127 Sermon Illustrations on Deliverance

“Hide me under the shadow of thy wings.” Psalms 17:8

A party of Northern tourists formed part of a large company gathered on the deck of an excursion steamer that was moving slowly down the historic Potomac one beautiful evening in the summer of 1881. A gentleman, who has since gained a national reputation as an evangelist of song [Ira Sankey?], had been delighting the party with his happy rendering of many familiar hymns, the last being the sweet petition so dear to every Christian heart, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”.

The singer gave the first two verses with much feeling, and a peculiar emphasis upon the concluding lines that thrilled every heart. A hush had fallen upon the listeners that was not broken for some seconds after the musical notes had died away. Then a gentleman made his way from the outskirts of the crowd to the side of the singer, and accosted him with:

“Beg your pardon, stranger, but were you actively engaged in the late war?”

“Yes, sir,” the man of song answered, courteously; “I fought under General Grant.”

“Well,” the first speaker continued with something like a sigh, “I did my fighting on the other side, and think, indeed am quite sure, I was very near you one bright night eighteen years ago this very month. It was much such a night as this. If I am not mistaken, you were on guard duty. We of the South had sharp business on hand, and you were one of the enemy. I crept near your post of duty, my murderous weapon in my hand; the shadow hid me. As you paced back and forth you were humming the tune of the hymn you have just sung I raised my gun and aimed at your heart, and I had been selected by our commander for the work because I was a sure shot. Then out upon the night rang the words:

“Cover my defenseless head

With the shadow of thy wing.'

Your prayer was answered. I could not fire after that and there was no attack made upon your camp that night. I felt sure, when I heard you sing this evening, that you were the man whose life I was spared from taking.”

The singer grasped the hand of the Southerner and said with much emotion:

“I remember the night very well, and distinctly the feeling of depression and loneliness with which I went forth to my duty. I knew my post was one of great danger, and I was more dejected than I remember to have been at any other time during the service. I paced my lonely beat, thinking of home and friends and all that life holds dear. Then the thought of God's care for all that he has created in his own image; and I sang the prayer of my heart, and ceased to feel alone. How the prayer was answered I never knew until this evening. My Heavenly Father thought best to keep the knowledge from me for eighteen years. How much of his goodness to us we shall be ignorant of until it is revealed by the light of eternity! 'Jesus, lover of my soul,' has been a favorite hymn; now it will be inexpressibly dear.”

________

A. B. Earle, From: “Incidents Used ... In His Meetings,” published in 1888

Many years ago before it began to rain on the earth there was a man called Noah who loved and obeyed the LORD God. In those times gardens were watered not by rain falling from the sky but by a heavy mist that arose on the surface of the earth during the night. This allowed the trees, bushes, grass and gardens to be kept green and lush.

There were many people living on the earth at that time. Most of the people did not think much about God and there was much evil throughout the earth. Most of Earth's people thought only of themselves and did not care about their neighbor's needs. They worshipped and served strange gods and obeyed the impulses they received from Satan. There were many murders such as we have today in drive by killings and in horrible wars. There were also many riots with burning of buildings, looting and killing.

God was greatly disturbed by all of chaos and murders throughout the world. He despaired over the condition of the hearts of most of mankind. He knew that most of them never would turn their minds to thoughts of God and of His love for all people. God decided that they only way to remedy the situation was to destroy the systems of the Earth and to start a new system that was based on His ways.

God looked throughout the earth to find a man who would obey His commands and cause his family also to love and obey God. He found a man named Noah who did not participate in the evil ways of the people surrounding him. Noah knew how to say "No".

Noah focused his life on the worship of God and of service to the God of the Universe, The LORD God Most High. Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham and Japeth along with their wives also worshipped and obeyed the LORD God. They prayed to God daily and talked with God through prayer and meditation and lived their lives according to the wishes of God, giving to the poor and taking care of the sick people around them. God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me. The earth is filled with violence through them. I will destroy them with the earth.

"Make an ark, a great boat of gopherwood. Make rooms inside the ark and cover it inside and outside with black tarry pitch so that water cannot enter inside to fill the ark and sink it. Build the ark four hundred fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide and forty-five feet high. Place a window one and one-half feet long in the top of the ark and place a door along the side of the ark. Divide the ark into three decks, each fifteen feet high.

" I am going to bring a great flood upon the earth that will destroy every living being upon the earth. The only people who will survive will be the people in the ark. Make sure that your three sons and their wives enter into the ark with you when I tell you to go. You need to preach to all the people around you while you are building the ark to invite them to enter into the ark with you so that they, too may be saved from the great flood which is coming on the earth."

"I will cause animals and birds to come to the ark to be saved along with you. Stock the ark with food and water for your family and for the animals who will be brought into the ark."

These instructions sounded strange to Noah. After all, it never before had rained upon the earth. To make it even more difficult to understand the place where Noah lived did not have any bodies of water large enough to float such a great ship that he had been ordered to build. Nevertheless Noah decided to obey the command of God. He and his sons began to build the ship just as God had instructed, even though no one before ever had seen such a structure.

For one hundred twenty years Noah and his sons labored diligently to construct the ark. They also began to preach to the people around them. They told them of the coming disaster. They told the people that one day it would begin to rain from the heavens and floods of water would cover the earth. Every breathing being would be destroyed in that great flood that was to come.

No one believed Noah and his sons. They laughed at them and called them crazy. They came to watch the construction of the ark and to hurl mocking jests at their expense. This great monstrosity of a boat and its builders were the laughing stock of the world.

"They think that it is going to rain", they laughed. "It never has rained before! Who ever heard of water's falling from the heavens! Noah and his family are all crazy as loons!"

After one hundred twenty years of labor in the midst of mockery and of being ostracized and viewed as being stark-raving mad, Noah and his sons completed their work.

Then the LORD God said to Noah, "Come into the ark, you and all of your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation of evil people. Take with you seven each of every animal that I have allowed you to eat and a male and female of the animals you are not supposed to eat. Take with you seven each of the birds of the air so that these animals may be preserved during the great flood that I am sending upon the earth. After seven days I will start the rain and everything on the face of the earth will be destroyed in the flood."

Noah obeyed the LORD God and with his family and the animals and birds that God has specified went into the ark. The door of the ark was left open for seven days so that anyone else who wished to join them in the ark could enter.

No one else would enter the ark. The people outside began to laugh loudly at the people inside the ark. "You really are out of your minds", they shouted. "How could you possibly make such fools of yourselves, going into a great boat in the middle of a pasture field, far away from the ocean. Your ark is the most insane thing we ever have seen!"

Suddenly, after seven days the door to the ark was banged shut. No one else could enter the ark. Then it began to rain. This never had happened on earth before. In addition water from inside the earth began to spurt up onto the land so that the earth was covered with deep waters. The rain continued for forty days and night in such an inundation that no life on earth's surface could survive. All of the people and animals that had walked upon the earth died. Only Noah, his wife and his sons and their wives survived, along with the animals and birds inside the ark which floated upon the water. They ate the food and drank the water that were stored in the ark.

After the waters had reached their highest level God sent a strong wind to blow upon the earth to cause the water to evaporate into clouds and to settle into the depths of the earth called oceans.

One hundred fifty days after the flood began the bottom of the ark came to rest on the top of a mountain now called Ararat which is near the border of what is now Russia and Turkey.

Forty days after landing Noah opened the window and sent out a raven and a dove to search for a place to rest. The dove could not find dry land to rest and so returned to the ark where Noah brought her back into the ark.

Seven days later Noah again let the dove out of the window. This time the dove flew back to the ark with a twig with olive leaves in her beak.

Noah and his sons then removed the covering of the ark and saw that the earth indeed had dried. He and his wife, their sons with their wives stepped out of the ark, back onto dry ground. They, of all of the people of the earth had been saved. A new generation of people would be started from them and their children. All of the future people on the earth would be their descendants, as we are today.

The first thing that Noah and his family did was to build an altar and made sacrifices in thanksgiving to the LORD God.

God was pleased with the sacrifices made to him, and God made a promise, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake and I will never again destroy every living thing by flood as I have done this time.While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer and day and night shall not cease."

Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The sign that I have made a covenant between you and me for all future generations is My rainbow in the cloud. When I see a rainbow in the cloud I shall be reminded of my covenant with you forever."

During His ministry on Earth Jesus talked about Noah. He warned that the time would come when the hearts of people again would become evil even as the people in Noah's time were extremely evil. Jesus warned that when the hearts of mankind became as evil as they were in the days of Noah God would allow punishment to come upon the earth and that Jesus would return to Earth to save the righteous people from the punishment to come.

Jesus said in \reference{Matthew 24:37-39}{Matthew 24:37-39}, "...as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

It is important that our thoughts and actions be acceptable to the LORD God so that we shall be saved when the LORD Jesus Christ returns to establish His Kingdom on the Earth. We need to have our sins forgiven, because all of us have committed sins. We can receive forgiveness of our sins if we accept the sacrifice for sins that God has provided.

To be forgiven we need only to confess to God that we have sinned, or have failed to obey the commandments of God, and then believe that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross was done for us, for me. This makes Jesus our Savior and LORD. This removes all sins from our lives and makes us perfect before God. We never again will have to answer to God for those past sins.

It is important after that to obey God's way of life and to continue to ask forgiveness if for some reason we fail to obey, trusting that God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ will forgive as we confess. Nevertheless it is important to invite Jesus into our hearts to help us to live our lives just like Him because He loves us and we love Jesus.

This story is part of the Virtual Church.

It is said that some years ago the king of Abyssinia took a British subject, by the name of Campbell, prisoner. They carried him to the fortress of Magdala, and in the heights of the mountains put him in a dungeon, without cause assigned. It took six months for Great Britain to find it out, and then they demanded his instantaneous release. King Theodore refused, and in less than ten days ten thousand British soldiers were on shipboard and sailing down the coast. They disembarked and marched seven hundred miles beneath the burning sun up the mountains to the very dungeon where the prisoner was held; and there they gave battle. The gates were torn down, and presently the prisoner was lifted upon their shoulders and carried down the mountains and placed upon the white-winged ship, which sped him in safety to his home. And it cost the English government twenty-five million dollars to release that man.

“HE HAS TAKEN OUR HEADS OUT!”

A man returning from a visit to a mission field in Africa tells an interesting story about the circumstances behind the translation of Colossians 1:13 into the dialect of the people. He says that the words “has delivered us,” referring to the liberating power of Christ in salvation, are rendered, “has taken our heads out!”

When the man first heard that strange expression, he inquired how it could possibly convey the meaning of the verse. The missionary told him years ago the tribes people had lived in terrible slavery.

Huge iron collars attached to heavy chains had been placed around their necks. They dared not strain to get away because these cruel collars would bruise their throats and choke them. When they were finally set free from their oppressors, the best part was being released once and for all from those confining iron bands.

Therefore, when they wanted to describe the wonderful spiritual deliverance they had experienced from the awful power of Satan, they could find no better way to express what Jesus had done for them than to say, “He has taken our heads out!”

What word picture would you and I use to describe the spiritual deliverance we have experienced.

Often we use the Biblical terms of redemption and delivered casually and almost given them 'theological status' not realising that the power of these words is connected to the reality of our being captives or slaves. Typically Western Societies do not see themselves as captives, but as conquerors.

What is interesting to note is that the terms redemption and delivered are typically in our society used in connection with the buying, selling, and delivery of goods.

One person owing another person no longer occurs in Western Culture, but slavery still occurs. People become slaves to material items, to the consumer culture, people become enslaved to the very things they buy.

If you have any doubts about the reality or power of the slavery of materialism consider the fact that people in our culture own more things than people in any other culture at any other time, yet there is a profound emptiness in people lives. Everybody knows that things do not bring joy, but then why do we pursue things as if they were the only source of joy.

Back to the word picture of being delivered. Because of Jesus we have set free from sin and the madness of our consumer culture. We have been delivered from the temptations of the advertising culture. That is a great blessing far too many Christians have neglected, including myself.

Brian Clark, an executive vice president at Euro Brokers, a brokerage firm that had offices on the 84th floor of 2 World Trade Center, was one of only four people to escape either tower from above the floors where the planes struck. In this interview for the NOVA program "Why the Towers Fell," assistant producer Matt Barrett simply let the camera roll as Clark told his astounding tale. Only slightly edited for clarity here, the interview reveals, in vividly recalled detail, how snap decisions, gut instinct, and a touch of luck worked together in Clark's favor and that of the man whose life he saved.

Like any normal day I arrived at about 7:15 in the morning. That particular day was more or less flawless weather -- beautiful day, blue sky. I don't remember the temperature, but we had an unseasonably warm fall, and I'm assuming that that day was equally pleasant.

I have been at Euro Brokers for over 29 years now. I started as a trainee broker in 1973, and for the last 14 or 15 years I've been in management. Most recently my title's been Executive Vice President. I've been one of several people who manage the company. One minor responsibility I had that turned out to be significant that day, however, was I was one of about eight or ten people that had volunteered to be a fire marshal.

THE FIRST PLANE

As I said, I arrived about 7:15 and got my morning coffee. I went about my normal chores. I don't really recall any extraordinary events that morning until 8:46 and change, when, sitting with my back to the west wall -- I had a private office, with my desk facing my door and my back to the window -- I heard an enormous thump. I didn't feel any vibration, but there was a noticeable sound like a boom or thump, and the lights buzzed for a second. My eyes jerked up to look at my overhead lights.

There was suddenly this glare, and my attention was immediately caught. I spun my head around, and the entire airspace behind me was filled with flame. I didn't know what it was at the time, but it was the fuel from the first jet hitting the North Tower that had gone right through that tower and out over the airspace, south of Tower One, the North Tower. That same airspace was west of the South Tower, the tower I was in on the 84th floor.

My immediate thought was there had been an explosion one or two floors above our office. That's what I thought had happened in that first instant. Being one of the fire marshals, I was equipped with a whistle and flashlight in my office. I jumped up, grabbed them, put the whistle around my neck, and more or less yelled, "Get out! Everybody get out!" This all took me five seconds. When I looked behind me out the window, the flames were all gone, and thousands of papers were just fluttering in the air, the edges of which were all on fire. It was like flaming confetti. Very strange.

I should have realized but didn't realize at the time that the area that all this was happening in was so huge. But I still wasn't computing that in my mind; still it was two floors up in my mind. So I ran out of my office, just a yard or two into an area where some accountants sit, and other people in offices, and I said, "Come on, let's go, there has been an explosion," and I started to get people off the floor.

Now, we are a trading operation. Our customers are not individuals, but large financial trading institutions around the world, like a Barclay's Bank or the Royal Bank of Canada. So we have in our trading floor many television sets tuned to financial news information. Well, all of these stations cut away to their news departments, and there were these breaking news stories that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. The story developed literally within minutes, and we understood fairly soon, I would say within three or four minutes, that an airliner had hit One World Trade Center. At least that's my recollection of the timeframe.

Well, we knew now that the damage had been done to Tower One, not our Tower, so we relaxed a little bit about evacuation. Nonetheless, many people in the first minute had bolted for the stairs and were on their way down. Good news in retrospect, but at the time it was like, Oh boy, I guess we don't have to leave. The TV sets were telling us, and now there were photographs of One World Trade Center and the smoke coming out of the upper floors, I think the 92nd floor and above. The fire marshals like myself were content to let people go or stay. Really, in a way, it didn't matter.

I called my wife and told her, "You know, you won't believe this but Tower One has been hit. We are fine where we are. Relax, turn on the TV, there is a developing story there, find out what's happening."

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

At about five minutes to nine there was an announcement by the Port Authority within our building. First the strobe lights flashed, as they did during their normal fire drills. The alarm system gave a little bit of a whoop whoop, you know, to alert you to an announcement about to be made. Then the very familiar voice, the one we heard all the time, came over the system and said, "Building Two is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building Two. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may return to your office by using the re-entry doors on the re-entry floors and the elevators to return to your office. Repeat, Building Two is secure...."

And they went through the whole story again. So this was reinforcement that there was no need to evacuate. I am strictly guessing but I would think we were perhaps down to about 25 people left on our floor at the time of the announcement. (I had gone for a walk through our office.) Now, as I say, the pressure was off, and there wasn't a panic, although we were greatly concerned about what was going on in Tower One.

If you went to the north wall windows, you could look up and see the flames and the smoke and regrettably people now starting to jump, because of heat, smoke, or whatever it was. I'm only telling this secondhand because I personally could not take myself to the window to view that. I just didn't want that image burned in my brain, and I'm forever grateful that I didn't go and take in that sight.

One girl in particular -- Susan her name was -- turned from the window when she noticed the first person for her jump. She hadn't noticed it before, and she spun around in tears almost frantically, ran to me, and said "Oh, Brian, it's terrible. People are dying." I said, "Susan, it's a terrible tragedy," and I put my arms around her, and I said "Come on, let's get you more composed," and we walked out of the trading floor down the hall. In the building the center core was crossed hallways. There was a north-south hallway and an east-west hallway. I walked with her from the east side through the center core to the west side, where the ladies room was, and she went into the ladies room. (Regrettably, Susan did not survive the eventual collapse of the building.)

THE SECOND PLANE

I continued on to the west side near my office. I was fairly near the windows talking with two or three people, including especially Bobby Coll. I was looking him in the eye having a conversation with him when at apparently 9:03 -- I didn't check my watch -- the second plane hit the south side of our building at approximately the 78th, 79th, and 80th floors. Our room fell apart at that moment, a complete destruction without an explosion -- very strange things. The lights went out, but we were near the window so there was daylight. Again, there was this sort of thump, this explosion without fire and flame, a very strange sensation.

There was a twist, if you like, to the building when it got hit, and therefore the plane's hitting explained some things to me later, like why the ceiling fell apart. The ceiling tiles and some of the brackets and so on fell; some air conditioning ducts, speakers, cables, and things like that that were in the ceiling fell. I seem to have a sense that some of the floor tiles even buckled a bit or were moved. Some of the walls, I recall vaguely, were actually torn in a jagged direction rather then up and down. Again perhaps explained by the torque, some of the door frames popped out of the wall and partially fell or fully fell.

For seven to ten seconds there was this enormous sway in the building. It was one way, and I just felt in my heart, Oh my gosh, we are going over. That's what it felt like. Now, on windy days prior to that there was a little bit of a sway to the building. You got used to it; you didn't notice it. The window blinds would go clack clack as they swung. As I said, for a good seven to ten seconds I thought it was over -- horrible feeling -- but then the building righted itself. It didn't sway back and forth; it just went one way, it seemed, and then back, and we were stable again.

I was looking at Bobby Coll square in the eyes, and we knew in an instant that it was terrorism. I mean, there wasn't for sure terrorism on people's minds when the first building had been hit. Was it pilot error? Was it instrument error? Or just a one-off suicide? Horrible as it was, you didn't know for certain that it was terrorism. But when the second building got hit you instantly calculated the two of them: terrorism.

THE EVACUATION

So we knew we were in a difficult situation at that point in time. I fortunately had a flashlight with me, and I'm glad I did. I switched it on, and we started out of the room. Our room was not black with smoke but sort of white with chalky construction dust. It was incredibly dusty and dirty as we made our way out of the room and over some debris that had fallen from the ceiling and so on past the ladies room where I had taken Susan maybe 10 minutes earlier, and we went to this center core, this crossroads in the middle of the building.

At that point, had we gone three or four yards straight ahead to the east, we would have come to Stairway B. I have no idea what condition it was in because we didn't know what had happened, we didn't know where this plane had hit, we didn't know if it was a plane, we didn't know anything other than suddenly we were in chaos and our building had been hit. I could have turned right three yards to Stairway C, closer to the impact point. I had no idea what condition that stairway was in. Miraculously, at random I turned left to Stairway A, which on the floor plate is the farthest from where the impact really was.

So we started down that stairway. We only went three floors. There was a group of seven of us, myself and six others. I remember some of the names. Now, I know everybody at Euro Brokers, but in my mind somehow I blanked out who those other grey shapes were; they were farther up the stairs a bit, not in the light of the flashlight. I do remember Bobby Coll, Kevin York, David Vera, and Ron DiFrancesco.

We met two people that had come up from the 80th floor, a heavy-set woman and by comparison a rather frail male companion of hers, a workmate. She was saying from the landing below, "Stop, stop you've got to go up," and she labored up to join us, moving very slowly; she was such a big woman. She said, "You've got to go up. You can't go down. There is too much smoke and flames below." I had my flashlight, and I was shining it in each face as people made comments, and an argument ensued as to what we should do.

THE RESCUE

At the same moment as this argument was going on I heard bang, bang, bang, thump, thump, thump, "Help! Help! I'm buried. I can't breathe. Is anybody there? Can you help me?," a strange voice coming from within the 81st floor. I heard this voice, and it caused me to lose concentration in this argument that was going on about whether to head up or down. I grabbed Ron by the sleeve, and I said "Come on, Ron. Let's get this fellow."

The fire escape door had blown away from the wall a bit, but we were able to push the dry wall back and step between the door frame and the dry wall, squeeze onto the 81st floor, which was in darkness, but again I had my flashlight. I scanned the room, and I said, "Who's there? Where are you?" He said, "Oh, I can see your light."

What my light beam was showing me was similar to being on a very foggy road at night, because it was white dust everywhere. He said, "No, to the right ... to the left ..." In about a minute, Ron and I located his voice. He said, "Can you see my hand?" His hand was sticking out of the wall, or not the wall but this area where he was covered and blocked by some debris. He was waving his hand frantically, and my light picked up his hand. I said, "Okay, see you now."

And at that moment my associate Ron who came down with me was overcome with smoke. He had a gym bag or a briefcase with him, and he was sort of putting it in front of his face in an attempt to filter the air. It clearly wasn't working, and Ron, with eyes shut, backed off the floor. He was almost completely overcome by the smoke.

Again, miraculously, I was in a bubble. I was breathing fine. I was squinting a bit, but I could work, and I struggled to get debris away from Stanley -- I found out later his name was Stanley Praimnath; he worked at Fuji Bank.

We got to the point I couldn't do any more work from my side, and I said, "You've got to jump. You've got to get over this last barrier." Well, he jumped once and fell back down. I said, "Come on, you've got to do this. It's the only way out." I reached in again, and Stanley jumped, and I got him by the collar or the shoulder or somewhere there. He said later that I just pulled him up like Superman. I don't remember having this extraordinary strength, but he says it really did happen that way. I pulled him out and onto me, and we fell in a heap and embraced. It was an exciting moment, it really was.

Now, Ron had gone. He had gone back to the stairway and was not there when we got back to the stairs. The other people had gone up as I left with Ron to go in on the 81st floor. I had this vision of Bobby Coll and Kevin York each with a hand under each elbow of this heavy-set woman starting to ascend the stairs, saying things like, "Come on. We are in this together. We will help you. Relax, we'll be with you." And up they went. And Dave Vera, who had a walkie-talkie, started back up the stairs as well. That's the last I saw of those people.

Now, I didn't know whether Ron had gone up or down, I assumed down because he was with me going down. I learned later that Ron went up; in fact, he went all the way up to the 91st floor. He later told me that he lay on the floor there for 10 minutes until he panicked. He told me, "I had to see my wife. I had to see my kids at all costs. I was gonna make it out." And he went to the stairway and went all the way down, following me, I guess, by five to seven minutes, because I took my time going down the stairway. It was not intentional; it was just that some events happened.

THE DESCENT

So Stanley and I went back to the stairs on the 81st floor, and we began down. The first five floors were difficult, because in certain areas dry wall had been blown off the wall and was lying propped up against the railing. We had to move it, shove it to the side. The sprinkler system had turned on and had started to do something, but it wasn't doing its job as it should, so there was water sloshing down the stairways. It was dark.

Now, the stairways didn't go straight down. There was one particular area around the 78th floor, I think, where you actually came to some strange twists. So we had to figure that out in the darkness, but we made some fortunate decisions. Around the 74th floor, I would say, we broke into what I call fresh air. The lights were on. It was normal conditions. There was not a problem breathing, and there was nobody there, not a soul, just Stanley and me. We were starting to have normal conversation. He was cut and bruised a bit, but he was fine conversing. I think he had his shirt off; he was just in his undershirt.

We continued on down. On the 68th floor, we met one man walking up. The man's name was Jose Marrero. He worked for Euro Brokers for many years. He worked in our security department, and he was also one of our fire marshals. Jose, I learned later, had been with many people of ours all the way down into the 30s and 40s on the stairway and figured, I guess, that he had done his job. Then he heard Dave Vera, who had started down with me, on his walkie-talkie saying that he needed help; he was helping people, could he get help.

So Jose, hero that he was, was walking up, perspiring, carrying his walkie-talkie. He said, "Oh, I can hear Dave above. I'm gonna help." I said, "Jose, Dave's a big boy, he can get out. We've just come through hell to get here. Come on down with us." "No, no, no," he said. "I'll be fine. I can help." Then Jose kept marching up. Jose was about 35 years old and quite fit, but when I passed him he was understandably laboring to climb the stairs. But he kept going. I don't know how high he got or what he found.

Stanley and I continued down until we got to the 44th floor -- straight shot, saw nobody. On the 44th floor we went off, because I knew that was one of the sky lobbies in the Trade Center. There were sky lobbies on the 44th and 78th floors. Conditions on the 44th floor were normal other than there was nobody there, except for one -- I'm guessing at his age -- middle 60s, maybe 70s even Port Authority security guard who was tending to a Caucasian male lying flat on the floor moaning in pain, with massive head wounds. The security guard was saying, "I need help. My phones don't work, but I need medical attention for this man. I'll stay with him, I'll tend him, but you must promise to get help as soon as you can telephone somebody." Stanley and I said "okay" and went back to the stair.

THE CONFERENCE ROOM

We went down again. Nobody on the stairway at all. Easy travel, just the two of us. Lights on, fresh air all the way down to the 31st floor, where we went in at random and got into somebody's office. I don't know whether it was an advertising agency or a lawyer's office; I don't know whose it was. We got into their conference room, and each grabbed a phone.

I called my wife to tell her here's where I am; we'll have this great celebration at home. I hadn't talked to her since about five to nine, I suppose, and this was about 20 to 10. My wife had turned on the TV, and the first thing she had seen was the second plane slam into our building. So she had no idea where I was for that 45-minute stretch. I told her I was fine. Stanley talked to his wife, told her similar news.

I then called 9-1-1 -- coincidence 9/11 -- and was put on hold. This was a disturbing thing at the time. I got ahold of them right away and told them about this fellow on the 44th floor that needed medical attention, but they put me on hold. They said, "You must tell your story to somebody higher up the chain" and clicked me off. I'd wait until somebody came on, I'd recite the story, and "Oh, just a minute. You must tell somebody else." I mean, there was something clearly odd about what was going on there. They were answering the phone in a hurry, and I understand now they were completely overwhelmed at the time.

I was asked for a third time to tell somebody else my story, and I just laid down the law. I said, "No. I have given you the details. Here they are one more time," and I wouldn't let that person off the phone. I said, "I'm gonna tell you this once, and then I'm hanging up." I went through the details about the 44th floor, man on the ground, need a medic, need a stretcher, goodbye." I put down the phone. I don't feel badly about that but it was a strange, strange event in the midst of this whole story. We were probably in that conference room for four minutes I would think, and then it was back to the stairs.

THE GROUND FLOOR

Now, bear in mind we had no idea that the building was about to fall. We were taking our time. In fact, I said to Stanley at one point, "Hey, let's not go too fast here. I'd hate to break an ankle and have to walk 30 floors or something." So we took our time getting down. We went all the way down, again with nobody on the stairs, not firemen coming up, nobody else evacuating. So all the way down to the Plaza level. We came out by what's known as the "half-price ticket booth," where they sold theater tickets for half price. This was on the north side of the South Tower facing the Plaza.

We came out and stared, awestruck. What we looked at was normally a flowing fountain, vendors with their wagons, business people coming to and from the building, tourists everywhere. It was a beautiful people place, yet this area, several acres I'm sure, was dead; it was a moonscape. It looked like it had been deserted for 100 years, and we had just discovered it.

It was surreal, the whole thing was surreal. We stared at it for 20 or 30 seconds with our jaws dropped, saying, "What is happening here, this is very strange." We went down an escalator that wasn't working -- all electricity was off, other than the emergency electricity, I guess, in the stairway -- and through some revolving doors, because the women at the bottom of the escalator said to us, "If you're gonna leave the building you have to go this way, through there, and go down to the Victoria Secret shop, turn right, and exit by the Sam Goody store."

We knew where that was, so we walked very casually down that hallway, down the second hallway, and we were passing firemen and policemen who were going about their business, walking normal speeds. I didn't sense there was panic. It looked like they were under control, doing their job. There were other evacuees like Stanley and me, but there was no running or crowds. It was more or less deserted.

THE STREET

We got out to the south exit of Four World Trade Center on the southeast corner of the complex. Firemen and policemen stood at the door. One said, "Whoa, wait a minute fellows, if you are gonna cross Liberty Street, you had better go for it. There is debris falling from above." I recall saying, "Should I look up?" He said, "Well, I wouldn't. Just go for it."

I couldn't make myself do that. I crept out under the eaves, and I cautioned a look up this way and that way, and I said, "All right, Stanley, I don't see anything coming. Are you ready?" He said, "Yup," and after one more check, I said, "All right, let's go," and we ran across Liberty Street, which is quite wide at that point, several lanes. There was nobody there. It was very much like a demilitarized zone. There was no traffic. There were some emergency vehicles around but certainly no movement and really not very many people; people were noticeably absent.

Across the road you could see some people standing in doorways protecting themselves from anything that might have been falling. We ran across the street, past the fire hall, which is on the corner, and up another block and caught our breath. There was a deli owner there. I said, "Have you got any water?" He went in and just handed us this water in bottles and said, "Here you go." I said, "Thank you." He said, "In fact, here is a breakfast platter. I don't think anybody is going to be picking that up." And he gave me this great tray with some fresh fruit on it and some sweet rolls. He was a very generous fellow at the time considering the conditions.

I carried this with me another block to the west side of Trinity Church, where we met a couple of ministers. That's when Stanley broke down. He cried to these ministers, "This man saved my life." He completely broke down. I was overcome with emotion as well, and I said, "You know, Stanley, you may think I saved your life but I think you saved my life, too. You got me out of that argument as to whether I should go up or go down. I'm here, and I'm fine, and it's because of your voice in the darkness that I made it." We embraced, and the ministers had a quick prayer, and one of them said, "You know, the church is open if you would like to go in there."

THE COLLAPSE

Stanley and I looked at each other, and we nodded and said, "All right, let's do that." So we walked to the south side of Trinity Church, which is a street that slopes up. As we walked up it we got higher and higher, and with the wall in relation to us going lower, we could now turn around and see the World Trade Center. We grabbed onto the fence railing of the cemetery and looked through the grate up at the Trade Center, and Stanley said to me, "You know, I think those buildings could go down." I said, "There is no way. Those are steel structures. That's furniture and paper and carpeting and draperies and things like that that are burning." But I didn't finish the sentence when Tower Two started to slide down.

I would say that we'd been out of the building maybe five minutes when the building collapsed. It disappeared into its own dust. What I thought had happened at that instant was only the top third or quarter of the building down to the fire line had collapsed. It was a horrible feeling. I mean, our whole escape was horrible when it was happening, but you at least thought people had a chance -- until that moment. Then I knew that certainly in the top quarter of the tower there was no chance. We just stared at it in awe, not realizing what was happening completely.

We stared, watching, with nobody running or anything initially. But then this great tsunami of dust came over the church. Everybody looked up, and, as in a disaster movie, everybody started running in fear of the debris and dust that might be in there. But I knew there was nothing solid that was going to harm me, that the building hadn't fallen over. I knew that. But you didn't want to breathe the junk that was in there, so we ran down Broadway to 42 Broadway. We went into that building as the dust and smoke was catching up to our backsides. We got into that lobby with many other people, strangers doing the same thing. The air was clean in there, and people were milling around.

I realized then that I was still carrying the silly fruit platter, so I plumped that down on the reception desk there, and people started digging into it. It was an odd thing that I didn't just chuck it aside when I was running. I wasn't even aware that I was carrying it.

We stayed for at least half an hour, I suppose. The ash settled. We went out the east side of that building, which was onto New Street. It was like a winter's day, grey sky. I suppose it was a quarter of an inch of dust and ash everywhere, but it looked like freshly fallen fine snow. We walked in amazement down the street. I was still thinking, of course, that only the top part of the tower had slid off or slid into itself or something like that. No cell phones, no land lines were working. There was no way to communicate with anybody by telephone.

We wandered over to the east side of Manhattan, the East River. Stanley gave me his business card, and thank goodness he did, because in the crowd that was walking, he and I suddenly got parted. He just disappeared into the crowd. I yelled and looked and walked back and forth but he was gone. I was very grateful I had his business card at that point, because I knew that he was real. My initial thought was, Whoa, this was an angel; this didn't happen. It was a strange feeling that slipped over me. But, hey, I had his business card, so I knew he was real.

THE FERRY

I wandered up FDR Drive on the east side of the island, thinking I was going to have to walk to mid-town to somehow get home to northern New Jersey where I live. But in this fog, in this white, wintry day, I heard someone on a bullhorn, "Next ferry for Jersey City." That's strange, I thought. I didn't even know there were ferries over here. Well, what the ferry company had done was reroute their ferries to the east side of the island; there's a pier over there, Pier 11. I thought, This is wonderful.

I jumped on that ferry. They certainly weren't charging. We sailed around the southern tip of Manhattan, up the Hudson River, and as we got parallel to the World Trade Center -- the wind was blowing from north to south that day -- it was then that I and many other people realized for the first time that both towers were completely down.

I also realized that the first hint that I'd had of the second tower, that is, Tower One, coming down was when I had gotten on that ferry 15 minutes earlier, because a black cloud had enveloped the boat as I was getting on it. It was noticeable that with the South Tower, the one that fell first, the ensuing ash was white and grey, whereas with the second tower that fell, the North Tower, it was black. Now, if that was because it burned longer or what I don't know, but it was a noticeable difference.

But as we got parallel we could look over and see that both towers were gone. It was just a surreal feeling. Disbelief. How could this happen? Of course, at the time we knew nothing about the planes being hijacked, nothing about the Pentagon, nothing about the plane going down in Pennsylvania, or the FAA getting all planes out of the air. We were completely in the dark. But we could look off to the Trade Center on our right and see that this building I had worked in for 27 years was gone. It was a staggering thought. There was silence. People just couldn't believe it.

THE HOMECOMING

We sailed in silence to Harborside in Jersey City and got off the ferry. Well, I ran to the ticket booth. I think I was the first person there. I asked the lady if I could use the phone, and she said, "Absolutely." I called my wife, and I could hear the cheers back at home. This is now about 11:15, I think, and my building came down sometime around 10 a.m. The last time I had talked to my wife was at about 20 to 10, so for over an hour and a half she had no idea where I was. Certainly for an hour and 15 minutes she had seen the tower down and was quite beside herself.

Fortunately, the house was full of people. My wife, Dianne, had some neighbors there, members of our church, our minister. My older son, his wife and three children were there, along with my older daughter and my younger son and his fiancé. My youngest daughter is at school in Toronto, so she wasn't there, but it was a house full of people. So when I called, there was a great cheer of relief and just agony relieved.

They wanted to come and get me. I said, "Well, look, I know the traffic in the area will be horrible." So I ended up, with hundreds of other people, walking about a mile north. I was pretty tired at this point, but I walked that mile to the Hoboken train terminal. As I walked into the terminal at five to noon, there was an announcement that the 11:30 train, which had been delayed, would be leaving in five minutes. "All aboard for such and such a station," which was the station I needed to go to. So there was another bit of luck. I got on the train, and it left five minutes later.

I rode all the way to my station, got in my car, and drove the next 15 minutes to my home. When I hit the driveway, I honked the horn awfully loudly many times. There was then a front lawn full of tears and a reunion, and then for days the telephone didn't stop ringing. It was friends from all over the world, media, widows. (You know, we wouldn't call them widows at the time; their husbands were missing.)

Now, Ronnie, who I told you had gone up to the 91st floor and later told me he panicked and went down, when he exited the building it was at the very time when Tower Two was starting to fall. So the moment I was watching the building from Trinity Church was exactly the moment he was coming out of the same place I did, and he was caught in an explosion. He heard the explosion, swirled around, and a fireball was rushing at him from right at the doors where he was about to leave the building.

He put his hands up in front of his face and got blown many, many yards across Liberty Street, which I'd run across earlier. He was severely burned in the arm, he had head wounds, cracked vertebrae. He doesn't remember really what happened right after that, but he ended up at St. Vincent's Hospital. They called his wife and told her he was fine, but she was unable to get to him for a couple of days because all the routes and tunnels were closed; they weren't allowing access back into Manhattan.

He didn't remember much those first several days, but he is now back at work on a part-time basis recovering and doing a great job. He's one of the heroes in my mind, because of that determination to get out.

That's my story. It was a long, horrific day, but for me it turned out all right. For many others, I'm deeply saddened that they aren't here. We lost 61 people in total, some of whom I think were either caught in elevators coming back to the office or had come back to the office. We'll never know for sure whether it was a wingtip and flames that caused their demise right on the 84th floor in the east side of the building, where a lot of our traders were, or whether it was smoke when they went higher, or whether it was the collapse of the building. Nonetheless, as I say, we lost 61 friends -- dear friends that we worked with and laughed with for years.

[see also HolwickID #19847]

*

Morris H. Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, commended Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry for their faithfulness to God during 105 days of captivity in Afghanistan.

Mercer and Curry, missionaries with the interdenominational Shelter Now ministry, spoke during the opening session of the June 11-12 SBC annual meeting in St. Louis.

"We began to realize we just got caught in the middle of some huge plan of God because he wanted to generate prayer for [Afghanistan]," Curry said. "He heard the cries of these widows and orphans so he let a few of his kids get in prison so the whole world would pray for Afghanistan like never before, so his light would come to this nation, so freedom would come and they could have hope again."

Prayer and worship, plus God's healing and even a time of wrestling with God led the Baylor University graduates to that realization, the duo said.

"We're so thankful for your prayers," Mercer said. "That's the reason we're here. And all of you are part of the testimony. Everybody who prayed is part of the miracle God did and the way he's using this experience to make his name known all over the earth."

Curry spoke of a rebellious life in high school and how she learned during her college years to love and worship God -- to experience his presence and sense his nearness. Short-term mission trips stoked the fire that was growing in her heart to be one of those who would go to share Jesus with the 2.5 billion people who haven't yet had a chance to know him and his love.

"The verse that really got me out there [was] Isaiah 6:8," Curry said. "When he says, 'Whom shall I send?' I realized God was just looking for anyone willing to go. He's looking for any heart that will say, 'Lord here I am, I'm willing to go. Send me.'

"I realized those weren't my tears but God's tears because his heart breaks every day for those who have never had a chance to hear and those who are dying without his love," Curry added. "Our pastor shared one of the main motivations for evangelism is to heal God's broken heart. Since God had healed my broken heart, I wanted to help heal his."

During her first 18 months in Afghanistan Curry worked with mothers and children who needed medical attention. When Mercer arrived they began to work with street children.

"Literally from the time they woke up in the morning until late into the evening they would carry these little plastic sacks and they would go from house to house, trying to collect pieces of bread to take home to their family," Curry said. The two missionaries provided a warm lunch, job training and jobs so they wouldn't have to beg.

"It was so easy to share about our faith," Curry said. "It was so natural. Almost every day someone would ask us, 'Why would you come here?' It was awesome to say, 'Because God loves you. He told us to come because he loves the Afghan people.' Muslims don't know that God loves them."

It was the showing of the "Jesus" film that brought about their arrest last August.

"I was really shocked and afraid," Curry said. "That first evening we held hands as tight as we could and we sang worship songs and we tried to quote every Scripture we could remember. His presence came and it washed over us. Peace like a river just came and flooded our souls."

Ten days after they first were imprisoned, the Taliban let Curry and Mercer go to their home and get a few things, including their Bibles.

Curry recited some of the Scriptures that encouraged her. Psalm 27: "I will see his goodness in the land of the living"; Psalm 91: "No evil will befall you"; Psalm 118: "I will not die, but live and proclaim the works of the Lord."

Learning of prayers not only for them but for Afghanistan showed them their imprisonment was part of God's plan to bring the whole world to him, Curry said, her voice shaking in earnestness.

"Guys, Jesus wants to come back but he's still waiting for these last remaining nations and people groups who have never heard," Curry said. "And this generation can see it happen. We've got airplanes. It's easy to get to everybody. It can happen if we respond and go because, really, the harvest is great but the laborers are few. "I really believe God has blessed Southern Baptists, given you resources so you can touch the ends of the earth," Curry said. "My prayer is that thousands upon thousands will be sent from among you so you can be a part and see this world changed for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Mercer said people tried to dissuade her from going to Afghanistan by asking her why she would want to go someplace where they don't really want to hear what she had to say.

"That's a big fat lie. That's not true," Mercer said. "All over the world there are 2.5 billion people who are waiting to hear about the love of Jesus."

She spoke of a man named Gideon they hired as watchman. After hearing the gospel on a short-wave radio they gave him, seeing the Jesus video and being witnessed to by a male Christian coworker, he became a Christian.

"He said, 'If you knew this, how come you didn't tell me sooner?'" Mercer recounted. "There are thousands of Gideons all over the nations of the earth who have never heard about Jesus. They're hungry and desperate to hear the love of God and his healing power."

Mercer read from a book written by missiologist John Piper. "'Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church,'" she read. "'Worship is. Missions ... is a temporary necessity but worship abides forever.' I realized what God was after in Afghanistan and all over the earth were pockets of believers -- worshipers who would lift up the name of Jesus in spirit and truth and give themselves to him in a love relationship. We wanted to see the glory of God filling that nation through the establishment of a New Testament church in that country.

"The goal, the glory of God filling the earth and the establishment of his church -- that's what we wanted to see in Afghanistan," Mercer said, then recounting told more of their watchman's story.

"Gideon was arrested with us," Mercer said. "He was beaten night and day from head to toe with a steel cable that was electrically powered. Every day the Taliban would come in and they would take him out and beat him and throw him back in his cell and at night they would take him out again and beat him and throw him back in his cell.

"This one night after he'd been beaten severely he was thrown into his room and he had a dream. God met with him in a dream. In the dream this man walked into his cell, and his hair was long and he was glowing. ... He was so beautiful and his face was so kind. He said, 'Gideon get up and follow me.' So in his dream Gideon got up and followed the man through the door of his prison into the courtyard. And the man said again, 'Gideon follow me.' And Gideon followed him again through the courtyard of the prison out into the open street."

Gideon woke up and found in an exact replay of his dream that the prison interior and exterior doors were open, and there were no guards.

"He walked all the way home to freedom," Mercer said. "God is still in the business of doing miracles."

Mercer acknowledged she had a hard time in prison.

"I did not do prison the way I hoped I would do it," she said. "For the better half of the 105 days we spent in prison, I found myself wrestling with God. I wrestled with him hard. I asked all the hard questions. I asked him, 'Why, why do we have to be in prison, why do we have to go through this?' He tenderly encouraged me. He said, 'Well, Heather, what did you pray before you came here? You want to see my glory fill this nation. It might cost you everything. Heather, are you willing to lose your life so you might find it here?'

"I'm so glad I had to wrestle with God on those issues and I'm so glad I lost that fight," Mercer said. "It was the mercy of God to let me lose it and to say, 'Yes, God, I do want to see your kingdom come in Afghanistan. You are my boss. You are my leader and I choose to follow you no matter what.'

"It might cost everything to see Afghanistan come to know Jesus, to see the people of Afghanistan come to know him. And you know what? It might cost the church of Jesus Christ everything to see his church established around the earth and to see his glory fill the earth.

"This is really what I believe with all my heart," Mercer said. "Once we've decided to pay the price and to say, 'Yes, Jesus, whatever it costs, I choose to obey,' we'll find out in the end it really cost us nothing because all we wanted was Jesus anyway. So that's my encouragement, that Jesus is worthy, that he will fill the earth with his glory; he will establish his church."

Mercer reminded her listeners of the thousands of unreached people groups all over the world.

"In this room alone there are thousands of people and you represent thousands more in your local churches," she said. "So what if all of us said, 'Yes, God, we want to see your glory fill the earth, whatever it costs.'

"His kingdom would come! It would," Mercer said. "He's committed to it. And how awesome [that] he's called us and allowed us to partner with him in that mission. So my prayer is for all of us, that we would be a people of faith who take God at his word and go forth with all our hearts, with no thoughts of personal sacrifice we would have to pay."

*

I am a 50+ oldster with many health problems, and although I have served the Lord for many years - 34 in fact, I had gotten to the point that I felt like I no longer could do anything for the Lord, because of it all.

One day I was driving along the freeway in San Antonio on one of the heaviest traffic sections, and prayed as I drove... the thing I was telling the Lord was I felt all used up, and no longer useful to Him, and so, since I felt ready to go home, it would be a service to me if He would call me home.

Just about that time, I saw my exit, and didn't want to pass it, so I steered my car to get onto the off ramp... full speed ahead. When I turned I realized there were cars in front of me, so to avoid hitting them, I turned the wheel slightly, to go to the shoulder of the ramp. Instead, my car spun around a couple of times, and I thought I'd end up on the little grassy section beyond the shoulder. To my surprise, my car went past the grass and headed OFF a 20 foot cement ditch... in slow motion. Instead of screaming and panicking, I shut my eyes, and calmly said... okay Lord, HERE I COME... figuring for sure I'd be dead.

When I opened my eyes again, I was at the bottom of the ditch, upright, and the first thing that came to my mind was... I GUESS GOD STILL HAS SOMETHING FOR ME TO DO... and I was so elated that God could still use me that I didn't even think of the fall into the ditch.

A few moments passed and several policemen showed up (about 12 off and on)...and each one of them, after asking about my welfare, said something to the effect of... lady, it's a miracle you're still alive... I've never seen a car fall that distance, and the people in it not be dead or terribly mangled.

To show God's incredible power, not only am I alive, but, I suffered NOT one bruise. And as for my car... well... as I drove away from the accident, in my car, I thanked God that it also had NOT suffered even a SCRATCH. Praise the Lord.... glory to His name. The Bible says He will give His angels charge over us, and so He did that day, and is still even unto this day... and I THANK GOD for all His mercies.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #17780]

Former Howard County (Indiana) Sheriff Jerry Marr got a disturbing call one Saturday afternoon a few years ago. His 6-year-old grandson Mikey had been hit by a car while fishing in Greentown with his dad. The father and son were near a bridge by the Kokomo Reservoir when a woman lost control of her car, slid off the bridge and hit Mikey at a rate of about 50 mph. Sheriff Marr had seen the results of accidents like this and feared the worst. When he got to Saint Joseph Hospital, he rushed through the emergency room to find Mikey conscious and in fairly good spirits.

"Mikey, what happened?" Sheriff Marr asked.

Mikey replied, "Well, Papaw, I was fishin' with Dad, and some lady runned me over, I flew into a mud puddle, and broke my fishin' pole and I didn't get to catch no fish!"

As it turned out, the impact propelled Mikey about 500 feet [see below], over a few trees and an embankment and in the middle of a mud puddle. His only injuries were to his right femur bone which had broken in two places. Mikey had surgery to place pins in his leg. Otherwise the boy is fine. Since all the boy could talk about was that his fishing pole was broken, the Sheriff went out to Wal-mart and bought him a new one while he was in surgery so he could have it when he came out.

The next day the Sheriff sat with Mikey to keep him company in the hospital. Mikey was enjoying his new fishing pole and talked about when he could go fishing again as he cast into the trash can.

When they were alone, Mikey, just a matter-of-fact, said, Papaw, did you know Jesus is real?"

"Well," the Sheriff replied, a little startled. "Yes, Jesus is real to all who believe in him and love him in their hearts."

"No," said Mikey. "I mean Jesus is REALLY real."

"What do you mean?" asked the Sheriff.

"I know he's real 'cause I saw him," said Mikey, still casting into the trash can.

"You did?" said the Sheriff.

"Yep," said Mikey. "When that lady runned me over and broke my fishing pole, Jesus caught me in his arms and laid me down in the mud puddle."

_________________________________

http://breakthechain.org/exclusives/jesusmud.html -

Pat Munsey, of The Kokomo Perspective, told BreakTheChain.org that the story of Sheriff Marr's Grandson is mostly true:

Having known [Marr] personally for six years, I know that the

incident did take place - and that Mikey’s assertion of seeing

Jesus was made. It took place in the spring of 1999.

The driver did lose control of the car while trying to change the

radio. However, the car didn’t actually leave the road. It hit

Mikey while on a bridge. Also, Mikey didn’t travel 500 feet

laterally. Part of that distance was falling from the bridge.

Mikey made a full recovery. He and his grandpa practiced fishing

with the new pole while in the hospital - using a bucket of water

as the "lake."

Nobody seems to know exactly who authored the piece above or when.

God, Donkeys, And Us

Read: Numbers 22:21-35

If God is for us, who can be against us? –Romans 8:31

Bible In One Year: Acts 1-2

Pastor Gumercindo rides a donkey as he travels from village to village in Brazil and preaches the gospel. According to author Don Hare, the traveling evangelist fell asleep in the saddle on his return home after a tiring day. A couple of hours later he was rudely awakened by the roughness of the ride. His donkey had left the trail and was walking through a rocky field. At first the pastor was angry, but he calmed down when he saw that they were almost back to his village.

When he arrived at his church, he learned that friends had gathered to pray for his safety. A rancher who hated the gospel had sent some men to attack him at a bend in the trail. They thanked God for causing the donkey to take a shortcut home.

Centuries ago, God used another donkey. This one miraculously spoke and saved the life of Balaam, a disobedient, money-hungry prophet (Num. 22:21-35). God got his attention, and Balaam took the Lord's message to Moab.

God cares for us and He will carry out His good plans for us, even if He has to use animals and rebellious people to do so. How has God spoken to you or cared for you through unusual circumstances? What reasons do you have to praise Him for His protection and leading? –HVL

My times are in my Father's hand;

How could I wish or ask for more?

For He who has my pathway planned

Will guide me till my journey's o'er. -–Fraser

Because God is with us, we need not fear what is ahead of us.

Where to Look

Defeat comes from looking back

Distraction comes from looking around

Discouragement comes from looking down

Deliverance comes from looking up.

(Wendy, Nambour, Qld)

Our neighbor Dan is a walking miracle. Last year he was in a terrible automobile accident that many would say should have killed him. He was evacuated from the crash site by a helicopter actually, with multiple injuries, including his back being broken in two places. But God wasn't finished with Dan yet! He miraculously spared his life - and miraculously delivered Dan from the paralysis that his injuries should have given him. And through it all, Dan surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. What a testimony Dan has! Now, I've never had a serious injury in my life. I've never been in a hospital facing possible death or paralysis. Now look at what God healed Dan from! So my story is nowhere near as dramatic as Dan's. But that's OK! I'm excited about how God put Dan back together - but I'm glad I didn't have to be put back together!

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "The Really Amazing Grace."

You may know someone who has a really dramatic testimony of how God put the broken pieces of their life back together. You've heard the stories of the people Jesus saved from the bondage of drugs or alcohol or crime or sexual sin. And maybe in the back of your mind you've said to yourself, "You know, compared to them, my testimony is boring. Sure, I'm a sinner and I needed to invite Christ to be my Savior. But there wasn't too much to save me from. I never did anything that bad."

I've even had people confide to me a feeling I would call "testimony envy" - the sense that I almost got cheated because I didn't have a lot of really sinful sin to be saved from. Well, maybe "amazing grace" doesn't seem all that amazing to you because you weren't much of a "wretch." Well, His grace is just as amazing for you - and in some ways more amazing - as it is for that person who was dramatically lost and dramatically found.

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Timothy 1:4-5 and then 3:15. Paul, who was saved from being the chief persecutor of Christians, writes to his son in the faith Timothy. "I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded now lives in you also." Timothy had grown up with Jesus. Christian Mom, Christian grandma. A good boy. In chapter 3:15, Paul reminds Timothy "how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."

Timothy knew the Bible for as long as he could remember. But, he too, had to have his own saving transaction with Jesus Christ. His Bible knowledge couldn't give him that relationship - it could only lead him to put his "faith in Christ Jesus." Even though Paul had committed horrendous well-known sins, and Timothy had always been a good guy, they both were sinners, separated from God, needing to get to the same Cross to be forgiven.

But the grace of God was every bit as amazing in Timothy's life as it was in Paul's. Yes, it takes powerful grace to rescue someone from sin's bondage. But it takes grace at least as powerful to keep a person from ever getting into that bondage! Now, Michael is one of our Native American team members, and he'll tell you how Jesus Christ rescued him from a life of drugs and alcohol and gangs and violence. He and I were talking the other day about a young woman who we both know - a young woman who grew up in a Christian home and has never been down any of those roads. She was lamenting her "not having much of a testimony." He told her, "People like you are my heroes because God kept you from those roads."

My friend Dan has a dramatic testimony of going to the edge of death and paralysis, but I don't wish I had his story to tell. I'm grateful I've never been to that edge. If God has kept you from the scars and wasted years of sin, thank Him for that! Glorify Him for that! Testify about that!

It is amazing grace when God takes a broken life and puts it back together again. It is really amazing grace when God keeps a life from ever getting broken in the first place!

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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There is a popular story of a missionary pilot whose father was martyred for his faith finding himself in jeopardy at what feels like the end of the world. He has a chance encounter with a man whose own faith was powerfully affected by his father's death.

TruthOrFiction.com has had a lot of inquiries about whether this is a true story of inspirational fiction. It is a real story from the pen of Stephen Saint, the missionary pilot son of pioneer missionary pilot Nate Saint. Nate was one of five missionaries killed in Ecuador in the 1950's by stone-age Indians they were trying to reach. It became one of the most famous missionary events of the century. Nate Saint's death occurred when Stephen was a child, and in this candid article, he talks about the question that had lingered in his mind of why did his dad have to die? In part, he gets the answer in a remote corner of the earth.

The story as it has appeared on the Internet:

For years, I'd thought Timbuktu was just a made-up name for "the ends of the earth." When I found out it was a real place in Africa, I developed an inexplicable fascination for it. It was in 1986 on a fact-finding trip to West Africa for Missionary Aviation Fellowship that this fascination became an irresistible urge.

Timbuktu wasn't on my itinerary, but I knew I had to go there. Once I arrived, I discovered I was in trouble. I'd hitched a ride from Bamako, Mali, 500 miles away on the only seat left on a Navajo six-seater airplane chartered by UNICEF.

Two of their doctors were in Timbuktu and might fly back on the return flight, which meant I'd be bumped, but I decided to take the chance. Now here I was, standing by the plane on the windswept outskirts of the famous Berber outpost.

There was not a spot of true green anywhere in the desolate brown Saharan landscape. Dust blew across the sky, blotting out the sun as I squinted in the 110-degree heat, trying to make out the mud-walled buildings of the village of 20,000. The pilot approached me as I started for town. He reported that the doctors were on their way and I'd have to find another ride to Bamako.

"Try the marketplace. Someone there might have a truck. But be careful," he said. "Westerners don't last long in the desert if the truck breaks down, which often happens."

I didn't relish the thought of being stranded, but perhaps it was fitting that I should wind up like this, surrounded by the Sahara. Since I arrived in Africa the strain of the harsh environment and severe suffering of the starving peoples had left me feeling lost in a spiritual and emotional desert. The open-air marketplace in the center of town was crowded. Men and women wore flowing robes and turbans as protection against the sun. Most of the Berbers' robes were dark blue, with 30 feet of material in their turbans alone. The men were well armed with scimitars and knives. I felt eyes were watching me suspiciously. Suspicion was understandable in Timbuktu. Nothing could be trusted here. These people had once been prosperous and self-sufficient. Now even their land had turned against them. Drought had turned rich grasslands to desert. Unrelenting sun and windstorms had nearly annihilated all animal life. People were dying by the thousands. I went from person to person trying to find someone who spoke English, until I finally came across a local gendarme who understood my broken French. "I need a truck," I said. "I need to go to Bamako."

Eyes widened in his shaded face. "No truck," he shrugged. Then he added, "No road. Only sand." By now, my presence was causing a sensation in the marketplace. I was surrounded by at least a dozen small children, jumping and dancing, begging for coins and souvenirs. The situation was extreme, I knew. I tried to think calmly. What am I to do?

Suddenly I had a powerful desire to talk to my father. Certainly he had known what it was like to be a foreigner in a strange land.

But my father, Nate Saint, was dead. He was one of five missionary men killed by Auca Indians in the jungles of Ecuador in 1956. I was a month shy of my fifth birthday at the time, and my memories of him were almost like movie clips: a lanky, intense man with a serious goal and a quick wit. He was a dedicated jungle pilot, flying missionaries and medical personnel in his Piper Family Cruiser.

Even after his death he was a presence in my life. I'd felt the need to talk with my father before, especially since I'd married and become a father myself. But in recent weeks this need had become urgent. For one thing, I was new to relief work. But it was more than that. I needed Dad to help answer my new questions of faith. In Mali, for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who didn't share my faith, who were, in fact, hostile to the Christian faith, locals and Western relief workers alike. In a way it was a parallel to the situation Dad had faced in Ecuador. How often I'd said the same thing Dad would have said among the Indians who killed him: "My God is real. He's a personal God who lives inside me, with whom I have a very special, one-on-one relationship."

And yet the question lingered in my mind: Did my father have to die? All my life, people had spoken of Dad with respect; he was a man willing to die for his faith. But at the same time I couldn't help but think the murders were capricious, an accident of bad timing.

Dad and his colleagues landed just as a small band of Auca men were in a bad mood for reasons that had nothing to do with faith or Americans. If Dad's plane had landed one day later, the massacre may not have happened. Couldn't there have been another way? It made little impact on the Aucas that I could see. To them it was just one more killing in a history of killings.

Thirty years later it still had an impact on me. And now, for the first time, I felt threatened because of who I was and what I believed. "God," I found myself praying as I looked around the marketplace, "I'm in trouble here. Please keep me safe and show me a way to get back. Please reveal Yourself and Your love to me the way you did to my father." No bolt of lightning came from the blue. But a new thought did come to mind. Surely there was a telecommunications office here somewhere; I could wire Bamako to send another plane. It would be costly, but I could see no other way of getting out.

"Where's the telecommunications office?" I asked another gendarme. He gave me instructions, then said, "Telegraph transmits only if station in Bamako has machine on, message goes through. If not," he shrugged, "no answer ever comes. You only hope message received."

Now what? The sun was crossing toward the horizon. If I didn't have arrangements made by nightfall, what would happen to me? This was truly the last outpost of the world. More than a few Westerners had disappeared in the desert without a trace.

Then I remembered that just before I'd started for Timbuktu, a fellow worker had said, "There's a famous mosque in Timbuktu. It was built from mud in the 1500's. Many Islamic pilgrims visit it every year. But there's also a tiny Christian church, which virtually no one visits. Look it up if you get the chance."

I asked the children, "Where is Eglise Evangelique Chretienne?"

The youngsters were willing to help, though they were obviously confused about what I was looking for. Several times elderly men and women scolded them harshly as we passed, but they persisted. Finally we arrived, not at the church, but at the open doorway of a tiny mud-brick house.

No one was home, but on the wall opposite the door was a poster showing a cross covered by wounded hands. The French subscript said, "and by His stripes we are healed."

Within minutes, my army of waifs pointed out a young man approaching us in the dirt alleyway. Then the children melted back into the labyrinth of the walled alleys and compounds of Timbuktu. The young man was handsome, with dark skin and flowing robes. But there was something inexplicably different about him. His name was Nouh Af Infa Yatara; that much I understood. Nouh signaled he knew someone who could translate for us. He led me to a compound on the edge of town where an American missionary lived. I was glad to meet the missionary, but from the moment I'd seen Nouh, I'd had the feeling that we shared something in common.

"How did you come to have faith?" I asked him. The missionary translated as Nouh answered: "This compound has always had a beautiful garden. One day when I was a small boy, a friend and I decided to steal some carrots. It was a dangerous task. We'd been told that Toubabs [white men] eat nomadic children. Despite our agility and considerable experience, I was caught by the former missionary here. Mr. Marshall didn't eat me; instead, he gave me the carrots and some cards that had God's promises from the Bible written on them. He told me if I learned them, he'd give me an ink pen!"

"You learned them?" I asked.

"Oh, yes!" he exclaimed. "Only government men and the headmaster of the school had a Bic pen! But when I showed off my pen at school, the teacher knew I must have spoken with a Toubab, which is strictly forbidden. He severely beat me."

When Nouh's parents found out he had portions of such a despised book defiling their house, they threw him out and forbade anyone to take him in; nor was he allowed in school.

But something had happened: Noah had come to believe that what the Bible said was true. Nouh's mother became desperate. Her own standing, as well as her family's, was in jeopardy.

Finally she decided to kill her son. She obtained poison from a sorcerer and poisoned Noah's food at a family feast. Noah ate the food and wasn't affected.

His brother, who unwittingly stole a morsel of meat from the deadly dish, became violently ill and remains partially paralyzed. Seeing God's intervention, the family and the town's people were afraid to make further attempts on his life, but condemned him as an outcast.

After sitting a moment, I asked Nouh the question that only hours earlier I'd wanted to ask my father: "Why is your faith so important to you that you're willing to give up everything, perhaps even your life?"

"I know God loves me and I'll live with Him forever," he replied. "I know it! Now I have peace where I used to be full of fear and uncertainty. Who wouldn't want to give up everything for this peace and security?"

"It couldn't have been easy for you as a teenager to take a stand that made you despised by the whole community," I said. "Where did your courage come from?"

"Mr. Marshall couldn't take me in without putting my life in jeopardy. So he gave me some books about other Christians who'd suffered for their faith. My favorite was about five young men who willingly risked their lives to take God's good news to stone-age Indians in the jungles of South America." His eyes widened as he continued. "I've lived all my life in the desert. How frightening the jungle must be! The book said these men let themselves be speared to death, even though they had guns and could have killed their attackers!"

The missionary translator said, "I remember the story. As a matter of fact, one of those men had your last name."

"Yes," I said quietly, "the pilot was my father."

"Your father?" Nouh cried. "The story is true?"

"Yes," I said, "it's true."

The missionary and Nouh and I talked through the afternoon. When they accompanied me back to the airfield that night, we found that the doctors weren't able to leave Timbuktu after all, and there was room for me on the UNICEF plane.

As Nouh and I hugged each other, it seemed incredible that God loved us so much that He'd arranged for us to meet "at the ends of the earth."

Nouh and I had gifts for each other that no one else could give. I gave him the assurance that the story that had given him courage was true. He, in turn, gave me the assurance that God had used Dad's death for good.

Dad, by dying, had helped give Nouh a faith worth dying for. And Nouh, in return, had helped give Dad's faith back to me.

Author's Update on Nouh: Nouh, along with his lovely wife Fati, have three sons. They finished more than two years of study in the U.S. and faced many hurdles when they returned in January 1999 to the fourth-poorest area of the world. Please pray that they will continue to be faithful and that God will bless their commitment to spread His light in a dark and dangerous land.

I was out of the country, and my wife was visiting her father, along with our daughter and son-in-law. Karen convinced her dad to hike with them back into the woods to the spring where they used to go to get water when she was a little girl. Eventually, they came upon a scene that was really printed on Karen's memory like a photograph - that spring gushing from the rocks, just beneath a cave above it. Well, they spent a few minutes exploring, and then headed back. That night, our son-in-law showed the video he had shot of their little expedition. As the picture panned past the darkened cave, he stopped the video and rewound it to get a closer look. And there, gleaming in the darkness, were the two eyes of a big cat - as in panther or cougar. They had not seen that cat - they had been exploring right beneath that cat - and they had never known the danger they were in.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "The Cats That Never Pounced."

I wonder how many of those you and I have had in our lives - the things that could have hurt or destroyed us that we never knew about. The cats that never pounced. In an increasingly dangerous world, isn't it great to know that you are under that kind of protection?

Paul wrote about that security in 2 Timothy 4:17-18. He said, "I was delivered from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom." Now there is one powerful antidote to fear! The Lord is going to rescue me from every threat, except one - the one that's designed to take me home, right on time. That's right on time according to the life plan He made for me before there was a me.

Now, that doesn't mean we don't take precautions, the ones that God directs us to. Paul often continued to preach boldly, even when he knew there were forces who wanted to kill him in the city. But other times, he left town quickly or sneaked out of the city in a basket. When Nehemiah and his workers were threatened, he said, "We prayed to our God and we posted a guard day and night." (Nehemiah 4:9) Our faith is not in our guard, it's in our God. But sometimes God chooses to protect us through some practical steps He asks us to take.

But ultimately we are safe because Almighty God is watching over us. In just six verses in Psalm 121, it says "The Lord watches over you" five times! It concludes by saying, "The Lord will keep you from all harm - He will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore."

So, when is the last time you praised the Lord for all those cats that never pounced? For all those times you've been delivered from danger and never knew it! Wait 'til we get to heaven and watch the video. I think we're going to be amazed at what could have happened that didn't!

When our kids were little, we used to put them to sleep every night singing a little chorus: "Safe am I, safe am I, in the hollow of His hand. Sheltered o'er, sheltered o'er, with His love forevermore. No ill can harm me, no foe alarm me, for He keeps both day and night. Safe am I, safe am I, in the hollow of His hand." If you're in the hollow of His hand, you're really safe. If you've never put your life in Jesus' hands, do it today.

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. 'Practical Answers to Real Life Issues'

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A young man who had been raised as an atheist was training to be an Olympic diver. The only religious influence in his life came from his outspoken Christian friend. The young diver never really paid much attention to his friend’s sermons, but he heard them often. One night the diver went to the indoor pool at the college he attended. The lights were all off, but as the pool had big skylights and the moon was bright, there was plenty of light to practice by.

The young man climbed up to the highest diving board and as he turned his back to the pool on the edge of the board and extended his arms out, he saw his shadow on the wall. The shadow of his body in the shape of a cross. Instead of diving, he knelt down and asked God to come into his life. As the young man stood, a maintenance man walked in and turned the lights on. The pool had been drained for repairs.

It was September of 1999. A Cambodian pastor had made his way to a remote corner of his country to bring the story of Jesus to an area he had wanted to go to for years. But that area had been under the control of the brutal Khmer Rouge radicals until then. As far as anyone knew, this pastor was the first person to speak of Jesus in that isolated area where most people were Buddhists or spiritists. Surprisingly, as told in the book THE GOD WHO HUNG ON THE CROSS, when the pastor arrived in one village, the people welcomed him warmly and seemed to hang on every words of his messages. Then this old woman bowed and grabbed his hands and said, “We've been waiting for you for twenty years.”

The story she then told explained what she meant. In their cruel march through Cambodia to destroy much of its infrastructure, the Khmer Rouge forces enslaved, killed, or otherwise caused the deaths of millions of Cambodians. When they reached this village, they forced everyone out of their huts and lined them up to dig a deep pit. The villagers realized they were digging their own mass grave. Anyone who tried to run or hide was shot on sight and dragged to the edge of the pit that was being dug. When the pit was finally finished, the soldiers ordered the people to turn and face the pit. As the people stood, helplessly awaiting their execution, they began to cry out in some desperate plea for help. Some screamed to Buddha, some to ancestors, to demon spirits, and some even for their mothers.

Then one woman, drawing on the distant memory of something her mother told her, began to cry out to one she called “the God who hung on the cross.” Surely this one who had suffered so Himself might have compassion on those about to die. Soon, the screams around her became just one desperate wail - crying out to the God who hung on the cross. And then there was silence. As the people slowly turned, they realized the soldiers were gone. And every since that day, they were, as the book says, “waiting for someone to come and tell them more. More about the God who hung on the cross.”

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “God's Wooden Magnet.”

Jesus said in John 12:32, our word for today from the Word of God, “'But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.’ He said this to show the kind of death He was going to die.” Strip away all the Christianity, and all the rituals, and all the steeples, and all the creeds and you're down to what this is really the issue - the God who hung on the cross. Jesus, God's one and only Son, pouring out His life to absorb all the hell of all the sin of all the people who have ever lived. Including you.

God says that “whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). Maybe that's something that you've never done. You've done Christianity - or maybe rejected Christianity - but you've never been to that cross and given yourself to the One who is your only hope of being forgiven, your only hope of heaven because He came back from the dead on Easter morning.

If you belong to Jesus, don't spend time telling people all about your church or even your beliefs. Tell them about Jesus. Take them to that cross where they can see how much He loves them. And if you don't belong to Jesus, will you, in your heart, just stand there at His cross for a moment and say, “Jesus, that was for me. You died for the junk I've done.” Cry out to this God who hung on a cross for you and trust Him to save you, because only He can.

Jesus hung on a cross so your death sentence would be gone. God wants to know what you're going to do with His Son, after all His Son has done for you.

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

[see also HolwickID #25236]

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“For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only [that], but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:22-23 NKJV)

Universal Longing For Deliverance

• whole creation — nature, animate and inanimate

• groaneth — such figures not uncommon in Scripture — Ps 96:12, Hos 4:1-3, Joel 1:18, Jer 12:11 — “The groans of nature in this nether world, which heaven has heard for ages, have an end.” (Cowper)

• travaileth [labors] — Gk., with pangs of childbirth — “Earth trembled from her entrails as again in pangs; and nature gave a second groan.” (Milton)

• until now — consider, in proof of this, the history of the past, and the state of the world at this day

• ourselves [we also] — even we, the sons of God

• which [who]…Spirit — already possessing the pledge and foretaste of the harvest of liberty and glory — Eph 1:13-14, 2 Cor 5:5, 1:21-22

• adoption — in its complete and perfect form

• redemption — Eph 4:30, Phil 1:6 — final deliverance

• body — Phil 3:20-21, Luke 21:28, Hos 13:14, Luke 20:36 — rescued from sin’s presence and power

The frstfruits of the Spirit — Spurgeon

What is meant by first-fruits:

I. They were so called because they came first. So the spiritual life, with all its adorning graces — repentance, that gem of the first water; faith, that priceless pearl; hope, the heavenly emerald; and love, the glorious ruby — are the first operations of the Spirit in our souls.

II. They were the pledge of the harvest. So when God gives us things which are pure, lovely, and of good report, these are to us the prognostics of the coming glory.

III. They were always holy to the Lord.

So our new nature, with all its powers, is a consecrated thing, not to be ascribed to our own merit; for it is Christ’s image and creation, and is ordained for His glory.

IV. They were not the harvest, and the Spirit’s work in us at this moment, is not the consummation — the perfection is yet to come. Be avaricious for more holy grace, and your Lord will grant it to you.

Hope, a waiting grace — Hope is a waiting grace; it makes a Christian’s life to be a perpetual waiting: “All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come,” saith Job. Job had many changes; but he waited for that great one which should bring him into a state of unchangeable happiness. Whatever holy men are a-doing still, they are in a waiting posture. When Jacob was blessing his sons, he did not forget this, but broke out in a sudden, sweet ejaculation, “I have waited for Thy salvation, 0 Lord” (Gen. 49:18). Hope makes Christians to wait for the good things to come at all times, but in a special manner in time of suffering. St. Paul, speaking first of the suffering saints, and then of the groaning world, expresseth himself thus “We ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body; for we are saved by hope” (Rom. 8:23-24). And when the storm of persecution comes, it waits in a way of patience. Hence the Apostle speaks of “the patience of hope” (1 Th. 1:3)… When the martyr Ananias, in the Persian persecution, seemed to tremble at the approaching cross, Pusices spake thus to him: Paulisper, 0 senex, oculos claude; nam statim lumen Dei videbis;- “Shut thine eyes a little, old man, and immediately thou shalt see the light of God.”

“Though God suffers the earth to bear for a while unholy men upon it, while it doth not without sweating under their weight, and groaning to be rid of the load; yet we are sure fie will never admit them into heaven.” — Gurnall

“Hope is like the wing of an angel, soaring up to heaven, and bearing our prayers to the throne of God.” — Jeremy Taylor

There is a scene in the movie Apollo 13 where Jim Lovell is asked if he was ever afraid. He said that he had been afraid many times but one sticks out in his memory.

He was returning from a combat mission and could not find the aircraft carrier. It was dark and because they were under combat conditions, the carrier did not have its lights on. His radio navigation equipment was of no use because they were under total radio silence to avoid enemy detection.

In a last attempt to determine his location, he turned on his map light to see if he could calculate his position. An electrical short caused all of the lights to go out.

It was then that he saw it. In the darkness. There was a luminescent glow. It was the glow of sea plankton that is generated by the wake of a ship as it passes through. All he had to do was follow this glowing ‘highway’ to the ship.

He said, “You don’t know what will transpire to lead you home. If the map light had not shorted out, I would never have seen the glowing wake.”

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever” — Revelation 22:1-5

“[There is] therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2 NKJV)

No Condemnation To Those Who Are In Christ

• therefore — conclusion of argument beginning 3:20

• condemnation — John 3:18, 5:24, 15:5-6, 1 Cor 1:30, Phil 3:9 — judgment pronounced against

• them…Jesus — who has Himself borne the condemnation

• walk — live — Jam 2:26, Gal 5:16-25 — Rest of this verse (from here to end of sentence) not found best MSS, ie., Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus. Wordsworth thinks the words are a gloss from verse 4; so also ALford

• flesh — natural man

• Spirit — spiritual nature

• law…Jesus — new order of things established in the mind by the Spirit (Brown). Life-giving power of the Spirit (Calvin). Gospel written in the heart (Bengel, Haldane). Gospel or covenant of grace ministered by the Spirit, and giving life (Henry).

Man Christianised — Rev. J. Davies

Man in Christ is –

I. Freed from sin;

II. Advanced in moral excellency –

1. He minds the Spirit,

2. He has a peaceful life,

3. He has the Spirit of Christ;

III. Destined to future glorification;

IV. Destined to enjoy the glory which belongs to Christ Himself.

Inferences:-

1. Christianity centres our hope and perfection, not in a system, but in a Person;

2. We have here man without Christ, in opposition to man in Christ.

No condemnation — Rev. S. Martin

I. There is no condemnatory sentence in execution against Christians now

II. There is none recorded for execution

III. The absence of all condemnation is accounted for by that which Christ is to the soul that relies upon Him

At peace with God — W. W. Wythe

I. The Christian’s state — “in Christ”

1. A vital union;

2. A visible union.

II. His character. He walks –

1. Not after the flesh — crucifixion — regulation;

2. After the Spirit — guidance — co-operation.

III. His privilege — “no condemnation,” for –

l. Past offences;

2. The corruption of his nature;

3. His defective service;

4. His involuntary errors.

“The connecting link between Romans 7 and 8 — I defy any man to get out of the seventh of Romans into the eighth, except by that one word, “CHRIST.” He who attempts it is like a leaf caught in the eddy of a stream; it whirls round and wants to get down the stream, but cannot go. The seventh of Romans is an eddy in which the conscience swings round and round in eternal disquiet and dissatisfaction; the eighth of Romans is the talisman through which it receives the touch of Divine inspiration, and is lifted above into the realm of true Divine beneficence.” — H. W. Beecher

“When we think of death, a thousand sins we have trod as worms beneath our feet, rise up against us like flaming serpents.” — T. Scott

1. Days are filled with sorrow and care,

Hearts are lonely and drear;

Burdens are lifted at Calvary –

Jesus is very near.

Chorus

Burdens are lifted at Calvary,

Calvary, Calvary;

Burdens are lifted at Calvary –

Jesus is very near.

2. Cast your care on Jesus today,

Leave your worry and fear;

Burdens are lifted at Calvary –

Jesus is very near.

3. Troubled soul, the Saviour can see

Ev’ry heartache and tear;

Burdens are lifted at Calvary –

Jesus is very near.

“And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this [is] My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.’” (Romans 11:26-27 NKJV)

The Deliverer Out Of Sion

• and so — ultimately, and in this way

• as…written — by the faithful promise-keeping God. Two passages combined, Ps 14:7, Isa 59:20

• Deliverer — Isa 45:1, 54:7-8, Jer 32:37-41, Hos 3:5, Mic 7:19-20, Isa 59:20 — Redeemer

• turn…ungodliness, as the effect of their turning to Him

• this…Covenant — Isa 59:21 — this is what I have engaged to do. To save from sin, not in sin.

• when…sins — Jer 31:31-34 — i.e., when they repent and believe the Gospel

The future salvation of all Israel — Rev. C. Simeon, M.A.

I. The period allotted for their present blindness (verse 25) –

1. Their blindness is most awful;

2. It will last until the “fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”

II. The event that awaits them at its termination –

1. The event itself;

2. Its certainty.

Conclusion:- Concerning the subject, consider–

1. Its aspect on the Jews;

2. Its proper effect upon your own minds.

Beholding the deliverer — On the occasion of President Lincoln’s visit to Richmond, as soon as his arrival became known, the coloured people whom he had delivered from bondage crowded around him in wild enthusiasm. They gazed upon the wonderful man; they shouted, they danced, waved their handkerchiefs and hats; they cheered enthusiastically. Some cried, “Glory, glory;” others, “Thank you, dear Jesus, for this!” others, “God bless you, Master Lincoln!” others, “Bless de Lord!” What triumphal entry into Rome ever equalled this entry into Richmond by our delivering President? But, ere long, we shall all gaze on a greater than he, with even greater satisfaction than those redeemed ones experienced. — C. H. Spurgeon

“Whether the conversion of the great body of the Jewish people to Christianity shall precede or follow their restoration to the inheritance of Abraham and his seed, is not, I think, distinctly foretold in Scripture.” — Bp Blomfield

1. Trust for Deliverance Psalm 7:1 (NKJV)

O LORD my God, in You I put my trust;

Save me from all those who persecute me;

And deliver me,

2. Opposition

a. You have heard of people with a persecution complex … every annoyance, every hardship, every difficulty, is because “someone is out to get them”

b. But if he has the least amount of objectivity, even the most critical reader of the life of David must admit David had a fair amount of difficulty in his life; when he refers to “those who persecute me” it is not just a persecution complex he had

i. in keeping his family’s sheep he faced a bear and a lion

ii. every time God worked through him to gain victory for Israel, it increased the antagonism and machinations of King Saul against him

iii. he was constantly having to reign in his most loyal supporters from committing some atrocity

iv. after he became king, his own son Absolom usurped his throne and sought to kill him

v. his ablest counsellor deserted to Absolom’s side

vi. and there are many other instances

c. it is highly unlikely that any of us will face the variety and the intensity of opposition that David faced

i. yet even so, just has David trusted the LORD to deliver,

ii. we may have his same confidence

iii. in the LORD, the Eternal one,

iv. who can and will deliver

v. either through or out of the opposition

vi. to the praise of His glory.

BUZZARD

If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

BAT

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkably nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

BUMBLEBEE

A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

PEOPLE

In many ways, there are lots of people like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. They are struggling about with all their problems and frustrations, not ever realizing that the answer is right there “Above” them.

Spring sprang! The lawn had turned green, and was in need of a trim. The young man that usually does the cutting couldn't get to it for a few days... so I went to the shed only to discover a dead battery on my lawn tractor. That's no problem... I've done this many times. I just plug it into the charger over night and it is ready to go. Well... it was still dead the next day... so I charged it again over night. (The battery was 1 year old).

In the morning I prayed that God would cause it to start as there was no one around to help me but Him. I unplugged the charger... sat down on the seat... turned the key, and the battery blew up with such a loud explosion that it temporarily deafened me in both ears.

Quite shaken, I wandered into the house and laid down. Not knowing if my ears would ever be normal, I began to wonder why God had allowed this after I specifically prayed before I ever turned the key. To be honest, I said right out loud, "What good does it do to pray?"

With my ears still sounding like the birds were chirping in a tin barrel, I went out to the shed to see what had been damaged. 1)There were pieces of battery several feet down the path, and fluid everywhere. 2) Sitting right next to the tractor was a can of gas. 3) I had just filled the gas tank. All of a sudden I began to praise the Lord for sparing my life. He had indeed heard my prayer and saved me from a worse disaster.

This has caused me to look at those in the Bible who have had disastrous things in their lives such as Job... yet in Job 13:15a... he says, "Though He slay me, yet will I TRUST in Him." Daniel 3:17-18. The three Hebrew children were witnessing that God is able to deliver them... then they said in V.18b. "BUT IF NOT, be it known to thee O king, that we will not serve thy gods."

A woman missionary Doctor told of her brutal rape while traveling to help others near the jungle. She was sent back to the hospital in England where she wrestled with God as to why this horrible thing happened. She began to come out of her depression when she openly said to God, "I will TRUST you even if you never tell me why."

"TRUST in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding." Proverbs 3:5

Dorcas tidbit: I am learning that "TRUST IN GOD" is the top and bottom line even when things don't work my way.

PS. The repairman said, "Wow, were you lucky." But I told him, only God could have spared me. We have grace and mercy, not luck!

Paul Ratsara, President of the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division told of an exciting experiences:

In one of their countries a police officer was giving our church people a very hard time. He said they couldn’t hold meetings in that town. He said he would arrest them if they did.

Things seemed really hopeless. But the members knew that with God, all things are possible. So they began to pray. They didn’t just mention it in the church prayer time, they all prayed earnestly for two days. And then a truck pulled up to the police officer’s door early in the morning. A senior officer jumped out and delivered orders from the government that the man was to move to a new district - not tomorrow or next week - NOW!

The members and villagers watched in amazement as men carried out the police officer’s belongings. Then the officer and his family climbed up in the back with their things and the truck left the village in a cloud of dust.

Prayers of praise began to ascend to Heaven. But now a new problem presented itself - who would replace the police officer? The members turned their prayers to the One who still takes down and sets up leaders as He did in the days of Daniel.

Soon a truck pulled in with the new officer. Almost immediately the village people not belonging to our church gathered around and told him “Don’t mess with the people of that church or you will surely get moved.”

None of the villagers knew until several days later that the new police officer was also a member of our church. The meetings are now going ahead and the power of the Holy Spirit is touching many lives.

________

Homer Trecartin, MUSINGS, August 19, 2007

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #20932]

NAVALADY, SRI LANKA - Two hundred yards away from the beach, in the orphanage he had built, Dayalan Sanders lounged in his bed early Sunday morning. He was thinking, he said, about the sermon he was scheduled to deliver in the chapel in half an hour. A few yards away, most of the 28 children under his care were still in their rooms, getting ready for services.

Then he heard the pounding of feet in the corridor outside his room, and his wife burst through the door, a frantic look on her face.

“The sea is coming!” she said. “Come! Come! Look at the sea!”

Thanks to quick thinking, blind luck and an outboard motor that somehow started on the first pull, the orphans and their caretakers joined the ranks of survivors of the epic earthquake and coastal disaster that so far has claimed the lives of more than 80,000 people in Sri Lanka and 11 other countries. This is their story.

FOUNDER AND RESCUER

It is also the story of their chief rescuer, Sanders, a Sri Lankan-born missionary and U.S. citizen whose mother and siblings live in Gaithersburg, Maryland. A member of the country's Tamil ethnic minority, Sanders, 50, studied to be an accountant before founding a missionary group and moving to Switzerland in the 1980s. In 1994, Sanders founded the Samaritan Children's Home in Navalady, a small fishing village that occupies a narrow peninsula in Sri Lanka. He built the orphanage with donations and money from the sale of his Maryland townhouse, he said.

On Sunday morning, Sanders said, he rose at his customary hour of 4 a.m. to wander the grounds and pray, then went back to bed. He woke up again around 7:30. He recalled the stillness. Not a breath of air stirred the surface of the sea. Small waves rolled listlessly onto the beach, then retreated with a gentle hiss.

It isn't clear who saw the wave first. His wife, Kohila, said she was alerted by one of the orphans, a girl who burst into the kitchen as Kohila was mixing powdered milk for her 3-year-old daughter. Kohila ran into the brilliant sunshine and saw the building sea.

Sanders ran outside and looked toward the ocean. There on the horizon, he said, was a “30-foot wall of water.”

With barely any time to think, let alone act, he ran toward the lagoon side of the compound, where the launch with its outboard motor chafed at a pier. By then, many of the children had heard the commotion and had also run outside.

A moment later one of the older girls thrust his toddler into his arms. Sanders heaved her into the boat, along with the other small children, as the older ones, joined by his wife and the orphanage staff, clambered aboard. One of his employees yanked on the starter cord and the engine sputtered instantly to life — something that Sanders swears had never happened before.

Crammed with more than 30 people, the dangerously overloaded launch roared into the lagoon at almost precisely the same moment, Sanders said, that the wall of water overwhelmed the orphanage, swamping its single-story buildings to the rafters.

As the compound receded behind the boat, Sanders said, he watched in amazement as the surging current smashed a garage and ejected a brand-new Toyota pickup. “The roof came flying off — it just splintered in every direction,” he recalled. “I saw the Toyota just pop out of the garage.”

The vehicle bobbed briefly on the surface, collided with a palm tree, then slid over the edge of the compound in the torrent before slipping beneath the rapidly rising surface of the lagoon.

NEW WORRIES

The ordeal did not end when the boat pulled away from the shore. Not only was water cascading over the lagoon side of the peninsula, but it also was pouring in directly from the mouth of the estuary about two miles away. Sanders feared the converging currents would swamp the small craft. With the water pouring into the mouth of the lagoon, he then began to worry that waves would overtake them from behind, swamping the small boat. Reasoning that it was better to hit the waves head on, he said, he ordered the driver to reverse direction and head back toward the ocean.

As the waters began to roll back out to sea, the turbulence subsided. It was then, Sanders and his wife recalled, that they became aware of the people crying for help as they bobbed in the water nearby. They had to leave most of them behind. There wasn't any room.

Eventually the boat made it to the opposite shore, about 1 1/2 miles away in Batticaloa. The Sanders, their daughter and perhaps a dozen of the orphaned and now displaced children have found temporary refuge in a tiny church; the rest have been sent elsewhere.

The scene at the orphanage was one of utter devastation. Several buildings were wiped away, and the others were damaged beyond repair.

Surveying the wreckage, Sanders broke down and cried. “Twenty years of my life put in here, and I saw it all disappear in 20 seconds.” The orphanage had no insurance.

But Sanders also was philosophical about his loss. “If there was anyone who should have got swept away by this tidal wave, it should have been us,” he said. “We were eyeball to eyeball with the wave.”