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Let me tell you a story from Alberta history: Cree Chief Maskepetoon met Rev. Robert Rundle, and at their first meeting declared "I will never become a Christian as long as there are horses to steal and scalps to take." Nevertheless Maskepetoon became a staunch friend to Rundle and his attitude towards religion began to change. He became a great and feared warrior, but then later became a Christian and a champion of peace.
John McDougall (son of pioneer missionary George, for whom McDougall United is named) later told about the murderer who stopped to shake hands with him while he was traveling with Maskepetoon. When John said "This man wants to shake hand with you," Maskepetoon, apparently under great strain, gave his hand in greeting. He later said to John, "that man killed my son and I often longed to kill him but because I wanted to become a Christian I have kept, with great effort, from avenging my son’s murder. Meeting your father and sitting beside you has softened my heart and now I have given him my hand. It was a hard thing to do but it is done and he need fear no longer as far as I’m concerned."
The story continues: on another occasion the Crees were camped near what is now the city of Wetaskiwin when the Blackfoot asked for a truce. The truce was granted and the Blackfoot came to smoke the pipe of peace. One of their number had murdered Maskepetoon’s father years earlier.
Maskepetoon saw this old warrior, his father’s killer, approach with the others. He ordered his best horse saddled and brought to the tent, then ordered the culprit to stand before him. The murderer expected to be killed. Instead he was asked to be seated. The Chief handed him his best, richly decorated suit. Then Maskepetoon spoke, "you killed my father. The time was when I would have gloried in drinking your blood, but that time is past. You need not fear. You must now become a father to me. Wear my clothes, ride my horse. Tell your people that this is the way Maskepetoon takes revenge."
"You have killed me, my son!" cried the old murderer. "Never in the history of my people has such a thing as this been known. My people and all men will say ’The young Chief is brave and strong and good. He stands alone.’"
Do you see the power of forgiveness? It turned a fierce warrior, who desired nothing more that to steal horses and men’s scalps, into a man who could shake the hand of the man who killed his son. It turned him into a man who could look his father’s murdered in the eye and say, “you killed my father, you must now become a father to me. Wear my clothes, ride my horse.” I want to leave that image in your mind, because it is almost the exact thing that God says to you and I: “Your sin hurt me deeply. You killed my son – your sin killed my son. Wear my clothes, ride my horse. You must now become a son to me.”
Darren Ethier
Helen Rosavere is an English woman who had interests in becoming a doctor and serving Do. Upon completion of her medical training at Cambridge University, Helen began to ask God where he would want her to serve. Before long, God directed Helen to an area in the Congo (Africa) which had a population of over 200,000 people and not one doctor in the whole area. This meant that she would be working seven days a week, always on call, no time off, and when a medical emergency arose, she would have to take care of it.
Soon a hospital and training center was needed. It was a great need and there was just no way Helen could build it. Helen then cried out to God, "Surely, Lord, there is at least one man in England who could come and build a hospital!" But Helen heard nothing. Later, Helen wrote a letter to her parents and asked them to send her a book on how to build a hospital!" But Helen heard nothing. Later, Helen wrote a letter to her parents and asked them to send her a book on how to build a hospital. Her parents couldn’t find a book on how to build a hospital, but they did send a book on how to build bricks. When Helen received the book, she cried out to God again, "Surely, Lord, there is at least one man from England who could come and build bricks for the hospital."
No man arrived. So, in the midst of Helen’s busy schedule, she followed the instructions. She made the bricks to be put in the kiln to be fired. After the bricks were dried, the rough edges had to be sanded down. One day, as she was sanding, she noticed a wet substance on the brick and realized it was her own blood. "Surely, Lord, there is a man somewhere in England who could come and make these bricks." At that time a man came running up to Helen and told her of an emergency at the dispensary. With her fingers still bleeding, Helen went to take care of the man. When she entered the scrub room, she began to take a wire brush and scrub her raw fingers. The pain made her more irate. She began to yell at God in her spirit, "Surely, Lord, there is at least one man in all of England who could come and make bricks for the hospital."The attendant began to pour alcohol over her fingers. The pain was excruciating. The Helen put on her gloves and did what she had to do. Following the surgery, Helen went back out to begin working on the bricks. While out there, one of the nationals approached her and began to talk to her. He said, "Doc, we no know that you love and care for us. When you enter the operating room wearing your mask and gown, and use your ability to heal the sick, you frighten us. But when you come out here and work with the rest of us and bleed the same as we do, we realize that you are one of us."
Helen, for the first time, realized why there was no man from England who could come to help. God said to her, "I didn’t have you come here just to heal the sick, Helen. I brought you here to befriend these people in order that they may see me through you." Helen thanked the Lord. She then realized that God didn’t call her to be a medical missionary, but he called her to himself.
The Eskimo’s are among the greatest hunter’s of the world, but there is one animal that is the most difficult for them to catch. This animal has the greatest intellect, keenest smell, and the sharpest eyesight. And yet for the Eskimo’s to survive they must trap and kill this animal before it destroys their way of life. The animal I speak of is the white wolf. The white wolf has a sense of smell that can detect the presence of a human up to 2 miles away. It’s suggested that his eyesight is so great that if man had the same eyesight he could read a newspaper from 150 yards away. It is their eyesight, sense of smell, and their cunning that make them the most difficult animal to bring down. And yet, the Eskimo’s have devised a tactic that never fails. And it is similar to the tactic that the devil uses to attack Christians. The Eskimo’s say there is no sense in going against all the ability that the white wolf possesses. The devil says there no sense in going against the power of God in you. To bring down the white wolf, the Eskimo’s take a knife and sharpen it to a razor’s edge, put it outside and let it freeze, dip it in blood, freeze, again and again until there is a thick coat of blood on the knife. Then they go out into the wilderness and plant it in the ground blade up. The wolf scenting what is on the blade, and sensing that there is no danger, believes he has a free lunch. There is nothing to be alarmed about, so he makes his way to the knife. The blood has drawn him to it, and he licks it and nothing happens, he licks again and again. But with each lick he is working his way closer and closer to what’s going to destroy him. How many Christian’s have been tempted to give into sin, tempted to mix God’s standards with the world’s, tempted to take that lustful glance, that first drink, to tell that little white lie, to cheat on a test, to cheat on their taxes, or to cheat on their spouse. and have taken that 1st, 2nd, 3rd lick not knowing that their getting closer to what’s going to destroy them. Now, the white wolf gets comfortable and licks faster and faster as he tastes the frozen blood. Then he gets to the blade and slices his tongue but doesn’t even know it, because he is numbed by the bloody ice. Now he is tasting his own blood, but he continues to lick until the blade is clean and his tongue is shredded. He never walks more than a mile before he bleeds to death and the hunter has won. The devil has planted blades all around us. And all he wants you to do is to get comfortable with the first lick. No one will ever see, no one will ever know. Your safe, there is no harm. But with every lick you’re getting closer to the blade, to destruction, to death. The blades that Satan offers appear to be beautiful, desirable, something to be longed for, something that will bring satisfaction & pleasure. But they will destroy your life. Countless Christians have been overcome by things that Satan has set in front of them and they lost everything that was truly dear to them, their home, marriage, family, and friends. I can handle it.
AN EASTER PARABLE: EDITH EASTER
Edith Burns was a wonderful Christian who lived in San Antonio, Texas. She was the patient of a doctor by the name of Will Phillips. Dr. Phillips was a gentle doctor who saw patients as people. His favorite patient was Edith Burns. One morning he went to his office with a heavy heart and it was because of Edith Burns.
When he walked into that waiting room, there sat Edith with her big black Bible in her lap earnestly talking to a young mother sitting beside her.
Edith Burns had a habit of introducing herself in this way: "Hello, my name is Edith Burns. Do you believe in Easter?" Then she would explain the meaning of Easter, and many times people would be saved. Dr. Phillips walked into that office and there he saw the head nurse, Beverly. Beverly had first met Edith when she was taking her blood pressure. Edith began by saying, "My name is Edith Burns. Do you believe in Easter?" Beverly said, "Why yes I do." Edith said, "Well, what do you believe about Easter?" Beverly said, "Well, it's all about egg hunts, going to church, and dressing up." Edith kept pressing her about the real meaning of Easter, and finally led her to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Dr. Phillips said, "Beverly, don't call Edith into the office quite yet. I believe there is another delivery taking place in the waiting room."
After being called back in the doctor's office, Edith sat down and when she took a look at the doctor she said, "Dr. Will, why are you so sad? Are you reading your Bible? Are you praying?" Dr. Phillips said gently, "Edith, I'm the doctor and you're the patient." With a heavy heart he said, "Your lab report came back and it says you have cancer, and Edith, you're not going to live very long." Edith said, "Why Will Phillips, shame on you. Why are you so sad? Do you think God makes mistakes? You have just told me I'm going to see my precious Lord Jesus, my husband, and my friends. You have just told me that I am going to celebrate Easter forever, and here you are having difficulty giving me my ticket!" Dr. Phillips thought to himself, "What a magnificent woman this Edith Burns is!"
Edith continued coming to Dr. Phillips. Christmas came and the office was closed through January 3rd. On the day the office opened, Edith did not show up. Later that afternoon, Edith called Dr. Phillips and said she would have to be moving her story to the hospital and said, "Will, I'm very near home, so would you make sure that they put women in here next to me in my room who need to know about Easter."
Well, they did just that and women began to come in and share that room with Edith. Many women were saved. Everybody on that floor from staff to patients were so excited about Edith, that they started calling her Edith Easter; that is everyone except Phyllis Cross, the head nurse. Phyllis made it plain that she wanted nothing to do with Edith because she was a "religious nut". She had been a nurse in an army hospital. She had seen it all and heard it all. She was the original G.I. Jane. She had been married three times, she was hard, cold, and did everything by the book.
One morning the two nurses who were to attend to Edith were sick. Edith had the flu and Phyllis Cross had to go in and give her a shot. When she walked in, Edith had a big smile on her face and said, "Phyllis, God loves you and I love you, and I have been praying for you." Phyllis Cross said, "Well, you can quit praying for me, it won't work. I'm not interested." Edith said, "Well, I will pray and I have asked God not to let me go home until you come into the family." Phyllis Cross said, "Then you will never die because that will never happen," and curtly walked out of the room.
Every day Phyllis Cross would walk into the room and Edith would say, "God loves you Phyllis and I love you, and I'm praying for you." One day Phyllis Cross said she was literally drawn to Edith's room like a magnet would draw iron. She sat down on the bed and Edith said, "I'm so glad you have come, because God told me that today is your special day." Phyllis Cross said, "Edith, you have asked everybody here the question, 'Do you believe in Easter?' but you have never asked me." Edith said, "Phyllis, I wanted to many times, but God told me to wait until you asked, and now that you have asked..."
Edith Burns took her Bible and shared with Phyllis Cross the Easter Story of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Edith said, "Phyllis, do you believe in Easter? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is alive and that He wants to live in your heart?" Phyllis Cross said, "Oh I want to believe that with all of my heart, and I do want Jesus in my life." Right there, Phyllis Cross prayed and invited Jesus Christ into her heart. For the first time Phyllis Cross did not walk out of a hospital room, s...
DOES YOUR GOD BLEED?
A little boy went up to a missionary Sunday School leader in a pagan country. The boy said, "I like what you say about the God of the Bible but I can’t see him. But if I go to the temple I can see my God."
The missionary said to the little boy, "Listen, does your God bleed?"
The boy said, "I don’t know."
The missionary gave him a pin and said, "Next time you go to the temple, when no one else is watching, prick him and see what happens."
The following week the boy returned to his Sunday School class. He said to the missionary, "I did it, I did it, I pricked the idol."
The missionary said, "And what happened?"
The boy replied, "Nothing, my god doesn’t bleed."
Straight away the missionary said, "But my God did! He bled for me and he bled for you!"
(From a sermon by Gordon Curley, Glorifying God, 1/23/2011)
THE IMPORTANCE OF FOCUS
When the Alaskan Pipeline was being built, there were many Texans who went to Alaska and found work on the pipeline. The Texans could only work a few hours in the frigid weather, yet the Eskimos, the native Alaskans, could work indefinitely in the cold.
They decided to do a study to find out why the Eskimos could withstand the weather. After much study they found that there were no physiological differences between the Eskimos and the Texans. There was nothing in skin thickness, blood, or any other thing physically that would explain the differences in the ability to withstand the temperatures. The solution came when they did a psychological study. The difference was the Eskimo said, "He knows it was cold but there was a job to be done." In other words, his focus was on the job and obtaining results rather than on the weather. The Texan focused on the weather and this kept him from focusing on the job at hand. (Taken from the Movie 5th Quarter).
You and I will focus on one of two things this week. We will either focus on how bad things are, the trials, and temptations or we will focus on Christ and His Word. Godly faith can help us to face and overcome the world we live. Whatever our troubles are: with family, loneliness, things that seem impossible, dealing with death, sin or whatever it is.
"At a certain moment, a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped. When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don’t call this my "deathbed." Call it my "bed of life," and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
"Give my sight to someone who has never seen a sunrise, a baby’s face or love in the eyes of another. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain. Give my blood to the teenager who has been pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve so that someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.
"Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow. If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all my prejudice against my other humans. Give my sins to the Devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.
FOX SPORTS PLAY OF THE DAY
"Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’" (Acts 2:38).
Pat Summerall spent 50 years with the national Football League. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1952 and played with the Chicago Cardinals and New York Giants until 1961. After his retirement from the game, he joined CBS as a broadcaster, and in 1993 switched to Fox. During his CBS years he and a fellow broadcaster partied hard off the field. "We raised Cain. I was the first guy at the bar and the last to leave." Summerall was told that if he kept on drinking he was going to die.
After checking himself into the Betty Ford Clinic, his counselor urged him to seek a better life through faith. At age 66, Pat Summerall was baptized. In USA Today he told a reporter that when the minister "leaned me back in the water, I never felt so helpless." Summerall testified, "I knew I just became a Christian. I can’t tell you how great life has been since then."
Baptism is a faith response to the gospel of Christ. In baptism we are indeed helpless. We are sinners in t...
THE DEVIL’S VISION
The devil once said, to his demons below, our work is progressing entirely to slow; The holiness people stand in our way, since they don’t believe in the show or the play; they teach that the carnival, circus and dance, the tavern and honky tonk, with games of chance, drinking and smoking, these things are wrong; that Christians don’t mix with this ungodly throng. They’re quick to condemn everything that we do; to cause unbeliever’s to be not a few. They claim that these things are all of the Devil, that Christian folk should live on a higher level. Now, fellows, their theology, while perfectly true, is blocking the work we are trying to do. We’ll have to get busy and figure a plan, that will change their standards as fast as we can. Now, I have a vision of what we can do; Hearken-- I’ll tell this deception to you. Then find me a wise but degenerate man, whom I can use to help out this plan.
There’s nothing as real as what you can see; the eyes and the mind and the heart will agree. So, what can be better than an object to view? I say, it will work and convince not a few. The home is the place for this sinful device; The people deceived will think it’s quite nice. The world will possess it; most Christians won’t tell that it’s all of the devil, and was plotted in hell.
We’ll soothe them with pictures of the latest of news, and while they are looking, then will advertise booze. At the soul damming cigarette they’ll also look, until they forget what God say’s in his book. At first it will shock them, they’ll seem in a daze, but soon they’ll be hardened and continue to gaze. We’ll give them some gospel that isn’t too strong; and a few sacred songs to string them along. They’ll take in the ad’s with the latest of fashion and soon watch shows that stir evil passions. Murder and love-making scenes the will behold, until there souls become bitterly cold. The “old family altar” which once held such charm, will soon lose its place without much alarm. Praying in secret, will also be lost as they look at the screen without counting the cost. The compromising preacher’s who won’t take their stand, will embrace the new vision and think it is grand. They’ll help fool the people and cause them to sin by seeking this evil and taking it in.
The influence is great, and this you can see; Just look at my fall and you will agree. It won’t take long my demon’s to tell, that the vision of Satan will populate Hell. Divorce will increase, sex-crimes will abound; much innocent blood will be spilled on the ground. I say, the home will be damned and this in short order. When this vision of mine comes in to stay.
Get busy my cohorts, and put this thing out; we’ll see if the church can continue to shout. The holiness people who stand in our way, will soon hush their crying against the show and the play. We’ll cover the earth with this “Devil vision” though we will camouflage it with the name “Television.” The people will think they are getting a treat, till the Antichrist comes to take over his seat, He’ll then rule the world, while the viewer’s behold; The face of the beast, to whom they were sold. We’ll win through deception, this we cannot fail. Though some holiness preacher’s against it will rail.
James May
I saw a movie recently titled “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” where three escaped criminals were on the run. One scene in this movie stands out to me more than any other.
While on the run they are involved in a baptismal scene at the river. Two of the criminals are baptized by the preacher and they immediately think that all of their past sin is gone and that they are now innocent again, and the law can’t touch them.
There was no repentance or change of heart, they only got wet, but they thought the “preacher had washed their sins away”. Nothing can do that but the Blood of Jesus Christ though repentance and acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior.
The only one who had any intelligence among the three spoke up and his statement makes the point that I want to emphasize. He said, “The Lord may have forgiven you and washed your sin away, but the State of Mississippi isn’t so forgiving and you still have a debt to pay.”
