A short spoken reflection describing the Waldensians’ devotion to the Bible, their retreat into mountain valleys and caves to preserve worship and teach their children, and a contemporary encouragement to value communal worship rather than take comfortable access for granted. The speaker emphasizes simplicity, self-denial, missionary impulse, and perseverance under persecution.
In the early centuries, Rome would lay down the challenge. Either abide by how we want you to live or leave your place of residence and leave your place of worship. And the Waldensians treasured God's Word more than they treasured their home. And so they would leave and go up into the mountains.
Life would not have been easy here in the Waldensian valleys. The children growing up would have had to learn very quickly the lessons of self sacrifice and self denial, frugality and economy. Their parents treasured these principles from the Bible and they wished to bestow them upon their children. They treasured them so much that they retreated up here and here in the mountains. They wanted to teach two things. Number one, they wanted to teach them purity of life based on God's word. And number two, they wanted to teach them to be a missionary and take the faith that they had and take it further afield than just the valleys in which they live. And so they would have schools up here and they would have places of worship, sometimes in caves where they could teach their children and their young people how they could go out as missionaries and share this message.
The Waldensians fervently believed in the Bible. They believed that they should follow it, and they treasured it. The Waldensians believed in the commandments of God that had been given through the Bible and they sought to keep them. And they were often persecuted for their faith and had to retreat up to the, the higher valleys. And, and here in this place of worship, it's a, it's just a cave. Today you come here, you have to creep down through the entrance to get in. The, the rock walls are on each side. But here in this cave, it's almost a sacred spot. It's a place where they would gather together for worship, but also at times they would gather together to hide from the Roman sold.
To me, it's encouraging to know that even when they were scattered in the mountains, they would still find time to worship together. And I believe it's very important that we today meet together with fellow believers and worship. But the thing that stands out to me here in this place of it's not that pretty by earthly standards. There's no gold plated pulpit, there's no marble table, there's just rocks. They're wet. But it's the quietness and the peace and the simplicity and the purity of this place that is striking, is that if these Waldensians would gather here not just once, it wasn't just a one off, it may have been repeatedly, it may have been over years or may have been even over decades that they would gather together to worship in caves like this that are dotted around these mountains. For us, church is so comfortable or so convenient. I'm sat on a cold rock but oftentimes in church we sit on nice comfy chairs. The heating may be on, it may just be five miles from our house or just down the road. And yet sometimes we think I'm not too keen to go and I think back to myself, yourself, wherever we are we have a time of relative peace, a time of relative freedom where we can gather together and worship, where we can meet fellow believers. And my appeal is don't waste the opportunities that you have. Don't be so comfortable or so convenient that we miss the opportunities that we do have. God has given us great opportunities. Now let's take advantage and use them and take this message to the world around us.
Sam.
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