SERMONS ILLUSTRATIONS-A 1

ABANDONED

During WWII six Navy pilots left their aircraft carrier on a mission. After searching the seas for enemy submarines, they tried to return to their ship shortly after dark. But the captain had ordered a blackout of all lights on the ship. Over and over the frantic pilots radioed, asking for just one light so they could see to land. But the pilots were told that the blackout could not be lifted. After several appeals and denials of their request, the ship's operator turned the switch to break radio contact--and the pilots were forced to ditch in the ocean.

Today in the Word, MBI, October, 1991, p. 12.

ABILITY

Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Henry Van Dyke, Bits & Pieces, March 31, 1994, p. 16.

It is almost as presumptuous to think you can do nothing as to think you can do everything.

Phillips Brooks.

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

Josh Billings.

ABORTION

A professor in a world-acclaimed medical school once posed this medical situation -- and ethical problem -- to his students: "Here's the family history: The father has syphilis. The mother has TB. They already have had four children. The first is blind. The second had died. The third is deaf. The fourth has TB. Now the mother is pregnant again, The parents come to you for advice. They are willing to have an abortion, if you decide they should. What do you say?"

The students gave various individual opinions, and then the professor asked them to break into small groups for "consultation." All of the groups came back to report that they would recommend abortion.

"Congratulations," the professor said, "You just took the life of Beethoven!"

We believe this was first reported in an Ann Landers column.

A recent poll of couples in New England revealed that, if they were able to know these things in advance, 1 percent of them would abort a child on the basis of sex, 6 percent would abort a child likely to get Alzheimer's disease, and an incredible 11 percent would abort a child predisposed to obesity.

The Utne Reader, quoted in Signs of the Times, January, 1993, p. 6.

Some of you may remember the man who won a U.S. Supreme Court case over his right to obtain an abortion for his comatose wife. He argued at that time that an abortion could aid a possible recovery for his wife, Nancy, who was comatose as a result of a car accident in 1988. The abortion accomplished, Martin Klein now plans to divorce his wife. His comment was, "Life changes, tragedy happens. It's all very complicated." He also said "my commitment to Nancy continues to remain as strong as ever." We agree. His commitment to his wife is as strong now as it was previously. That is to say, not very.

Credenda, Agenda, Volume 4/Number 3, p. 15.

Abortion is no more purely a medical problem just because the physician wields the curette than chemical warfare is purely a problem for pilots because they press the lever releasing the chemical.

E. Fuller Torrey, taken from "Abortion", Dallas, TX: Christian Medical & Dental Society Journal, Summer, 1976, Vol. VII, Number 3, quoted in Sanctity of Life, C. Swindoll, p. 10.

Medical authorities determine a person to be "alive" if there is either a detectable heartbeat or brain-wave activity. With that in mind, it is eye-opening for some to realize that unborn children have detectable heartbeats at eighteen days (two and one-half weeks) after conception and detectable brain-wave activity forty days (a little over five and one-half weeks) after conception. What is so shocking is that essentially 100 percent of all abortions occur after the seventh week of pregnancy.

Sanctity of Life, C. Swindoll, Word, 1990, p. 11-12.

Why are children aborted? The Alan Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood) states: * 1% are victims of incest or rape * 1% had fetal abnormalities * 4% had a doctor who said their health would worsen if they continued the pregnancy * 50% said they didn't want to be a single parent or they had problems in current relationships * 66% stated they could not afford a child *75% said the child would interfere with their lives.

Statistics cited in Rescue Update, June/July 1989, Southern California Operation Rescue, quoted in Sanctity of Life, C. Swindoll, Word, 1990, p. 12.

How many children are aborted? Worldwide, 55 million unborn children are killed every year. Around the world, every day 150,685 children are killed by abortion; every hour, 6278; and every minute, 105. Those are the reported cases. If you are an American citizen, no doubt your greatest interest is in your own nation, as is mine. Let me break the abortions down to a national statistic: 1,600,000 babies are aborted in these United States every year. Per day, that's 4,383; per hour, that's 183; per minute, there are 3.

C. Swindoll, Sanctity of Life, Word, 1990, p. 13.

C. Everett Koop, M.D., formerly the Surgeon General, states that during his 35-plus years of practicing medicine, "Never once did a case come across my practice where abortion was necessary to save a mother's life."

C. Swindoll, Sanctity of Life, Word, 1990, p. 23.

If our language has appeared to some strong and severe, or even intemperate, let the gentlemen pause for a moment and reflect on the importance and gravity of the subject... We had to deal with human life. In a matter of less importance we could entertain no compromise.

The American Medical Association, 1981, in a report opposing abortion. Quoted in Marvin Olasky's The Press and Abortion, 1838-1988.

Percentage of women who chose an abortion because having a baby "would; change their life (job, school)": 76. Percentage who chose an abortion because of rape or incest: 1.

Family Planning Perspectives, 7-8/88, reported in MS., 4/89.

Charles McCarry can claim a varied career. In addition to being the author of The Tears of Autumn and The Last Supper, he served as assistant to the Secretary of Labor in the Eisenhower cabinet and has done two stints in the CIA. But he almost wasn't born. Says McCarry, "My mother became pregnant with me at the age of 39. She had nearly died while giving birth to my only sibling. Her doctor, who believed the second pregnancy was a serious threat to her life, advised an abortion. The advice made sense, but my mother refused to accept it. Just before she died at age 97, I asked her why. She replied, "I wanted to see who you were going to turn out to be."

In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, quoted in Reader's Digest, February 1990 .

In Germany, they first came for the Communists and I did not speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time, there was no one left to speak up.

Martin Niemoller.

When you're raised in the country, hunting is just a natural part of growing up. For years I enjoyed packing up my guns and some food to head off into the woods. Even more than the hunting itself, I enjoyed the way these trips always seemed to deepen my relationship with friends as we hunted during the day and talked late into the night around the campfire. When an old friend recently invited me to relive some of those days, I couldn't pass up the chance. For several weeks before the trip, I had taken the time to upgrade some of my equipment and sight in my rifle. When the day came, I was ready for the hunt. What I wasn't ready for was what my close friend, Tom, shared with me the first night out on the trail.

I always enjoyed the time I spent with Tom. He had become a leader in his church and his warm and friendly manner had also taken him many steps along the path of business success. He had a lovely wife, and while I knew they had driven over some rocky roads in their marriage, things now seemed to be stable and growing. Tom's kids, two daughters and a son, were struggling in junior high and high school with the normal problems of peer pressure and acceptance.

As we rode back into the mountains, I could tell that something big was eating away at Tom's heart. His normal effervescent style was shrouded by an overwhelming inner hurt. Normally, Tom would attack problems with the same determination that had made him a success in business. Now, I saw him wrestling with something that seemed to have knocked him to the mat for the count.

Silence has a way of speaking for itself. All day and on into the evening, Tom let his lack of words shout out his inner restlessness. Finally, around the first night's campfire, he opened up.

The scenario Tom painted was annoyingly familiar. I'd heard it many times before in many other people's lives. But the details seemed such a contract to the life that Tom and his wife lived and the beliefs they embraced. His oldest daughter had become attached to a boy at school. Shortly after they started going together, they became sexually involved. Within two months, she was pregnant. Tom's wife discovered the truth when a packet from Planned Parenthood came in the mail addressed to her daughter. When confronted with it, the girl admitted she had requested it when she went to the clinic to find out if she was pregnant.

If we totaled up the number of girls who have gotten pregnant out of wedlock during the past two hundred years of our nation's history, the total would be in the millions. Countless parents through the years have faced the devastating news. Being a member of such a large fraternity of history, however, does not soften the severity of the blow to your heart when you discover it's your daughter.

Tom shared the humiliation he experienced when he realized that all of his teaching and example had been ignored. Years of spiritual training had been thrust aside. His stomach churned as he relived the emotional agony of knowing that the little girl he and his wife loved so much had made a choice that had permanently scarred her heart.

I'm frequently confronted with these problems in my ministry and have found that dwelling on the promiscuous act only makes matters worse. I worship a God of forgiveness and solutions, and at that moment in our conversation I was anxious to turn toward hope and healing.

I asked Tom what they had decided to do. Would they keep the baby, or put it up for adoption? That's when he delivered the blow. With the fire burning low, Tom paused for a long time before answering. And even when he spoke he wouldn't look me in the eye. "We considered the alternatives, Tim. Weighed all the options." He took a deep breath. "We finally made an appointment with the abortion clinic. I took her down there myself." I dropped the stick I'd been poking the coals with and stared at Tom. Except for the wind in the trees and the snapping of our fire it was quiet for a long time. I couldn't believe this was the same man who for years had been so outspoken against abortion. He and his wife had even volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center in his city.

Heartsick, I pressed him about the decision. Tom then made a statement that captured the essence of his problem...and the problem many others have in entering into genuine rest. In a mechanical voice, he said "I know what I believe, Tim, but that's different than what I had to do. I had to make a decision that had the least amount of consequences for the people involved."

Just by the way he said it, I could tell my friend had rehearsed these lines over and over in his mind. And by the look in his eyes and the emptiness in his voice, I could tell his words sounded as hollow to him as they did to me.

Tim Kimmel, Little House on the Freeway, pp. 67-70.

ABSOLUTES

At a recent gathering of seminary professors, one teacher reported that at his school the most damaging charge one student can lodge against another is that the person is being "judgmental." He found this pattern very upsetting. "You can't get a good argument going in class anymore," he said. "As soon as somebody takes a stand on any important issue, someone else says that the person is being judgmental. And that's it. End of discussion. Everyone is intimidated!" Many of the other professors nodded knowingly. There seemed to be a consensus that the fear of being judgmental has taken on epidemic proportions. Is the call for civility just another way of spreading this epidemic? If so, then I'm against civility. But I really don't think that this is what being civil is all about. Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn't mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us. Civility doesn't require us to approve of what other people believe and do. It is one thing to insist that other people have the right to express their basic convictions; it is another thing to say that they are right in doing so. Civility requires us to live by the first of these principles. But it does not commit us to the second formula. To say that all beliefs and values deserve to be treated as if they were on a par is to endorse relativism -- a perspective that is incompatible with Christian faith and practice. Christian civility does not mean refusing to make judgments about what is good and true. For one thing, it really isn't possible to be completely nonjudgmental. Even telling someone else that she is being judgmental is a rather judgmental thing to do!

Richard J. Mouw, Uncommon Decency, pp. 20-21.

There is no repose for the mind except in the absolute; for feeling, except in the infinite; for the soul, except in the divine.

Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881)

In the evening of life, we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord, I could not call him to come.

Madeleine L'Engle, The Irrational Season, p.77.

ABUSE

A recent survey on marital violence reports that approximately one in every seven American couples has used some form of physical abuse during an argument within the past year.

National Institute of Mental Health, in Homemade, June, 1990.

Sexual abuse of children is more widespread than previously assumed, according to a recent study. Who are the victims? Between 15% and 34% of all girls in this country; between 3% and 9% of all boys. More than 90% of the abusers were adult males.

University of New Hampshire, in Homemade, August, 1985.

Children who see physical violence between their parents are six times more likely to abuse their own spouses after they marry. If those children were also hit by their parents as teenagers, they are 12 times more likely to abuse their spouses.

Bottom Line, in Homemade, Nov, 1985.

ACCIDENT

Rowland V. Bingham, founder of the Sudan Interior Mission, was once seriously injured in an automobile accident. He was rushed to a hospital in critical condition. The following day, when he regained consciousness, he asked the nurse what he was doing there. "Don't try to talk now, just rest," she replied. "You have been in an accident." "Accident? Accident!" exclained Dr. Bingham. "There are no accidents in the life of a Christian. This is just an incident in God's perfect leading."

Source Unknown.

(Response to an insurance company) I am writing in response to your request for additional information. In block #3 of the accident form, I put "trying to do the job alone" as the cause of my accident. You said in your letter that I should explain more fully, and I trust that the following details will be sufficient. I am a bricklayer by trade. On the date of the accident I was working alone on the roof of a new six story building. When I completed my work, I found that I had about 500 pounds of brick left over. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which fortunately was attached to the side of the building at the 6th floor. Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out, and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 500 pounds of brick.

You will note in block #11 of the accident report that I weight 135 pounds. But to by surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rather rapid rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming down. This explains the fractured skull, and broken collar bone. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were 2 knuckles deep into the pulley. Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind, and was able to hold tightly to the rope, in spite of my pain.

At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground, and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel then weighed approximately 50 pounds. I refer you again to my weight in block #11.

As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, and the lacerations of my legs, and lower body area. The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell onto the pile of bricks, and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the bricks, in pain . . . unable to stand . . . and watching the empty barrel six stories above me . . . I again lost my presence of mind and let go of the rope. The empty barrel weighed more than the rope, so it came back down on me, and broke both my legs.

I hope I have furnished the information you have required.

Source Unknown.

ACCOMPLISHMENT

The concert impresario, Sol Hurok, liked to say that Marian Anderson hadn't simply grown great, she'd grown great simply. He says: "A few years ago a reporter interviewed Marian and asked her to name the greatest moment in her life. I was in her dressing room at the time and was curious to hear the answer. I knew she had many big moments to choose from. There was the night Toscanini told her that hers was the finest voice of the century. There was the private concert she gave at the White House for the Roosevelts and the King and Queen of England. She had received the $10,000 Bok Award as the person who had done the most for her home town, Philadelphia. To top it all, there was that Easter Sunday in Washington when she stood beneath the Lincoln statue and sang for a crowd of 75,000, which included Cabinet members, Supreme Court Justices, and most members of Congress. Which of those big moments did she choose? "None of them," said Hurok. "Miss Anderson told the reporter that the greatest moment of her life was the day she went home and told her mother she wouldn't have to take in washing anymore."

Alan Loy McGinnis in The Friendship Factor, p. 30.

We have got but one life here...It pays, no matter what comes after it, to try and do things, to accomplish things in this life, and not merely to have a soft and pleasant time.

Theodore Roosevelt.

Ministry that costs nothing, accomplishes nothing.

John Henry Jowett.

ACCOUNTABILITY

A recent survey of Discipleship Journal readers ranked areas of greatest spiritual challenge to them:

1. Materialism. 2. Pride. 3. Self-centeredness. 4. Laziness. 5. (Tie) Anger/Bitterness. 5. (Tie) Sexual lust. 7. Envy. 8. Gluttony. 9. Lying.

Discipleship Journal.

Survey respondents noted temptations were more potent when they had neglected their time with God (81 percent) and when they were physically tired (57 percent). Resisting temptation was accomplished by prayer (84 percent), avoiding compromising situations (76 percent), Bible study (66 percent), and being accountable to someone (52 percent).

Discipleship Journal, November / December 1992.

In Rebuilding Your Broken World, Gordon MacDonald suggests twenty-six questions to help develop accountability and invite feedback. If we desire to grow, we should submit our selves to a spiritual mentor and answer these questions honestly.

1. How is your relationship with God right now?
2. What have you read in the Bible in the past week?
3. What has God said to you in this reading?
4. Where do you find yourself resisting Him these days?
5. What specific things are you praying for in regard to yourself?
7. What are the specific tasks facing you right now that you consider incomplete?
8. What habits intimidate you?
9. What have you read in the secular press this week?
10. What general reading are you doing?
11. What have you done to play?
12. How are you doing with your spouse? Kids?
13. If I were to ask your spouse about your state of mind, state of spirit, state of energy level, what would the response be?
14. Are you sensing spiritual attacks from the enemy right now?
15. If Satan were to try to invalidate you as a person or as a servant of the Lord, how might he do it?
16. What is the state of your sexual perspective? Tempted? Dealing with fantasies? Entertainment?
17. Where are you financially right now? (things under control? under anxiety? in great debt?)
18. Are there any unresolved conflicts in your circle of relationships right now?
19. When was the last time you spent time with a good friend of your own gender?
20. What kind of time have you spent with anyone who is a non-Christian this month?
21. What challenges do you think you're going to face in the coming week? Month?
22. What would you say are your fears at this present time?
23. Are you sleeping well?
24. What three things are you most thankful for?
25. Do you like yourself at this point in your pilgrimage?
26. What are your greatest confusions about your relationship with God?

Paul Borthwick, Leading the Way, Navpress, 1989, pp. 171-172.

But too often we confuse love with permissiveness. It is not love to fail to dissuade another believer from sin any more than it is love to fail to take a drink away from an alcoholic or matches away from a baby. True fellowship out of love for one another demands accountability.

John Wesley was so concerned with building a righteous fellowship that he devised a series of questions for his followers to ask each other every week. Some found this rigorous system of inquiry too demanding and left. Today, the very idea of such a procedure would horrify many churchgoers. Yet some wisely follow just such a practice. Chuck Swindoll for example, has seven questions that he and a group of fellow pastors challenge each other with periodically:

1. Have you been with a woman anywhere this past week that might be seen as compromising?
2. Have any of your financial dealings lacked integrity?
3. Have you exposed yourself to any sexually explicit material?
4. Have you spent adequate time in Bible study and prayer?
5. Have you given priority time to your family?
6. Have you fulfilled the mandates of your calling?
7. Have you just lied to me?

C. Colson, The Body.

My greatest thought is my accountability to God.

Daniel Webster.

ACCURACY

Time technicians at the National Institute of Standards & Technology (Formerly the National Bureau of Standards) set a new level of precision in 1949 by inventing the atomic clock. It counted the oscillations of the nitrogen atom in an ammonia molecule--and was reliable to within one second in three years. More recently, NIST switched to an atomic clock based on the vibrations of cesium atoms. It will need 300,000 years to gain or lose a single second. But NIST scientists are working on a still-better model: a single mercury ion will be trapped in a vacuum by laser beams and cooled to its lowest possible energy level. The atom's oscillations will then be so stable that the new timepiece should be accurate to within one second in 10 billion years--the total life span of stars similar to our sun.

Business Week, reported in Resource, Mar/April, 1990.

Maria Fedorovna, the empress of Russia and wife of Czar Alexander III, was known for her philanthropy. She once saved a prisoner from exile in Siberia by transposing a single comma in a warrant signed by Alexander. The czar had written: "Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia." After Maria's intervention, the note read: "Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia." The prisoner was eventually released.

Today in the Word, July 14, 1993.

Once when President Franklin D. Roosevelt was preparing a speech, he needed some economic statistics to back up a point he was trying to make. His advisers said it would take six months to get accurate figures. "In that case, I'll just use these rough estimates," FDR said, and he wrote down some numbers in his text. "They're reasonable figures and they support my point. "Besides," he added as an afterthought, "it will keep my critics busy for at least six month just to prove me wrong."

Bits & Pieces, June 25, 1992.

In the New York Times last year: "The 'Candidates on Television' listing yesterday misspelled the name of the Vice President in some editions. It is Quayle, not Quale. The Times regrets the error."

Reader's Digest.

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy of dishonesty.

Charles Simmons.

OTHER

If 99.9 percent is good enough, then...

- Two million documents will be lost by the IRS this year.
- 811,000 faulty rolls of 35mm film will be loaded this year.
- 22,000 checks will be deducted from the wrong bank accounts in the next 60 minutes.
- 1,314 phone calls will be misplaced by telecommunication services every minute.
- 12 babies will be given to the wrong parents each day.
- 268,500 defective tires will be shipped this year.
- 14,208 defective personal computers will be shipped this year.
- 103,260 income tax returns will be process incorrectly this year.
- 2,488,200 books will be shipped in the next 12 months with the wrong cover.
- 5,517,200 cases of soft drinks produced in the next 12 months will be flatter than a bad tire.
- Two plane landings daily at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago will be unsafe.
- 3,056 copies of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal will be missing one of the three sections.
- 18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled in the next hour.
- 291 pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly this year.
- 880,000 credit cards in circulation will turn out to have incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic strips.
- $9,690 will be spent today, tomorrow, next Thursday, and every day in the future on defective, often unsafe sporting equipment.
- 55 malfunction automatic teller machines will be installed in the next 12 months.
- 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written in the next 12 months.
- 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes will be shipped this year.
- $761,900 will be spent in the next 12 months on tapes and compact discs that won't play.
- 107 incorrect medical procedures will be performed by the end of the day today.
- 315 entries in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language will turn out to be misspelled.

InSight, Syncrude Canada Ltd., Communications Division Communicator, p. 6.

BELIEVERS VOICE OF ALL NATIONS

Search This Blog