No Mountain High Enough Series

Memorial Day

Of all the rich blessings we have from being Americans, the choicest of them is freedom of religion. I am grateful that no religion is established in America as the preferred and every citizen’s right to practice their religion is allowed. Because evil is so evil, we need men and women to protect this freedom with their lives. Join me in giving thanks to so many soldiers for laying down their lives so people can freely worship Jesus Christ. Not only join me in thanking God for our freedom of religion, but join me in praying for places such as North Korea, Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia, among many others, where people can share the gospel freely. No nation should be close to the lifesaving message that Jesus loves sinners. The gospel is far too important to be kept to ourselves.

You probably don’t know his name, but Stanislav Petrov saved your life on September 26, 1983. In the early hours of Monday morning, the Soviet Union’s early warning systems detected multiple missiles were launched from the United States. As the duty officer, it was Petrov’s job to alert his superiors of incoming missile strikes. In the days of the Cold War, whenever one of the two superpowers were to launch nuclear weapons, the other nation would respond. Once just one nuclear warhead had been launched, much of the known world would have been destroyed by thermonuclear war and the radiation fallout. Petrov later told his story with these words: “The siren howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word 'launch' on it,” he says. The system was telling him that that alert's reliability level was “highest.” There could be no doubt. America had launched a missile.

“A minute later the siren went off again. The second missile was launched. Then the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. Computers changed their alerts from ‘launch’ to 'missile strike,’” he says.1 Yet, Petrov disobeyed his instructions. His actions were a dereliction of duty because he decided not to report the incoming missile strikes. Instead, he dismissed the alerts as a false alarm. Some thirty years later, he said the odds were 50-50, and he wasn’t sure the alert was false. It was twenty-three long minutes later that he was sure no nuclear warheads had been launched. He was right, and his actions may have very well saved the world from thermonuclear war when I was but eleven years old. Stanislav Petrov is the man who saved the world on September 26, 1983.

Today, I want to tell you the story of a lady who felt just the same way about Jesus, the traveling preacher from Nazareth.

Invitation

At the conclusion of today’s message, you will be invited to respond to Jesus’ offer of a clean, fresh start. You can respond by going to the Encourager’s Room, a virtual room, or the altar.

Today’s Scripture

“A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.’ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’