Props:
Bible - gimmicked to hold colored coil of ribbon. The ribbon must be rolled each
time you use it. To make the coil of ribbon you'll need it about 1-1/2"
wide and 12" long for each color. Then sew them together to make one
long strip beginning with
the black, red, white,
green, and yellow ribbon. After
use, I re-roll mine around a pen, and put
it back in the Bible. Use a good quality of ribbon so
it will hold up under use. To gimmick the Bible, I used an old Bible
and glued several pages together, then with them pasted together, a
pocket was made so that I have a place to pull the ribbon from.
II Timothy 2: 15
"Study to show
thyself approved unto God, a workman that neediest not to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth...."
Today we have many
versions of the BIBLE . We have the King-James version which came out
in 1611. Also the Revised and Standard Revised, the American Revised,
the New International Version, Moffett, Goodspeed, Phillips, Living Letters,
Amplified, Berkley and we could go on from here. All came about to
make the Bible more understandable.
I now have a newer version
still, I call it the "INSTANT BIBLE", because I can go
through it in about THREE MINUTES, and it will bring out some instant
truths all of you should know.
Notice the marker.
It is black (have your black end of the ribbon
hanging), the black marker in this Bible stands for SIN.
Not only is it black, but
is is very long because it stands for a truth that goes back to the
beginning of time and now sits like a king on a throne to this day.
The first truth we need to
know about ourselves is that we are not perfect.
Romans 3:23, "For all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
Isaiah 53:9 "All we
like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own
way."
Jeremiah 17:9 "The
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked."
David the Psalmist said in
Ps. 51: 5- " In sin did my mother conceive me." When God
looked upon creation, he was grieved and said, "Every imagination
of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil continually."
This is a black picture
and each of us fits right into the frame. That is why the marker is
BLACK. This is the first truth from the INSTANT
BIBLE.
2- But I have
good news. When God saw our sin, he sent a Savior (pull
out RED streamer) This Savior was born to die as payment for our sins.
His blood was shed on the cross. The whole story of our sin and
redemption is packaged in Romans
6:23- "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
3- WHITE stands
for cleansing and forgiveness and purity. God said,
Isaiah 44:22-
"I will blot out as a thick cloud thy transgressions."
Paul said, II
Corinthians 5:17- "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature,
old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." No
matter what kind of sins or bad habits we may have and of whatever
color, God has said that, "Though your sins be as red as crimson,
or black as a storm cloud, he would make them as white as snow."
Isaiah 1:18..
4- When we come
out of the black by way of the red and into the white, we should be
green. GREEN stands for fruitfulness. In the spring, the trees get
green buds, then leaves, then blossoms. In the center of the blossom,
little green balls appear. These become the fruit. The growing fruit
is green most of the summer. It stays green as long as it keeps
growing. Then it gets ripe and is harvested. Unless it is harvested,
it gets rotten.
This can happen
to the Christian. He will stay green as long as he is growing and
fruitful. When he stops being green, he too gets ripe and dries up or
gets rotten.
What kind of
Christian are you going to be, a green, growing, fruitful one? Or a
dried up one and only fit for the rotten barrel?
5- YELLOW-
is the color for glory and heaven. There the streets are paved with
gold. God didn’t tell us much about heaven. I guess he thought that
its beauty would make us become so anxious to get there we would be
unhappy here on earth. The
Bible tells us there is no night there and that the sun will not need
to shine there because the glory of the Lamb of God will outshine the
sun. There is no
pain, nor sorrow, nor death there, and God will wipe away all tears
from our eyes. There is no curse there and no hunger or poverty. The
tees will yield their sweet fruits once each month instead of once
each year and the leaves of the trees will be for the healing of the
nations. There will be no more wars and no bodies of cripples from the
wounds of war.
Let’s
run through the INSTANT BIBLE once again: BLACK (stands for
sin), RED (for the blood of Jesus), WHITE (for forgiveness), GREEN (for fruitfulness), and
YELLOW (for heaven).
Jesus is in
heaven now, preparing a place for his children. He said, "I
go to prepare a place for you, that where I am there you may be also.
John 14:6
Copyright 2002
Charles Cagle, Child Evangelist
cagle_c@msn.com
Return to the
Sermons and Object lessons page