THIS WEEK’S GRAPHICS
For those who are quick to check out the graphics page every week, I’ve included a special graphic just for you. You’ll find it helpful for any mid-week service or Good Friday services. It is the head of Christ, rendered from a photo from “The Passion of Christ,” to look like a pen and ink drawing. It will only be there for one week. You can go directly to it from here (there will be NO link from the home page):
www.timothyreport.com/headofchrist.html
There is a graphic suitable for use on Resurrection Day as well. You can access it through the normal links from the home page.
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Welcome to THE TIMOTHY REPORT for April 5, 2004
“To assist, encourage, enable and equip”
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WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH JESUS?
God had reasons for decreeing that Jesus should gracelessly hang between two thugs. He wanted to demonstrate the depths of shame to which His Son was willing to descend. At His birth He was surrounded by beasts, and, now, in His death, with criminals. Let no one say that God has stayed aloof from the brokenness of our fallen world. He descended that we might ascend with Him to newness of life.
These thieves represent the entire human race. Ultimately, the world is not divided geographically, racially, or economically. Nor can we draw a line separating the relatively good people from the relatively bad ones. All races, nations, and cultures are divided at the cross. On one side are those who believe, and on the other are those who choose to justify themselves, determined to stand before God on their own record. Heaven and hell are not places far away, but near us. Everything depends on what we do with Jesus.
--Erwin Lutzer
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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A UNIQUE DEATH
(NOTE: this would serve as a good outline for a Good Friday meditation)
Though we find it hard and even repulsive to imagine, Jesus was only one of many people tortured to death by crucifixion. He had two companions at the brow of Calvary. But his experience on the cross included several added sobering features. A unique death for a unique man:
First, it was shameful. He was stripped of his clothing and pinned naked between heaven and earth. There’s no mention of the soldier casting lots for the clothing of the other victims. He was ridiculed by the crowds and taunted by one of the criminals. Jesus suffered the humiliation of the sign posted over his head that attempted to mock his claim to be king.
Second, he was absolutely innocent—and he could prove it! He was there by choice. The nails didn’t keep him on the cross. His decision to remain there was stronger than his desire to avoid the pain. Think for a moment how tempting it must have been to have a self-pity party.
Third, he bore the sins of the world—including yours and mine—on the cross.
Fourth, he sensed the forsaking action of God as his Father turned away from him, covered as he was in our sins.
--Neil Wilson
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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THE HANDS OF CHRIST
It was His hands I noticed first. Big, tough,
And weathered, hammer-gripping, sweating fists,
Quite used to driving nails into the rough
And bronze, blue bruised where once the iron missed.
A hand’s a thing of beauty, in the eye
Of those vision trained can pierce the skin
To see the steel of sturdy bones laid white
And fragile tendons, filament and thin.
I understand the riddle of the hand
How leathered calluses breeds tougher skin,
Hides tiny porcelain machines within.
Yet love defies my wit to understand
How hands that swung the crushing iron grow frail,
And beckon to each palm a killing nail.
--Calvin Miller
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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WORTHLESS WITHOUT THE RESURRECTION
“There ain’t gonna be no Easter this year,” a student friend remarked to me.
“Why not?” I asked incredulously.
“They found the body.”
Despite his irreverent humor, my friend displayed a measure of insight often not shared by modern theologians. Many of them are perfectly willing to assert that Jesus died and rotted in the grave, but that the resurrection still has value as a symbol of “newness of life” or “new beginning,” so that Christianity can go on quite nicely as though nothing were changed. My friend’s joke implied that without the resurrection Christianity is worthless.
The earliest Christians would have agreed with my friend. The apostle Paul put it simply: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain …. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:14, 17). For the earliest Christians, Jesus’ resurrection was an historical fact, every bit as real as his death on the cross. Without the resurrection, Christianity would have been simply false. Jesus would have been just another prophet who had met his unfortunate fate at the hands of the Jews, and faith in him as Lord, Messiah, or Son of God would have been stupid.
--William L. Craig
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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THIS IS GREAT!
The people who hanged Christ never accused Him of being a bore—on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with the atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified Him “meek and mild,” and recommended Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies. To those who knew Him, however, He in no way suggested a milk-and-water person; they objected to Him as a dangerous firebrand. True, He was tender to the unfortunate, patient with honest inquirers and humble before Heaven; but He insulted respectable clergymen by calling them hypocrites; He referred to King Herod as “that fox”; He went to parties in disreputable company and was looked upon as a “gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners”; He insulted indignant tradesmen and threw them and their belongings out of the Temple….He showed no proper deference for wealth or social position; when confronted with neat dialectical traps, He displayed a paradoxical humor that affronted serious-minded people, and He retorted by asking disagreeable questions that could not be answered by rule of thumb….But He had “a daily beauty in His life that made us ugly,” and officialdom felt that the established order of things would be more secure without Him. So they did away with God in the name of peace and quietness.
--Dorothy Sayers
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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WHO KILLED HIM?
It was not the soldiers who killed him, nor the screams of the mob: It was his devotion to us.
--Max Lucado
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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OUR NEW HISTORY
Our old history ends with the cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.
-- Watchman Nee
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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WHICH SIDE OF EASTER?
On which side of Easter are you living? Are you on the dark, dreary, defeated side, where the powers of evil still reign and death still has the final word? Or are you living on the blessed, beautiful side of the resurrection, with an assurance that Christ has won, death has been defeated, and eternal life has begun in a way that no mere cessation of physical life can hinder?
--Lloyd John Ogilvie
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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HAVING FAITH IN GOD
Having faith in God doesn’t mean that everything is going to go your way. It simply means that you will have his peace and joy even on those days when you wonder why you ever got out of bed!
--Pat Williams
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Nearly everytime Jesus is mentioned in the Scriptures as being at the right hand of God, He is sitting. Nearly everytime. But there is one instance, and only one that I can find, where Jesus is seen standing on the right hand of God. What significance is that, and how can it encourage and comfort us when a loved one has died?
Always on the search for another story or illustration? Ever hesitate to use any particular story because you've used it too many times already?
Here's a solution! "Funeral Ideas and Illustrations" contains more than 100 stories, poems, and quotations for use in funerals or in Bible studies or sermons on death.
The items found in this collection come from a wide variety of sources. There may be some stories and/or poems you've used for years, and there are some you've never seen before. Some of the sermon outlines and messages are original material. And it's only $5.
In this collection, you will find:
--A sermon specifically designed for the Thanksgiving Season
--A poem written by a wife and son of a relatively young man who passed away.
--What a man wrote after losing three children to death
--Which hymn encouraged Daniel Webster in his final hours
--What Golda Meir said when asked if Israel would allow Nikita Kruschev's body to be buried in Israel
--An encouraging poem which is great to use in a funeral when a grieving spouse is left behind.
--A portion of a letter a Godly woman left behind for her family to read after she had gone on to be with the Lord.
--Mary Pickford's wonderful analogy of death
--Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's viewpoint of his own approaching death
--The word early Christians used to describe the place where they placed the bodies of loved ones when they died--a comforting, encouraging thought!
Visit http://www.timothyreport.com/funeral.html to view sample illustrations and to learn how to get your copy.
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
April 5, 2004)
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