A pastor entered a class as the
lesson was in progress and asked, "Who broke down the walls of
Jericho?" A lad answered,
"Not me, sir." The
pastor turned to the teacher and asked, "Is this the usual behavior in
this class?" The teacher
replied, "I believe this boy is an honest boy, and I really don't think
he did it." Leaving the room, the pastor sought out a deacon and
explained what had happened. The
deacon said, "I have known both the boy and the teacher for several
years, and neither of them would do such a thing." By this time the
pastor was heartsick and reported the incident to the Christian Education
Committee. They said, "We see no point in making an issue out of
this thing. Let's pay the bill for the damage to the walls and charge it to
upkeep. Anyway, our insurance may
even cover it. " from the
Bible Illustrator
Scripture
Text:
Psalm 119:165 Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing
shall offend them. 166 LORD, I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy
commandments. 167 My soul hath kept thy testimonies; and I love them
exceedingly. 168 I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways
[are] before thee. 169 TAU. Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD: give me
understanding according to thy word. 170 Let my supplication come before thee:
deliver me according to thy word.
171
My lips shall utter praise, when thou hast taught me thy statutes. 172 My
tongue shall speak of thy word: for all thy commandments [are] righteousness.
173 Let thine hand help me; for I have chosen thy precepts. 174 I have longed
for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law [is] my delight. 175 Let my soul live,
and it shall praise thee; and let thy judgments help me. 176 I have gone
astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy
commandments.
Life
is more like a river than it is a rock cliff.
It is ever changing and shifting so that the traveler through life is
challenged continually to maintain the right course.
The right way doesn’t just happen but it has to be searched for.
Have you ever gone the right direction, but then discovered that it was
not the way that you wanted to go?
1.
Are you going the right direction?
Are we going in the right direction as Christians?
Are we going in the right direction as a church?
The Psalmist declares that he has great peace in following the ways of
the Lord, but then just a few verses later he declares that he is lost like a
sheep and needs help to find the way. He
says that he did not forget the commandments, but he is lost and still needs
help. What happened? The river of life changed.
2.
Do
we need help? What about the
lost sheep that didn’t realize that it was lost until it was too late? Don’t wait until it is too late.
Can you loose direction in your Christian life?
Do you have peace? Do you hope for salvation?
Do you have love for God and ALL of his laws? Have you kept the Lord’s ways in your life?
Have you asked God for deliverance and salvation?
Do you know that you are lost like a sheep?
Do you want to live? Do
you want to go the right way? Do
you want to go God’s way?
3.
Read the map and ask the mapmaker.
As the river continues to change
and as the map of life continues to move then we need the one who knows all
the changes to help us to find the right way.
4.
Ask for God’s help. We
have to admit that we are lost before we ask for God’s help.
Do we as Christians need to seek the help of the Lord?
Living with the Lord and seeking his help is a continual process.
When we no longer need or ask for His help and guidance then we have
gone the wrong way.
Her
mother was startled to find seven-year-old Karen going through a new Bible
storybook and circling the word God where ever it appeared on the page.
Stifling her urge to reprimand the child for defacing the book, the
mother quietly asked, "Why are you doing that?"
Karen answered matter-of-factly,
"So that I will know where to find God when I need Him."
Actually, Karen may have the right
idea. In times of need it would
be helpful to know where to look in the Bible to find the Lord's help.
From Bible Illustrator.
A Christian gentleman while crossing the Atlantic was standing on the
deck one day with the captain of the steamship, a brave but irreligious man,
when he accidentally dropped a book from his coat pocket. The captain, seeing
it fall, picked it up and handed it to him. The gentleman thanked him warmly,
saying that he valued it beyond price, and that he should have been
exceedingly sorry to lose it. "what book is it?" the captain asked.
"why, it's my chart and compass," was the reply. "You have
yours for sailing your ship; this New Testament is mine for guiding my life.
And, captain," he added smilingly, "I wish you were always as sure
of your way as I am of mine." No more was said; but some time afterward
the captain hunted up his friendly passenger in order to tell him that the
arrow shot apparently into the air had reached its mark. "If you had
tried to preach to me," he said, "I should have given you a rough
answer; but the few words you said, and the way you said them, took such hold
upon me that I could not shake off the impression until I became a
Christian." From the Bible Illustrator
A
lady, who tells the story herself, went to consult a famous physician about
her health. She was a woman of nervous temperament, whose troubles -- she had
many -- had worried and excited her to such a pitch that the strain threatened
her physical strength and even her reason. She gave the doctor a summary of
her symptoms, and answered his questions, only to be astonished at this brief
prescription at the end of his diagnosis: "Madam, what you need is to
read your Bible more."
"But, doctor," began the bewildered patient.
"Go home, and read your Bible an hour a day," the great man
reiterated, with kindly authority." Then come back to me a month from
today." And he bowed her out without a possibility of further protest
At first this patient was inclined to be angry. Then she reflected
that, at least the prescription was not an expensive one. Besides, it
certainly had been a long time since she had read the Bible regularly, she
reflected with a pang of conscience. Worldly cares had crowded out prayer and
Bible study for years, and, though she would have resented being called an
irreligious woman, she had undoubtedly become a most careless Christian. She
went home and set herself consciously to try the physician's remedy. In one
month she went back to his office.
"Well," the doctor said, smiling as he looked into her face,
"I see you are an obedient patient, and have taken my prescription
faithfully. Do you feel as if you needed any other medicine now?"
"No, doctor, I don't," she said honestly. "I feel like a
different person. But how did you know that was just what I needed?"
For answer, the physician turned to his desk. There, worn and marked,
lay an open Bible.
"Madam," he said with deep earnestness, "if I were to
omit my daily reading of this Book, I should lose my greatest source of
strength and skill. I never go to an operation without finding help in its
pages. Your case called not for medicine, but for sources of peace and
strength outside your own mind, and I showed you my own prescription, and I
knew it would cure."
"Yet I confess, doctor," said his patient, "that I came
very near not taking it."
"Very few are willing to try it, I find," said the physician,
smiling again. "But there are many cases in my practice where it would
work wonders if they only could take it."
This is a true story. The doctor
died only a little while ago, but his prescription remains. -- Philadelphia
Public Ledger. By William Moses Tidwell, "Effective Illustrations."