Jesus Is Going to Win<\/b><\/p>\n
Vernon Grounds tells of an incident that happened while he was in seminary. Since the school had no gymnasium, he and his friends played basket ball in a nearby public school.<\/p>\n
Nearby, an elderly janitor waited patiently until the seminarians finished playing. Invariably he sat there reading his Bible. One day my friend asked him what he was reading. The man answered, \u2018The book of Revelation.\u2019 Surprised, my friend asked if he understood it. \u2018Oh, yes,\u2019 the man assured him. `I understand it.\u2019 \u2018What does it mean?\u2019 Quietly the janitor answered, `It means that Jesus is gonna win.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Grounds concludes, \u201cThat\u2019s the best commentary I have ever heard on that book. Jesus is going to win. That\u2019s the Biblical mind-set.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source unknown<\/p>\n
Quote<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2022 There are no victories at discount prices. – General Dwight Eisenhower<\/p>\n
Resource<\/b><\/p>\n
C. Swindoll, Questions Christians Ask, p. 26<\/p>\n
Execution of Three Men by Firing Squad<\/b><\/p>\n
Colin Chapman, in The Case For Christianity, quotes Ugandan Bishop Festo Kivengere\u2019s account of the 1973 execution by firing squad of three men from his diocese: <\/p>\n
February 10 began as a sad day for us in Kabale. People were commanded to come to the stadium and witness the execution. Death permeated the atmosphere. A silent crowd of about three thousand was there to watch. <\/p>\n
I had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they died, and two of my fellow ministers were with me. <\/p>\n
They brought the men in a truck and unloaded them. They were handcuffed and their feet were chained. The firing squad stood at attention. As we walked into the center of the stadium, I was wondering what to say. How do you give the gospel to doomed men who are probably seething with rage? <\/p>\n
We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance. Before we could say anything, one of them burst out: <\/p>\n
\u201cBishop, thank you for coming! I wanted to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart. He came in and forgave me all my sins! Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. Ask them to accept him into their lives as I did.\u201d <\/p>\n
The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs. <\/p>\n
I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces. They were so dumbfounded that they forgot to put the hoods over the men\u2019s faces! <\/p>\n
The three faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked toward the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired, and the three were with Jesus. <\/p>\n
We stood in front of them, our own hearts throbbing with joy, mingled with tears. It was a day never to be forgotten. Though dead, the men spoke loudly to all of Kigezi District and beyond, so that there was an upsurge of life in Christ, which challenges death and defeats it. <\/p>\n
The next Sunday, I was preaching to a huge crowd in the home town of one of the executed men. Again, the feel of death was over the congregation. But when I gave them the testimony of their man, and how he died, there erupted a great song of praise to Jesus! Many turned to the Lord there. <\/p>\n
Ray Stamps <\/p>\n
Creepers of Sin<\/b><\/p>\n
Walking through a park, I passed a massive oak tree. A vine had grown up along its trunk. The vine started small\u2014nothing to bother about. But over the years the vine had gotten taller and taller. By the time I passed, the entire lower half of the tree was covered by the vine\u2019s creepers. The mass of tiny feelers was so thick that the tree looked as though it had innumerable birds\u2019 nests in it. <\/p>\n
Now the tree was in danger. This huge, solid oak was quite literally being taken over; the life was being squeezed from it. <\/p>\n
But the gardeners in that park had seen the danger. They had taken a saw and severed the trunk of the vine\u2014one neat cut across the middle. The tangled mass of the vine\u2019s branches still clung to the oak, but the vine was now dead. That would gradually become plain as weeks passed and the creepers began to die and fall away from the tree. <\/p>\n
How easy it is for sin, which begins so small and seemingly insignificant, to grow until it has a strangling grip on our lives. <\/p>\n
And yet, Christ\u2019s death has cut the power of sin. Yes, the \u201ccreepers\u201d of sin still cling and have some effect. But sin\u2019s power is severed by Christ, and gradually, sin\u2019s grip dries up and falls away. <\/p>\n
J. Alistair Brown <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jesus Is Going to Win Vernon Grounds tells of an incident that happened while he was in seminary. Since the school had no gymnasium, he and his friends played basket ball in a nearby public school. Nearby, an elderly janitor waited patiently until the seminarians finished playing. Invariably he sat there reading his Bible. One … Continue reading “Victory”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}