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Sermon & Worship Packages: Time to Remember
Martin Dale
Story: A Korean Pastor told me this story some years ago, when he came to Switzerland.
In the 4th century AD in Korea a man had two sons. The elder rose to become Chief Justice in the land and the younger became an infamous bandit.
The elder brother loved his younger brother but was unable to persuade him to change his ways.
Eventually the younger son was caught and brought before his brother, the Chief Justice. Everyone in the courtroom thought the younger brother would get off because it was well known that the Chief Justice loved his brother
But at then end of the trial, the Chief Justice sentenced his brother to death.
On the day of the execution, the elder brother came to the prison and said to his brother “Let’s swap places”. The younger brother agreed thinking that once they realised that it was the elder brother, the execution would not go forward.
On he went up on the hill to watch proceedings. His brother was brought out at dawn and to his horror executed.
Filled with remorse, he ran down the hill and told the guard his name and that he was the criminal who should be executed. The guards said to him.
“There is no sentence outstanding on anyone with that name”
In the same way, Christ has died for our sins so there is no sentence outstanding. All we have to do is to accept his death in our place.
An article in a National Geographic magazine provides a penetrating picture of God’s love for us. After a forest fire raged through a section of Yellowstone Park, one of the rangers found the charred body of a bird at the base of a smoking tree stump. When he knocked it with a stick, three tiny little birds scurried from under their dead mother’s wings. The remains of a half burnt nest nearby told the rest of the story. When the raging flames spread up the tree, the half burnt nest fell to the ground and the mother lit near it so her young birds could find protection under her wings. As the flames flared around her, she gave her life that her babies might live.
A vicar had a dream. He was on his way to heaven. Before him there stretched a long flight of stairs. As he started to go up, he was given a piece of chalk and told that he must put a chalk mark on each of the steps for each sin he had committed. When he was about halfway up he met the bishop coming down. He enquired why his Lordship was returning, and the bishop answered, "I’m just going back to get some more chalk!" Perhaps we feel like that too!
NO GREATER LOVE
It was February 1941, Auschwitz, Poland. Maximilian Kolbe
was a Franciscan priest put in the infamous death camp for helping Jews escape Nazi terrorism.
Months went by and in desperation an escape took place. The camp rule was enforced. Ten people would be rounded up randomly and herded into a cell where they would die of starvation and exposure as a lesson against future escape attempts.
Names were called. A Polish Jew Frandishek Gasovnachek was called. He cried, "Wait, I have a wife and children!" Kolbe stepped forward and said, "I will take his place."
Kolbe was marched into the cell with nine others where he managed to live until August 14.
This story was chronicled on an NBC news special several years ago. Gasovnachek, by this time 82, was shown telling this story while tears streamed down his cheeks. A mobile camera followed him around his little white house to a marble monument carefully tended with flowers. The inscription read:
IN MEMORY OF MAXIMILIAN KOLBE
HE DIED IN MY PLACE.
Every day Gaso...
“In 1992, a Los Angeles County parking control officer came upon a brown El Dorado Cadillac illegally parked next to the curb on street-sweeping day.
The officer dutifully wrote out a ticket. Ignoring the man seated at the driver’s wheel, the officer reached inside the open car window and placed the $30 citation on the dashboard.
The driver of the car made no excuses. No argument ensued-and with good reason. The driver of the car had been shot in the head ten to twelve hours before but was sitting up, stiff as a board, slumped slightly forward, with blood on his face. He was dead.
The officer, preoccupied with ticket-writing, was unaware of anything out of the ordinary. He got back in his car and drove away.
Many people around us are ‘dead in transgressions and sins.’ What should catch our attention most is their need, not their offenses. They don’t need a citation; they need a Savior.” (Rowell)
Years ago, my youngest daughter, Marilyn, and I went shopping for Connie. It’s hard. You wives, it’s hard for a man to shop for his wife because we don’t know what you want, and we don’t want to get that for you, anyway.
But Marilyn and I thought we had found the perfect gift: a nightgown. You can always use a nightgown. It’s something that you use every day. This one was very special. It had a tag on it that said One Size Fits All. Connie opened it up, and you know what? That tag was right. It fits all! It would have fit me and her and Marilyn and the other two girls all at the same time!
My point is simply this: if there ever was a gift that was given that is so large, and so great, that one size truly fits all it’s the gift of eternal life; the gift of forgiveness of sins; the gift of salvation that comes through Jesus Christ our Lord.
A pastor was called to a new church. The first Sunday the pastor was there, his message was taken from John 3:16. The message was entitled, "How to Be Born Again." The
message was well received, but no decisions were made. The second Sunday, the pastor’s message was taken from John 3:16 and was entitled "How to Be Born Again." Again, no decisions were made. The third Sunday, the pastor’s sermon was taken from John 3:16 and
was entitled "How to Be Born Again." Again, no decisions were made. By this time, the deacons were worried about what was happening—he just kept preaching the same sermon over and over and over again. So, they called a special meeting with the pastor to discuss his choice of sermons. One deacon said, "Don’t you have any more sermons?" The new pastor responded, "Yes, I have plenty of sermons. However, I am going to keep preaching this sermon until you get it right. Then, I will move on to something else."
In the book, No Bad Dogs, by British dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse, she says dogs understand
love better than we do. She writes, “In a dog’s mind, a master or a mistress to love, honor, and obey is
an absolute necessity. The love is dormant in the dog until brought into full bloom by an understanding
owner. Thousands of dogs appear to love their owners, they welcome them home with enthusiastic
wagging of the tail and jumping up, they follow them about their houses happily and, to the normal person
seeing the dog, the affection is true and deep. But to the experienced dog trainer this outward show is
not enough. The true test of love takes place when the dog has got the opportunity to go out on its own
as soon as the door is left open by mistake and it goes off and often doesn’t return home for hours. That
dog loves only its home comforts and the attention it gets from its family; it doesn’t truly love the master
or mistress as they fondly think. True love in dogs is apparent when a door is left open and the dog still
stays happily within earshot of...
Mary Farwell of Green Castle Missouri, told of the time she was listening to her 5 year old son, Matthew, as he worked on his Speak and Spell™ computer. He was concentrating intensely, typing in words for the computer to say back to him.
Matthew punched in the word “God.” To his surprise, the computer said, “Word not found.” He tried again with the same reply. Staring at the computer in disgust he declared: “Jesus is not going to like this!”
Let me give you an example to what I’m saying by sharing with you a story that I recently read in one of the history books in my library. I read how on July 3l, 1838 on the Island of Jamaica, a man named William Knibbs, gathered 10,000 slaves for a great praise gathering. They were celebrating the New Emancipation Proclamation Act that would abolish slavery on the island. They had built an immense coffin and into it were placed whips, branding irons, chains, fetters of all kinds, slave garments and all the things that represented the terrible slavery system that was now coming to a welcome end.
At the first stroke of the midnight bell, Knibbs shouted out, "The monster is dying." At each stroke of the bell that followed this cry was repeated and the great crowd began to join in the cry. At the twelfth stoke 10,000 voices cried out, "The monster is dead, the monster is dead, let us bury him." They then screwed the coffin lid down and lowered it into a huge grave and covered it up. That night, every heart rejoiced and 10,000 voices grew hoarse, shouting and crying with joy. Once they were in bondage to slavery, but now they were free.
There is a tragic side to this story. While many rejoiced in their new liberty and freedom, there were some slaves, that lived in remote areas of the island, that did not know they had legally been set free. Because they didn’t know, for many years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been made a law, they still continued to serve their slave masters. Their former masters successfully kept the news from them as long as they could. By law they had been declared free men and did not have to live as slaves any longer. However, ignorance of the truth kept them in bondage.
Now let me tell you an even sadder story. Today, if we’d hear a story of something like that happening, we’d be shocked, sympathetic and even angry. But the truth is, the same type of thing is happening in our day. Jesus Christ, because of his victory against sin on the cross, has issued an Emancipation Proclamation of liberty and freedom from sin to everyone on this earth. But like some of the Jamaicans were, there are those today that just don’t understand that they no longer have to live as slaves to sin any longer, and the devil is trying to keep them in that mind set.
The message of the cross is this: Satan has been defeated and sin’s penalty has been paid. We no longer have to surrender to sin or be controlled by Satan. We can belong to Jesus and live to please God.
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