Thirsty!: By Pastor Garry Moore | $13.00
250 Pages, 13 Chapters
Introduction:
(Good News) Help is on the way!
Picture yourself on a cruise ship. While you're on the cruise ship, having the time of your life, all of a sudden the ship runs into a massive sharp iceberg. Giving a severe blow to the side of the ship and it begins to sink. As the people begin to drown one by one, you find that you are the only survivor drifting on a large piece of the ship to a deserted island.
Now you're glad you're alive, but you're lost and alone in the middle of nowhere; hundreds of miles away from civilization with no communication surrounded by water. All you can see is water from the North, South, East and West. Your only source of food is a coconut tree and a occasional fish when you can catch one. For 3 months you endure the heat of the day and the pitch blackness of the night all by yourself, with nothing but the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore. In fact, the ocean has become your best friend. That's all you know...
Early one morning you are awakened by the siren of a boat approaching the island about 100 yards away. Realizing that you are not dreaming, someone shouts from a bullhorn. "help is here." You're still thinking you're dreaming, but it's the coast guard coming to your rescue finally after 90 days of misery, alienated from everything and everybody. Salvation is here.
Now hearing and seeing the coast guard was good news. In fact, that's the best news you've ever had in your entire life. Because that's the worse condition you've ever been in. You were hanging on only by a thread until help arrived. You didn't know where it was coming from, but help was on the way.
Imagine if you will, you are hiking through a forest. As you are hiking you happen to fall into a deep pit that had been covered up by leaves and branches.
Now the pit is about 25 feet deep (and that's deep). The pit is also 6 feet wide and 6 feet long. Not a big area, and slick on all sides. You tumble down to the bottom of this pit and amazingly you only sprang an ankle and you have a disclosed finger. Minor injuries but you're in pain. Just enough injuries to keep you from climbing out of the pit.
The only food you have in your backpack is two sandwiches, with a large bottle of water. One day goes by, then two days, three, four and finally after six days you stop screaming for help.
After six days you're tired, hungry, food has run out, you're in pain and you come to the realization that you are probably going to die down there. But on the 7th day (seven is God's number of completion/perfection), two people from a search team walking the same trail you were on, see the pit 10 feet away. And they decide to stop and look down into the deep dark hole.
As they peer down and shine their flashlight, they see a figurine curled up in the corner. It's you sleeping, you're unconscious and they begin to shout, "hey you down there!" Are you still alive? No response. They shout again, "hey you down there!" You shake yourself from your sleep, thinking that you're imagining things. But as they repeat themselves, you look up and see the light. When you look up and see the light, you cry out desperately, "yes, yes, I need help." They shout back to you, "it's okay now, we're here to help you, we've come to save you." They just gave you some good news.
What if you went back to the clinic for a physical and your doctor got back some x-rays and you were diagnosed with a terminal disease. You were given six months at the most to live.
That is devastating news! In 1 hour your life has suddenly changed. You woke up fine, feeling great, but your visit to the doctor has you feeling depressed, worried, fearful of the unknown as you struggle to remain optimistic.
For the next 3 nights you get no sleep at all. No one knows what you're going through, you haven't shared that news with anybody.
You're alienated going through his all alone. But on the 3rd day, (the day Jesus was resurrected) you receive a call from the doctor's office to come in immediately. Nervously rushing to the facility you arrive, the doctor comes into the room shaking his head with tears in his eyes. He says to you, "I'm sorry there's been a terrible mix up. Somehow your x-rays got crossed with someone else's. I have your x-rays right here in my hand and your health is excellent. You're not going to die. You have a clean bill of health. Go on and enjoy your life and I will see you next year.
Well, that doctor just made your day, in fact he just made your entire year.
Why? He gave you some good news. You had to go through a nightmare to get it, but after staring death in the face for 3 days not knowing the outcome; that's the greatest news you could ever receive. Because you don't have to die now. You're going to live and that's good news!
These three illustrations describe the gospel metaphorically! Because (as believers) all of our lives were shipwrecked, making us castaways alienated from God, but one day Jesus (the coast guard) came to rescue us from an island of sin... We were all in a pit with no way out and with no sign of hope, but one day Jesus (the search team), called us by our name and we answered the clarion call- And he picked us up out of the sin pit... We were all diagnosed with terminal sin, but one day Jesus (the doctor) stepped out of eternity into time and declared us spiritually healed by his stripes on the cross. That's good news!
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