have not done so already, we need to hear the Holy Spirit's call to faith in Jesus Christ, God's perfect Son, and the sinner's risen Savior. God-given faith in the Redeemer will bring about a right relationship with our gracious God.

How can we be prepared? That new heart the Lord puts within us will show itself in a myriad of ways. It will show itself in charity toward those who have nothing; it will show itself in a commitment to share the salvation story with the lost and it will show itself as we humbly confess our sins and rejoice, that in Jesus, those sins are forgiven.

THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, the clock is ticking and time is running out. Grant that I may be ready for that day when the Judge appears. Help me make a witness which invites others to look to Jesus for forgiveness, salvation, and power to live each day in readiness. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.

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