WHAT DO WE KNOW FOR SURE?

MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX

(Changed e-mail address: PowerPoint slides used in this sermon are available at no charge. Just e-mail me at mnewland@sstelco.com with your request -#244.)

What do we know for sure?

ILL. The great preacher, John Wesley, once said, “When I was young I was sure of everything. But after a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. And at present, I am hardly sure of anything except what God has revealed to me.”

ILL. We seem to live in a world filled with unclear messages. And the undisputed champion of muddled messages is Yogi Berra, Hall of Famer & former manager of the NY Yankees. Here are a few of his better-known “Yogi-isms.”

“Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical.”
"Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded."
“You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"
"You should always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t come to yours."
And there’s the time that a lady said to him, “Good afternoon, Mr. Berra. My, you look mighty cool today.” “Thank you, ma’am,” Yogi replied. “You don’t look so hot yourself.” (Bits & Pieces, February 4, 1993, p. 14)

Sometimes things are rather confusing, aren’t they? But our confusion doesn’t always stem from what others are saying. Sometimes we become confused simply because of our busy schedules & inadequate communication.

ILL. The story is told of a photographer for a national magazine who was assigned to get photos of a great forest fire. Wanting to take some aerial pictures, he asked his home office to hire a plane. They made the arrangements & told him to go at once to a nearby airport, where the plane would be waiting for him.

When he arrived at the airport, there was a plane warming up by the runway. He jumped in with his equipment & yelled, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” The pilot swung the plane into the wind & they were soon in the air.

“Fly over the north side of the fire,” yelled the photographer, “& make 3 or 4 low level passes.” “Why?” asked the pilot. “Because I’m going to take pictures,” cried the photographer. “I’m a photographer & that’s what photographers do!”

After a pause the pilot said, “You mean you’re not the flight instructor?” (Adapted from The Jokesmith)

What do we know for sure? At a time when TV screens are filled with competing political advertisements, disagreements about Iraq, & all kinds of news reports about the Washington Area sniper, we wonder – “Just what do we know for sure?”

PROP. In this day & age, sometimes it is difficult to know what is true & what is false. But surely, there are some things we can count on, some things we can know for sure. Just what do we know for sure?

I. THE BIBLE SPEAKS WITH CERTAINTY

First of all, like John Wesley, we can be sure when God has spoken. The Bible never speaks with timidity. The Bible never says. "It could be this," or "It could be that." In His Word, God speaks with certainty. Just think about how the Bible answers these basic questions:

A. "How did life begin?" The world says, "Well, maybe there was a big bang 200 million years or so ago,