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<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Three Questions </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Jaques Maritain,
the great French philosopher of the last century, said there were really
only three questions that had to be answered: "Who am I?" "Where am I?"
and "Where ought I to be going?" Jesus knew who he was, and where he
was, and where he had to go. Lincoln knew. So have all great leaders and
great men and women of faith known. Do we know? Or are we out of focus,
our goals fuzzy and ill-defined? Our world is so insane, but not any
more so than the world of Jesus. Most people in his day, went to work
every day, and came home, and were pulled this way and that. And they
didn't ask the big questions very often. We remember Jesus because he
did. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>William R. Boyer, As a Hen Gathers Her Brood</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_______________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Rejection and Refusal to Listen </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Robert Fulton, an
artist and engineer was responsible in the early 1800's for putting
sailing ships out of business. He made the steamboat a standard on the
open seas. It is said that he presented his idea to Napoleon. After a
few minutes of this presentation Napoleon is reported to have said,
"What, sir, you would make a ship sail against the wind and currents by
lighting a bonfire under her decks? I pray you excuse me. I have no time
to listen to such nonsense."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Brett Blair, <a href="http://www.Sermons.com" target="_blank">www.Sermons.com</a>. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_________________ </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The Old Mother Hen </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Have you ever seen a
chicken hawk go after its prey? The old mother hen is often aware of
the presence of the hawk in time to gather her chicks under her wing.
With a furious fuss she squawks till her brood is safe by her side. She
fluffs out her wings and protects them with her own body. The chicken
hawk dives and the old hen turns her body toward him and cocks a wary
eye without moving from her children. The predator comes in again for
the kill and the mother spreads her wings even wider. A third time he
dives only to be thwarted by the determined self-sacrifice of the mother
hen. She is too big to be a target and the chicks are too safe to be
seized so he flies away.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Brett Blair, <a shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001PtzeatfJFWOg-s_4Fn7wqf4H0lAD_iUs3Ff_fihYejLFisIuoZXuK8xTyaCrOp7aG3na5efaeaBPEr3S9Wp7J-IT_AwRzYpzou9y8edz-DA=">www.Sermons.com</a>. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>__________________ </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Shelter </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>In Mission, British
Columbia, a fellow by the name of Ike tells the story about his
Grandpa's hen house which burned to the ground one day. Ike arrived just
in time to help put out the last of the fire. As he and his grandfather
sorted through the wreckage, they came upon one hen lying dead near
what had been the door of the hen house. Her top feathers were singed
brown by the fire's heat, her neck limp. Ike bent down to pick up the
dead hen. As he did the hen's four chicks came scurrying out from
beneath her burnt body. The chicks survived because they were insulated
by the shelter of the hen's wings.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Richard J. Fairchild </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_________________ </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span><br>
A Pompous Pretender</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Jesus called Herod a
fox after some Pharisees reported that Herod wanted to kill Jesus.
Jesus' response challenged any such plans: "Tell Herod I've got work to
do first." Jesus was not implying that Herod was sly, rather he was
commenting on Herod's ineptitude, or inability, to carry out his threat.
Jesus questioned the tetrarch's pedigree, moral stature and leadership,
and put the tetrarch "in his place." This exactly fits the second
rabbinic usage of "fox."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>When Jesus labeled
Herod a fox, Jesus implied that Herod was not a lion. Herod considered
himself a lion, but Jesus pointed out that Herod was the opposite of a
lion. Jesus cut Herod down to size, and Jesus' audience may have had an
inward smile of appreciation at a telling riposte.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>We need to start
translating "fox" with its proper Hebraic cultural meaning: A pompous
pretender. Jesus was direct. Antipas was a shu·AL ben shu·AL (a fox, the
son of a fox), a small-fry.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Randall Buth, That Small Fry Herod Antipas, Or When A Fox Is Not A Fox.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_______________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Compassion for the Suffering </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>In England in the
1940s a young woman entered Oxford University with little focus. She had
no idea what to do with her life. But she soon came under the influence
of a colorful professor of English, a writer with a gift, named C. S.
Lewis. She became a Christian through much of his influence.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>She left Oxford,
against the advice of friends and family, and began to study nursing.
After five more years of rigorous training, she was certified as a
nurse.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>But her story
doesn't end there, for her questing Christian spirit would not let her
rest with the way things were. You see, she ended up working on a cancer
ward in a London hospital. Gradually, she came to realize that most of
the doctors ignored the patients who were deemed terminally ill. As a
result she watched many of them die virtually alone.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Greatly troubled she felt that Christian compassion needed to be expressed to these patients in a visible way...</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"> </div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px">The rest of this illustration and <span>many additional illustrations and sermons for this week, Lent and Easter, can be accessed at <a shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001PtzeatfJFWOg-s_4Fn7wqf4H0lAD_iUs3Ff_fihYejLFisIuoZXuK8xTyaCrOp7aG3na5efaeaBPEr3S9Wp7J-IT_AwRzYpzou9y8edz-DA=">www.Sermons.com</a>. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
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