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One of my all-time favorite scenes out of Hollywood. (They are few and far between for me...) It’s a scene from one of the Star Trek TV series. Worf, the Klingon, is captured by the evil Dominion. They intend to use him as a practice dummy in hand-to-hand combat for their lethal ground troops, and so they do. They bring out soldier after soldier to take Worf on and they go at it. It’s never very long before the bad guys get tired of getting beat up, and they "tap out" and quit. So, after Worf’s been taking on all comers for most of the day, they finally bring out their biggest and baddest, the one warrior they know will be able to win. They begin to battle, and Worf is just too weak from the day’s struggles. He is little more than a punching bag for the bad guy to work out on. But Worf will not "tap out" like all the other beaten soldiers. He keeps getting up, no matter how many times he is knocked down, no matter how injured he is. He simply will not quit. It is obvious that this valiant warrior has won the respect and admiration of all the Dominion troops, including the one now beating him up. They all begin to beg him to tap out and quit, but he will not. Finally, out of sheer exhasperation, the warrior who is beating him stops and "taps out" himself. When asked by his enraged commander why he has done this, he says, resigned, "I cannot defeat this man. I can only kill him."
Think about that for a moment. I cannot defeat this man. I can only kill him. I don’t know about you, but my goal is to hear the devil himself say those words about me some day. I will not tap out. How about you?
[Courageous Fishers of Men, Citation: Eugene A Maddox, Interlachen, Florida; source: The Perfect Storm]
The movie, The Perfect Storm, well described the dangers of the fishing industry through the eyes of the crew of the fishing boat, the Andrea Gail.
Out of their need to bring home an excellent catch of fish, the captain and crew decide to risk everything and travel as far as the remote but fertile fishing ground called the Flemish Cap. It is an especially dangerous trek during the unpredictably stormy month of October.
On their way back to Gloucester, Massachusetts, the Andrea Gail encounters the "perfect storm" of 1991 and is never heard from again.
While improvements in shipbuilding, navigational technology, weather-reporting and rescue support have made boating safer, fishing has become, if anything, a more lethal occupation, killing more of its workers per capita than any other job in the United States.
"There are many kinds of work that are dangerous, but one of the interesting things about fishing is that it really hasn’t changed much over time," says The Perfect Storm author Sebastian Junger. "It’s been mechanized, of course, but the basic reality of going to sea for months at a stretch is the same as it was 100 years ago. You’re way beyond help from anyone else; you’re on your own. I think that forms a certain kind of character. Not only does everyone know someone who has died at sea but everyone who works in the fishing industry has almost died. Every single fisherman you talk to has almost gotten nailed at one time or another."
It takes courage to be a fisherman. And it takes courage to fish for the souls of people.
There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Romans 3:10-18 (NIV)
“Don’t you fear God?” is a great question. It’s a question that I don’t think we hear much anymore. And if we’re not careful, the next generation will miss entirely this all important characteristic of God.
That’s why I’m glad Disney and Walden Media is releasing C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, Witch and The Wardrobe” this December. If you don’t know anything about this, let me encourage you to pick up the book and make plans to see this movie. In this story, Lewis chose a Lion to represent Jesus. At times the children in the story felt comfortable to run their fingers through his mane, take rides on his back and enjoy being in his presence. But his roar was ferocious enough to introduce an element of fear. It prompted 1 of the children to ask, “Is Aslan safe?” The thoughtful answer was, “No, He’s not safe, but He is good.”
God is a God of love and justice; grace and wrath, and sometimes I think we need to hear Him roar to remind us of His holiness.
Indian Jones and the Last Crusade is one of my favorite movies—it’s great entertainment but it packs a powerful punch of a message about finding happiness and joy [Show the clip toward the end of the movie when Elsa has fallen to her death grasping for the grail and then Indiana nearly dies as he reaches for the Holy Grail even as his father is trying to save him.]
Indiana Jones is grasping for the Holy Grail even as he is about to plunge to his death. His father implores him, “Indiana, let it go.” All too often it is not what we lack that inhibits us from experiencing abundant life: what keeps us from experiencing life abundant is the stuff of earth that we do not want to let go of or to lose. Jesus said that he came to give life, and give it abundantly. If that is the case, then...
In ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ Edmund’s love for ‘Turkish Delight’ caused him to betray his family. He fell into the trap set by the Witch and since it tasted so good he became obsessed with getting more ‘Turkish Delight’. The temptation of luscious ‘Turkish Delight’ became stronger even than his family loyalty; (that’s often what happens when a marriage breaks down due to adultery). Later in the book as the Witch prepares to kill Edmund he is rescued by troops from Aslan’s army. Next morning Edmund comes face to face with his brother Peter and his sisters Lucy and Susan. At this point there could have been an almighty family brawl, the type of brawl which I hope and pray you do not experience this Christmas!
But there’s no brawl and no harsh words. After talking with Edmund Aslan says, “Here is your brother; and there is no need to talk to him about what is past.”
Edmund shook hands with each of the others and said to each of them in turn, “I’m sorry”.
Aslan rescued Edmund, and Edmund was restored to his brothers and sisters. That’s how God desires to be with us. God says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
I used the famous Gene Kelly scene from Singing in the Rain as an illustration of Romans 5:17. The Sermon title was Singing in the Reign. Kelly’s dance was full of the child-like love we can feel and experience in knowing that God has freely given us His abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness. Kelly’s exhuberant joy is dampened by the appearance of the policeman - an apt illustration of moving from grace and the free gift back into legalism!
Frank Gallagher
If anyone here ever watches the TV show Seinfeld, you know that Jerry’s next door neighbor, Kramer, is very much at home in Jerry’s apartment. He probably spends more time there than in his own apartment. He has his own set of keys, and lets himself in whenever he wants. He eats whatever is in the refrigerator, and takes anything else he wants from Jerry’s apartment, usually returning it broken or not at all.
In a way, that’s the way Jesus wants us to feel about His Word, the Bible. He wants us to spend a lot of time there, and has given us His Holy Spirit as the key. God wants us to be "at home" in His Word, to be ourselves there, and to make use of all that it has to offer. The blessings in the Scriptures are ours to take freely without having to repay. So my second point is that Jesus wants us to use His Word as our home.
Shadowlands -- a Broadway play, later made into a motion picture -- tells the story of C. S. Lewis and his wife, Joy . . .of their intense love for one another . . .and of the shadow that was cast across their life. Shadowlands portrays their struggle with Joy’s cancer. After Joy’s death, Lewis wrote these words: It is incredible how much happiness, how much joy we sometimes had together after all hope was gone.”
The comfort that is at the heart of those words is also at the heart of Advent. The answers to the paradoxes of living by dying, finding peace o...
We’ve all read and heard these Bible verses about the shepherds before, taught by pastors and Sunday School teachers at Christmas time. We can even hear these verses on TV each year if we watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Charlie Brown spends the show as so many people do today, looking in all the wrong places for the true meaning of Christmas. He thinks that maybe it’s putting on a Christmas play, or finding just the right tree to decorate. But the other kids all argue over the details of the play, and call him “stupid” for the scrawny little tree he buys. In the end, his friend Linus tells Charlie brown the true meaning of Christmas by reciting the Bible verses about the shepherds, and about Jesus’ birth.
I think of Eric Liddell. The movie Chariots of Fire depicts how his sister Jenny tried to persuade Eric to give up his running, and go to China with her to be a missionary. He said, "No, God has made me fast and called me to run." It would have been wrong at that point to be a missionary. Of course, Liddell had other opportunities to take up the cross. At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, he would choose to forfeit his chance to win a medal in the 200 meter dash, something he very much wanted to do, because he believed the Lord did not want him to race on Sunday. Then a number of years later, he would take up the cross quite literally and go to China as a missionary where he would later be killed by the Japanese.
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