Sermon Central
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Italian Composer Antonio Rossini Didn't Know Why ...
Contributed by Sermon Central on Nov 20, 2009 (message contributor)
Italian Composer Antonio Rossini Didn’t Know Why His Watch Was So Valuable
You cannot go forward when you have plenty when you are empty on the inside.
Harry Emerson Fosdick said that, “No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is changed by a transformed heart…from the inside out.”
Illustration: I happen upon a story told about Antonio Rossini (1792 1868) Italian composer best known for the opera The Barber of Seville and the William Tell Overture was presented with a watch by the King of France. Several years after receiving the watch, while he was showing it to a friend, the friend looked at the watch and said, “I don’t believe you know the real value of this watch.”
Rossini disagreed, claiming that it was valuable simply because the King himself had given it to him. The friend said, “That’s not why it is so valuable.” He took the watch and proceeded to open the inner case of the watch using a secret spring on the back of it. To Rossini’s amazement, there located in the inner casing of the watch was a beautiful miniature painting of Rossini himself!
For years Rossini had a watch and didn’t know that the real reason why it was so valuable was not because of what was on the outside, but because of what was on the inside.
In the whole Bible, there is no more passionate, comprehensive, yet concise statement of the truth of the gospel than Galatians. The first of Paul’s Epistles, the message of the book of Galatians is that Salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone (2:16; 3:11, 12). No EXTERNAL work can earn salvation.
- Paul says that salvation is an inside job.
- Atonement is something that takes place within.
- Being justified by faith is not an external matter.
From a sermon by Kraig Pullam, Don’t Get It Twisted, 11/20/2009
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