Have you ever read something and all the bells went off inside you? “That’s it! That’s what I’ve been thinking!” The author has been reading your thoughts.
That happened to me this weekend.
Warren Wiersbe was the culprit, the reader of my mind. His book is titled Preaching and Teaching With Imagination. I notice that he autographed it to me, but have no memory of the occasion when that happened. Mostly, I wonder why I delayed reading this incredible book. (Published in 1994, it’s been around long enough for you to purchase it for a song at www.alibris.com or your favorite used book source.)
Dr. Wiersbe put this insight in the form of a story. I suspect it’s a parable, meaning he fictionalized it in order to make a point. (He has good precedent; our Lord did this.) Briefly, what he told was this:
Grandma Thatcher sits in church with a number of hurts and spiritual needs. Although she’s lovingly known throughout the congregation as a saint, she gets nothing but harassment and trials at home for her faith. When she gets to church, she needs a word from God.
On this particular morning, the pastor stood at the pulpit and preached from Genesis chapter 9, the main thrust of which was his outline, with all the points beginning with the same letters. The outline—pastors take note!—was excellent, as those things go:
Creation Presented—Genesis 9:1-3
Capital Punishment—Genesis 9:4-7
Covenant Promised—Genesis 9:8-17
Carnality Practiced—Genesis 9:18-23
Consequences Prophesied—Genesis 9:24-29
As she departs the sanctuary, Grandma mutters to herself, “Last week it was all S’s. Today it’s all CP’s.”
She walked out of the church that day with her hunger unabated and returned home to face a hostile husband and another week of trials.
Not long after, the pastor had to be out of town and invited a missionary to fill the pulpit. Oddly, he preached from the same text, Genesis 9. But he took an entirely different approach. Here’s what happened.
“The speaker began his sermon by describing a rainstorm he’d experienced while on a missionary trip in the mountains. The congregation chuckled when he said, ‘I wish Noah had been with us. We could have used him!’”
“Then he started talking about the storms in human lives, and the compassion in his voice convinced the congregation that he’d been through more than one storm himself. ‘Storms are a part of life; God made it that way,’ he said. ‘But I’ve learned a secret that’s helped me all these years, and it’s still helping me: Always look for the rainbow. The world looks for the silver lining and sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” but we Christians have something far better than that. Did you ever meet the three men in the Bible who saw rainbows?’”
