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Do you remember Rudyard Kipling’s tale of “How the Camel Got Its Hump”? At the dawn of creation, according to Kipling, God gave each of his wonderful animals a job to do. Working together they began to prepare the new world for the coming of humankind.

I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows — was caught up into paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.  (vv. 2-4)

Dusty Feet!

Object: This message is a role play. You will also need a small broom like a whisk broom. For more fun, visit a craft shop and purchase a very small straw broom for each child to take home with them. You can use all of your children in the story, no matter how many you have. For Jesus’ friends, select three groups with two children in each. For the people in town, create three groups using the rest of your children.

* * *

I recently heard a Christian testimony. In some respects it was a moving account of the ways in which Jesus had worked in the speaker's life and it seemed to reveal a deep faith, but as a listener I was left feeling a little inadequate and slightly resentful.

O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master ...
So our eyes look to the LORD our God,
until he has mercy upon us.
-- Psalm 123:1b-2a, 2c

Theme: Prayer of the scorned faithful

Outline
1-2 -- We look to the LORD, like servants to their master, dependent on him for our needs and our directions.
3-4 -- Have mercy, Lord! We are being treated with contempt!

Notes
• Lament
• One of the Song of Ascents (Psalms 120-134).

Psalm 48 is a song of praise celebrating the presence of God. God's presence is praised in general, but in particular the psalmist wants to celebrate the manner in which God's presence has blessed Jerusalem and its temple. The psalmist does not say it explicitly, but intimates strongly that it is in Jerusalem's temple that God's presence is most profoundly experienced: "Walk about Zion, go all about it, count its towers, consider well its ramparts; go through its citadels that you may tell the next generation that this is God our God forever and ever" (vv. 12-14).

There are people who speak to us more powerfully out of their weakness than out of their strength. Brian Piccolo was a powerful, professional football player who entertained thousands with his feats of muscular strength and stamina. But cancer attacked, and out of weakness he spoke more powerfully than before. Whenever they show the movie, Brian's Song, we think of him and his faith and courage.

It was over, and it was beginning. The long agonizing struggle between David and Saul was over. Saul was dead, and David's reign, the reign of David the king, was beginning.

Following his service as Prime Minister of Great Britain during the dark days of World War II, Winston Churchill was invited to speak at Harrow, his boyhood grammar school, from which he had been graduated some seventy years before. As he stood at the lectern, looking out at his young audience, he said, "Young men, never give up! Never give up! Never! Never! Never!" With that he sat down. The audience was stunned. The message was so brief.