4th Sunday after the Epiphany

Mark 1:21-28

Illustrations



 
A flamboyant tuxedoed "evangelist" was engaged to lead a series of revival services Each night, as he prayed before he began, he raised his arms and eyes toward heaven and cried repeatedly, "Oh, I see Jesus! I see my Lord! I see my Savior! Yes, Lord, I'll speak your words!! Oh, hallelujah! Oh, I see Jesus!" On the last night, a mischievous youth costumed himself; long hair, halo, lights, white robe, etc. As the preacher began, the lad slowly ascended the dark middle aisle of the balcony. About halfway through his routine, he sounded more hysterical than usual and screamed, "Oh, my God! There he is!" His astonishment turned to fear. He ran out in front of the startled congregation. The service ended.

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Old Leadership Refusing to Believe a New Teacher and Teaching


For centuries people believed that Aristotle was right when he said that the heavier an object, the faster it would fall to earth. Aristotle was regarded as the greatest thinker of all time, and surely he would not be wrong. Anyone, of course, could have taken two objects, one heavy and one light, and dropped them from a great height to see whether or not the heavier object landed first. But no one did until nearly 2,000 years after Aristotle's death. In 1589 Galileo summoned learned professors to the base of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Then he went to the top and pushed off a ten- pound and a one-pound weight. Both landed at the same instant. The power of belief was so strong, however, that the professors denied their eyesight. They continued to say Aristotle was right.

 

Bits & Pieces, January 9, 1992, pp. 22,23.

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The Necessity of God's Word

 

In his autobiography, Mueller reveals that in the early years of his ministry to the orphans, the many things came close to breaking him. He suffered from exhaustion, and what he calls "weak nerves." But in 1841, he made a life-changing discovery. He learned to let the many things take second place to the one thing that Jesus said is needful. He writes:

"I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, how much I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.

" Now I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of God's Word and to meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, [and] instructed"

" As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so it is with the inner man. What is the food for the inner man? the Word of God.

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"Meditation on God's Word has given me the help and strength to pass peacefully through deep trials. What a difference there is when the soul is refreshed in fellowship with God early in the morning! Without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day can be overwhelming."

Source: The Autobiography of George Mueller, edited by Diana L. Matisko, (Springdale, Pennsylvania: Whitiker House, 1984) pages 138-140 submitted by: David Zimmerman Illustration Exchange

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Our faith must have a sure foundation, God's Word, and not the sand or bog of human custom and inventions. With this Isaiah also agrees when be says, 'And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter. Should not a people seek unto their God? On behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead? To the law and the testimony! If they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them etc." Is. 8, 19-20.

This is certainly a clear passage that urges and compels us to seek in God's law and testimony all that we want to know. And he who will not do this, shall be deprived of the morning light which no doubt means Christ and the truth itself. Note also that after Isaiah said we should seek unto God, so that no one might stare at the heavens and expect something extraordinary from God, he shows where and whence we should seek unto God, saying: To the law and to the testimony. He will not permit any seeking unto God in himself outside of the Scriptures, much less will he permit it in others.

Moses mentions many ways by which men seek knowledge. Deut. 18, 10-11 There are eight classes as follows. 1. The users of divination. They are those who reveal the future, like the astrologers and false prophets by inspiration of the devil. 2. Those that practice augury. They designate some days as lucky for making a journey, for building, for marrying, for wearing fine clothes, for battle and for all kinds of transactions. 3. The enchanters or rather diviners--I know no better name to call these, who conjure the devil by means of mirrors, pictures, sticks, words, glass, crystals, fingers, nails, circles, rods, etc., and expect in this way to discover hidden treasures, history and other things. 4. The sorcerers, or witches, the devil mongers who steal milk, make the weather, ride on goats, brooms and sails (mantles) shoot the people, cripple and torture and wither, slay infants in the cradle, bewitch certain members of the body, etc. 5. The charmers, who bless people and animals, bewitch snakes, bespeak steel and iron, bluster and see much, and can do wonders. 6. The consulters of familiar spirits, who have the devil in their ears and tell the people what they have lost, what they are doing or what they will do in the future, just as the gypsies do. 7. The wizards, who can change things into different forms so that something may look like a cow or an ox, which in reality is a human being, that can drive people to illicit love and intercourse, and more such works of the devil. 8. The necromancers, who are walking spirits.

Behold, Moses did not forget anything, stopping up every avenue where men seek to learn, outside of the Word of God. Thus he has often denounced self-conceit and human reason, especially Deut. 12, 8: Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. And Prov. 3, 5: Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart and lean not upon thine own understanding. He does this that we might know that God wants us to follow neither our own reason nor that which is above reason, but only his Word, as Isaiah said above, not to seek unto the living nor the dead, but to seek unto God only in the law and testimony.

St. Peter also says in 2 Peter 1, 19: "And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the day- star arise in your hearts." Does not St. Peter here agree nicely with Isaiah as to God's Word and the dawn of the morning? And when St. Peter says that the Word alone is a light that shines in a dark place, does he not clearly show that there is only darkness where God's Word is absent?

 

From the sermon for the Epiphany; Matthew 2:1-12, taken from the Church Postil of 1522

MartinLuthersWritings@yahoogroups.com

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The Power of the Word of God

 

In 1918, a notorious criminal named Tokichi Ichii was sentenced to hang.

While in prison in Tokyo, he was sent a New Testament by two missionaries, Miss West and Miss McDonald. After a visit from Miss West, he began to read the story of Jesus' and crucifixion. When he reached the point where Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," something "clicked" within his heart. He wrote:

"I stopped: I was stabbed to the heart, as if by a five-inch nail. What did this verse reveal to me? Shall I call it the love of the heart of Christ? Shall I call it His compassion? I do not know what to call it.

I only know that with an unspeakably grateful heart, I believed. "People will say that I must have a very sorrowful heart because I am daily awaiting the execution of the death sentence. This is not the case. I feel neither sorrow nor distress nor any pain. Locked up in a prison cell six feet by nine in size, I am infinitely happier than I was in the days of my sinning when I did not know God."

When Tokichi stood on the scaffold with the noose around his neck, with great earnestness he spoke his last words: "My soul, purified, today returns to the City of God." That my friend is the kind of hope that the Word of God can give to those who read it and believe it.

 

Source: Norman Anderson, God's Word for God's World (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981), pages 38-41

submitted by: David Zimmerman

Illustration Exchange

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In 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright sent a telegram from Kitty Hawk, where they were carrying on their flight experiments, to their sister in Dayton, Ohio. The telegram said: "FIRST SUSTAINED FLIGHT TODAY, FIFTY NINE SECONDS. HOME FOR CHRISTMAS."

Their sister took the message to the Dayton newspaper, and the next morning a brief news item appeared under the headline, "POPULAR LOCAL BICYCLE MERCHANTS WILL BE HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS."

The  Dayton newspaper missed the point. Jesus made the point in our gospel lesson that he was the authority. The unclean spirit knew it, but the others gathered did not.

And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.

People were astonished at his teaching.

Halford Luccock has stated it well when he asks, "Are we sufficiently astonished at Jesus' teaching?

Has it become so familiar, have we taken it so much for granted, that we no longer really see it in amazement?"

Can it be that we Christians do not make more of an impact upon the world because we have not been sufficiently "astonished" ourselves? What about the wonder of Christ's life and power? Can it be that we need to marvel at the wonder of God's love, a love which has been revealed to us so perfectly in Jesus Christ?

We need to stand in wonder and astonishment before God who, in Christ, entered our world of human need. And this world included a fight with and a struggle against human sin.

Can we Christians experience the power which is ours in Christ Jesus and share that power with others? Perhaps if we were more astonished, we would do more astonishing things. No wonder