<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Dog Food

I'm glad we have this opportunity to gather around the Bible together.

Thankful that there is a God in heaven that the Bible describes as being love.

We're thankful that you so loved the world you gave Jesus for us and we're grateful for the Bible.

Lord we pray that your Holy Spirit would guide us now.

The state of Texas is a really big state.

Just for some perspective, 6 times bigger than Tennessee.

If you were to drive across Texas, it would take you about 12 hours to get from El Paso in the west to Beaumont in the east, and about 12 and a half hours to get from Dalhart in the northwest to Brownsville down in the south.

About 50 miles east of the bottom right-hand corner of New Mexico is the city of Midland, Texas, Population about 125, 000.

It's famous for being the home of the Bush family.

After President Obama was sworn in as the United States 44th president, former President Bush was celebrated back home in Midland.

I'm not referring to the actor Woody Harrelson or the basketballer Mookie Blaylock.

In 1987 in Midland, Texas, a little girl just 18 months old fell into a well in her aunt's backyard.

The eyes of the world were on that little girl.

The well was just 8 inches wide and she fell 22 feet down.

Just thinking about that causes a whole raft of emotions to wash over you.

Some people describe the whole affair as a media circus.

And although that might be true, really it was nothing more than a reflection of the interest the world had in the little girl down the well.

Getting her out of there was a race against time and very clearly her life was in danger.

She was stuck in that well for 58 hours, 2 and a half days.

Then President Ronald Reagan said, everybody in America became godmothers and godfathers of Jessica while this was going on.

She was often referred to as everyone's baby.

How do you get a 20-pound girl out of a pipe when she's wedged tightly way down there?

At Far Down she was surrounded by rock that was described as nearly impregnable.

Workers who labored to near exhaustion said that they were kept going by thinking about Jessica.

It seems that everyone remotely close to the situation was asked to comment.

The physician who delivered Jessica was interviewed by the Odessa American newspaper.

She herself had a baby about the same age.

If you're old enough, there's no doubt you watched the television coverage.

Why did this story grip a nation and much of the world?

The idea of a baby being stuck under the ground in a well is horrifying.

When we read the Bible, we read of a great God who created a perfect world in the heart of a pristine universe.

But after sin entered the cosmos, It wasn't long until Satan was here in our backyard, causing the mother of the race to eat forbidden fruit, and in doing so, manifest distrust in God.

Sin entered the world, and as we know, The wages of sin is death.

Do you remember how you felt when you found out that someone was going to die?

Maybe a parent, a spouse, God forbid a child?

I was with my father when he visited the doctor at the hospital and he was told there was nothing they could do to save him.

My father asked, you mean I'm going to go home to die?" Never forget that.

I conducted a memorial service recently for a dear lady who was a member of a church where I'd been on the pastoral staff some years ago.

She and her husband had been married for very nearly 69 years, and when she passed away at the age of 92, he was not philosophical.

When death entered the world, God couldn't simply stand idly by.

He spoke up and said to the serpent, Satan, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.

He will bruise your head, you will bruise his heel." Euphemisms are wonderful things, aren't they?

God could have said, you'll be destroyed ultimately, and he will be tortured and hated and nailed to a cross and there'll be an unbearable pain and horrible anguish and I as his father will sit by and witness this horror.

A planet filled with God's children would be stuck down a well with no way out and with time running down.

And rather than leave them to perish, the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost.

I asked this friend how things were and what had been happening and so on as you do.

And my friend said to me, well, recently I donated a kidney.

Honestly can't remember who it was that the kidney was donated to, but when you know the whole story it makes a good deal of sense.

I mentioned the story in an Every Word devotional not that long ago about 4 gallant men, chaplains on board the USS Dorchester, which was torpedoed by the German Navy in the Labrador Sea while on its way to Greenland, happened in 1943 during World War II.

There weren't enough life jackets for the men on board, so the chaplains—one a Methodist, 1 a pastor from the Reformed Church, 1 a Catholic priest, and 1 a Jewish rabbi gave up their life jackets to the soldiers and they went down with the ship.

Romans 5 verse 8 says, "...while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." He didn't just die for members of his own team, or for a friend, or for members of his own faith, or citizens of his own country.

And he demonstrated that 1 day in an event where people were tempted to think the opposite.

Then Jesus went thence and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sinai.

This was more like New England in the United States where all 4 states with the lowest church attendance can be found.

Jesus had placed himself where the unbelievers were.

Back to Menu

Dog Food

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Dog Food

30m

Keys to Unanswered Prayer

1h 17m

Power In The Blood

54m

Plenary

The Faith of Jesus: Why He Left

47m

Pilgrims

45m

Plenary

Worship the Creator

53m

My Redeemer is Faithful and True

1h

Dee Casper's Weekend

06 The Faith of Jesus

1h 6m

Plenary

When Temptations Return

1h 18m

A Beginning With No End

Thy Kingdom Come

47m

Plenary

Going Big So We Can Go Home

1h 43m

Sound Doctrine