• Has Anyone Ever Seen The Movie Lorenzo's ...

  Contributed by Curt Cizek on Oct 8, 2007 (message contributor)

  based on 1 rating   (rate this sermon illustration)

   | 1,374 views

  Scripture:  None

  Tags:  None

  Denomination: Lutheran

-Has anyone ever seen the movie Lorenzo’s Oil?

-It came out in 1992, starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon

-If you can still find it, watch it – great movie

-It is a true story about Augusto and Michaela Odone whose 7 year old son, Lorenzo, is perfectly normal until he begins to suffer blackouts and memory lapses

-He is diagnosed with ALD (Adreno Leuko dystrophy) – a disease passed from mothers to sons that is so rare that doctors weren’t even working on a cure

-Basically, ALD is a disease where the body makes too many fatty acids and somehow it destroys the functions of the brain

-The parents go on a quest to discover answers and discover that giving their son some fatty acids found in vegetable oil, they can slow or even stop the onset of the disease

-Augusto was awarded an honorary doctorate for his discovery

-Some people are willing to go to great lengths to help their children

-If your child had a fatal disease and there was a cure, would you pay any price in order to save your child?

-Most people are willing to do a great deal to assist their children so that they may be healthy and successful in life

-How about spiritually?

-What are you willing to do to help your kids and grandkids get to heaven?

-The Bible is pretty clear in that we are all born sinful and spiritually dead

-The Psalmist writes in Psalm 51, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

-We are all born spiritually dead and in need of God’s salvation

-How many of you chose to be born?

-Likewise, how many of us choose to be reborn into God’s family.

-People who hurt little children or those that are otherwise helpless have a special place in prisons – they are considered in the penal system, even by other criminals to be the lowest of the low

-In the same way, God has a special punishment lined up for those that imperil the salvation of infants and children and steer new believers in the wrong direction

-Out text says that it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck and have them thrown into the sea