Sermons:
-
Time for a Change,
Matthew 4:12-2,
by Dr. David Rogne
-
Leaving It All Behind,
Matthew 4:12-23,
by Rev. Randy L Quinn
-
What
About Good, Clean Christian Competition?
1 Cor 1:10-18,
by Randy Quinn
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Nets,
Menders, and Followers, Matthew 4:12-23,
by Thomas Hall
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BAIK Matthew 4:18-25,
Iowa Starr
-
Heaven at Your
Fingertips, Matthew 4:12-23, Gary Roth
-
Called to
be Evangelists, Matthew 4:12-23, Roger Miles
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The Lighthouse
Matthew 4:12-23
HW in HI
Good morning. I want to talk a little bit this morning about a
lighthouse. When I was a little kid, there was a lighthouse at
Makapu’u on Oahu, and one at Lanikai near Kailua. Are there any
lighthouses around here?
Well, this is a story about a lighthouse. This lighthouse is on a
dangerous coast where there are a lot of shipwrecks. This lighthouse
was very simple, and had just one boat. But the people who
volunteered there were committed and kept a constant watch over the
sea. Looking for ships in distress. When a ship went down, they
unselfishly went out day or night to save the lost.
So many lives were saved by that lighthouse that it became
famous. Then a lot of people wanted to be associated with it, and
give their time, talent, and money to support the important work of
the lighthouse. New boats were bought, new crews were recruited, and
they had a formal training session. As the membership in the
life-saving station grew, some of the members became unhappy that
the building was so simple and that the equipment was so old. They
wanted a better place to welcome the survivors pulled from the sea.
So they replaced the emergency cots with soft beds and put in better
furniture and enlarged and decorated the place.
The lighthouse became a popular gathering place for its members.
They met regularly and when they did, you could see how they loved
one another. They greeted each other, hugged each other, and shared
the events of their lives.
But something funny happened. Fewer and fewer members were now
interested in going to sea on life-saving missions; so they hired
lifeboat crews to do this for them. Then a big ship was wrecked off
of the coast, and the hired crews brought into the life-saving
station boatloads of cold, wet, dirty, sick, and half-drowned
people. Some were first-class cabin passengers of the ship, and some
were the deck hands. The beautiful meeting place became a place of
chaos. The plush carpets got dirty. Some of the exquisite furniture
got scratched. So the property committee immediately had a shower
built outside the house where the victims of shipwreck could be
cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting of the lighthouse members there was
disagreement. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's
life-saving activities, for they were unpleasant and expensive.
Other members insisted that life-saving was their primary purpose
and pointed out that they were still called to be a lighthouse and a
life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that
if they wanted to save the lives of all those various kinds of
people who would be shipwrecked, they could begin their own
life-saving station down the coast.
And they did. As the years passed, the new lighthouse experienced
the same changes that had taken place in the old. The new lighthouse
became a place to meet regularly for fellowship, for committee
meetings, and for special training sessions about their mission, but
few went out to the drowning people. The drowning people were no
longer welcomed in that new lighthouse. So another life-saving
lighthouse was started further down the coast. History continued to
repeat itself.
If we were to visit this coast today, we would find a number of
adequate meeting places with ample parking and plush carpeting.
Shipwrecks still happen, but most people drown.
That story was written by Thomas Wedel almost 50 years ago. Today
we have modern radios and Loran for ships to communicate. But I’m
guessing that story was about more than lighthouses. [continue]
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