Video Transcript: Looking Around to Illustrate

I want to tell you something. We're talking today about illustrating the gospel. Making  it clear and open when we give our vocal testimony, our vocal witness. Let me tell you a story. There was a farmer who was fixing the roof on his barn. And as he was working way up in the air on the roof, he began to slide and he couldn't stop and he tried to grab the roof and he couldn't. And he came closer and closer to the edge. And he cried out and he prayed and he said, Lord, help me. And just then his belt on his pants caught on a big nail, and it stopped him. And he said, never mind, Lord. You get the point that's being made there. That we call on the Lord when we need them. And if we don't need him, we don't talk to him at all. Well, the reason I tell you that story, it's an old story, as you can tell. But I heard that story, probably when I was four or five years old. And here I am. 75 years later, almost 80 years of age. And I remember that story. I remember where I was sitting, you know, where I was sitting in church. And I remember the minister was talking about prayer. I don't remember a thing that he said, I don't remember most of his sermons. Every time he would say, you know, it's like a farmer who's working on the roof of his barn I would listen. Because now I know he was going to say something I could understand.

I did the same thing when I began to preach as a pastor. I would be preaching along. And when I would say it's like, everybody's heads would go up. Little kids, even like little flowers would look up at me. And I'd say, you know, it's like a bicycle, or it's like a rainstorm. And the light would go on, you know why? Because I was talking now about something that they would understand. Something in their life. I might be talking great thoughts, and I might be reading big verses, right over their heads. But as soon as I would talk about a little story, they would listen. 

Think for example, one of the ways we said you could bring people to the Lord with your vocal witness, was through the illustration of the bridge. Here's some land and here's some land and there's a big cavern in between, you can't cross over. People can picture that. And then they built a bridge across so you can walk across. You know what that bridge was? It was the cross of Jesus Christ. Oh, okay. I can see that. 

Or if you drive a car, or you're in an area where people drive cars, think of road signs. They don't have words on them. They don't have numbers, but there'll just be an arrow. And I can understand that. I'm gonna have to turn that way. Or there'll be a picture of a person walking. You say, Oh, I know somebody's gonna be crossing the road or have a little child and make you think you know what children are playing around here. I have to look for them. 

Or think of this one in church. Baptism. How can I tell you what it's like to be forgiven? How can I tell you what it's like to have your sins taken away? Let me think, I know. You know what it's like when you wash your hands. Maybe you've been working in the garden or on your car or building something and you go to wash your hands and all the dirt comes off, and your hands are clean again. That's baptism. That water of baptism is a picture that the blood of Jesus washes the sins. Oh, I can understand that. So every day, we're bringing ideas to surround our vocal witness. Jesus did it all the time. 

Let's pray about it, and then study some here, Jesus, you called the greatest teacher the world has ever seen. You took eternal truths and brought them down into our timezone. And you took truths that were so big and great, we could never catch on and you made them so that even children could understand them. That's what we want to do with your truth. We want to illustrate the truth that you gave to us. We love you. Amen. 

So, as we talk about illustrating, let's listen to these verses. All from Matthew, chapter 13. They're listed there. Jesus told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into a lake. The kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old ones. And in all those stories that I'm telling you, which one didn't you understand? You know, seed and field, you know, little seeds that grew up in the big plants. You know about yeast spreading through bread. You know about finding a treasure So, it all make sense to us. And in all of these stories, Jesus used one word, which will help us to explain the gospel to others. 

And which was the word. Let me read a few of them. The kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like. Like the preacher when I was a boy... God's forgiveness is like the man who is sliding down…like. When I hear words here that we're ready. So we're going to talk now about some illustrations. By the way, notice how that word has spilled il-lustra-tions. You know why. Il is a word that means in. it has an L on it instead of an n because it comes before that L. That l would be too hard to say it. So that little word il means in. Lustra, is a word that means light. Isn't that great? What is an illustration? It's something that lets a light in. I get it. You're telling me Pastor about people who only call on God when they need him? I don't understand that. Oh, it's like a farmer fixing his roof. Oh, okay. I remember that 75 years later. 

So let's look at some some ways to let the light in. Sin is like how many times have we sinned. Well, I was at my barber a couple of weeks ago. And he's been cutting hair for over 30 years. And I said, Bill, how many haircuts have you given? So we started to figure this many years and that many of they, he we figured out he probably had about 130,000 haircuts. So what if you sinned just once a year? I'm 79. That would mean that I sinned 79 times against God. But what if I sinned 10 times a year? That's pretty easy to believe. That'd be 790 times that I've sinned. What if I sin just once every day? That's 365 sins every year. Does that begin to give me a picture of what sin is like?

 Or sin and forgiveness is like, How can I explain it? Oh, it'd be like trying to swim to England. You go to New York City where we are. And you jump off the dock and you start swimming? Well, maybe you've not swam much before and you go about 10 feet and you go down, you drown. But maybe you're in pretty good shape. And you've been practicing. So you jump off and you can swim maybe three miles, and that's as far as you can go and you get down you drown. But here comes an Olympic swimmer. And he jumps in he swims and he swims and he swims. He swims 29 miles. You know what? He's still about 4000 miles short of England. And no matter how hard we try, no matter what good we do, we're still a long ways away from being perfect in God's sight. 

What about people who don't want to repent. You know, what sin is like? This actually happened in my life. In one of the places where I was living. A man came out of a saloon, and he was drunk. It was in the middle of the summer, and he was walking up the railroad tracks toward his house, and he just laid down went to sleep. Train came through, killed him. Never knew what to him. You know, he was so comfortable. It felt so good, just to lie there. And yet, the train came and killed him. And I used that in church the next Sunday. I said so you know what it's like? Maybe some of you feel really comfortable now, but you shouldn't be because you're lying in the path of danger. And sooner or later, you're going to have to face the judgement. 

Oh, there's logic and we need a lot of them. I'm going to be talking about them because we have to hear them. You have to think about forgiveness. Forgiveness is like my credit card. You know, I take my grandchildren to buy something and they choose something they like we go up to the counter and I say put it on my account. That's exactly what the Bible says forgiveness is. The Bible says our sin is placed on Jesus’ account. I go through my life and I commit all those sins and when I come to pay it the final judgement Jesus says put it on my account. You know, what I want you to do is pause right now and come up with one of your own, right when we're thinking about it. 

Another illustration that we could use to let the light in. Is our taxes voluntary. You know why I'm sinful? Because my father and mother had sinful hearts and they bore me and you know why they were sinful because their fathers and mothers bore them with sinful hearts. And it goes back and back and back and it goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. But that's not fair. I didn't choose them. They were my representatives. God appointed Adam and Eve to be my representatives. But I don’t like that. That's not fair, am I sinful because of what they did. Yeah, just like the taxes I pay, the person I voted into the government votes to raise my taxes. But there's one better part in that, and that Jesus is my representative too and when he died on the cross, he died with my name on his lips, or forgiveness someone has pointed out is like the word grace, God's riches at Christ's expense. That’s a good one. 

There's some more that we can look at. Forgiveness is like paid in full. Listen to this one. At the time when Jesus lived, they had a word for paid in full just like if you go to a store today and you pay it, they stamp it. They did that then too, they had a word that they used in their language that meant paid in full. They found old clay tablets with that word stamp in them showing that the bill had been paid. When Jesus was on the cross, this is so great. And he was dying for our sin. One of the last things he said was, It is finished. And when he said it is finished he used that word in his language that meant paid in full - for you, for me, for the person you identified in your life, who does not know Jesus. Paid in full. 

Or we can talk about forgiveness being like a gift. You know what – you can't earn a gift. If someone wearing a sweater today, if somebody comes to you and says here this sweater is for you, because of all that you did for me. That's not a gift. You earned it. If somebody says I want to take you somewhere, I want to do this for you. You've been so kind to me, you've you've done all those things for me. That's not a gift you earned it. But when you don't deserve it, when you haven't done anything to earn it, and then someone gives it to you. That's a gift. Say that you have a job and you work five days a week. On Friday night when your boss gives you your money. That's not a gift you earned that. Let's say that you were sick two days that week and he still pays you for five that's a gift because you haven't learned it. 

And then there's one here called sin is like the insurance man. And after I put that material together, I couldn't remember what I meant there. Must have been a good one because I remember using it. I don't know what it means. Maybe you could figure it out. 

There's one more here that I want to talk about and that is believing in Jesus is like and then use something current events. Believing in Jesus is like those people who were rescued when their boat sank. Believing in Jesus is like the plane that landed safely they thought it was going to crash. Believing in Jesus is like the beautiful gift I got when somebody thought about me. Okay, whatever it is that's going on. Believing in Jesus is like when the war ended. Or look at products. Believing in Jesus is like a certain kind of soap that takes out the stains that other soaps leave in. Or believing in Jesus is like drinking a certain kind of drink that says here's life. Or believing in Jesus is like that stuff I see on TV that if I have all these pimples and all these marks in my face, it just covers it over. That's what it's like. 

So take a look around you can make your own. Or another one we could say is sin is like missing a field goal. This is an interesting one. Maybe in your country, you play football, and they try to kick the soccer ball into the goal and it just misses. It just turns off the wrong direction. Or in this country where we call football. Maybe you have to kick the ball between those two posts. And you just missed by three inches sometimes sometimes it even hits it and bounces out or whatever it might be. When you missed by just a little bit. In the language that Jesus taught the word for sin, then missing the mark. If they were out in the field, and they were shooting at a target and the arrow missed the target. They would say that word and the Bible picked up that word about missing the mark, missing the goal and said that's what it is. That's what sin is. Missing what God has in store. 

So all through the Bible, God used examples in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. And then this is a great thing. In the first verses of the book of Hebrews, it says God talked in various ways at various times, and the people didn't get it. But in these last times he has spoken through His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is a great example of anything we need. So as you seek to become a vocal witness, make sure you let the light in so people can understand it.