Beyond Reasoning: Think Out Of The Box!

BEYOND REASONING! THINK OUT OF THE BOX.

WHERE WILL YOU FIND GOD? EXPECTATIONS?

By Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com

Nothing creates more deep seated anxieties than the false assumption that life should be free from anxieties.

Many years ago I was at a Preacher’s meeting and I heard this poem read by a Preacher from Memphis, TN. I ran up and asked to borrow it, and I wrote this in

the front of my Bible. The writer is not known.

I FEEL A SERMON

I STAND AT NIGHT AMID THE CITY’S THRONG,

AND I SCAN THE FACES THAT PASS ALONG.

I READ A HISTORY OF WOE, AND OF WANT, AND OF GRIEF,

AND MY HEART GOES FURTHER THAN MY HAND CAN REACH,

AND I FEEL A SERMON I COULD NEVER PREACH!

I could never tell you how many times I have spoken these few words.

I feel sermons, that I could never preach.

I. HAVE YOU EVER BURNED A BRIDGE BEFORE YOU CROSSED OVER IT? WE MUST KNOW THERE IS A LAND SOME WHERE BEYOND HUMAN REASONING...

THAT OPERATES IN THE REALM OF FAITH.

Arise to the challenge.

Matthew 6:14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

Romans 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

God has a plan for us to be overcomers!

Romans 12:21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

1 John 5:5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

A. DO WE HAVE TO STAY THIS WAY?

WILL WE REQUIRE MORE OF OURSELVES?

DIG A NEW BED? FILL IN THE OLD?

I wish I could take you to the mountains of eastern Kentucky. They are beautiful to see, and the poverty can be seen all around. There are so many lessons to learn.

B. THERE WAS A MOUNTAIN IN CUMBERLAND GAP NATIONAL PARK, FOR MANY YEARS HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE DIED IN CAR CRASHES ON THE MOUNTAIN.

They nick named the mountain: MASSACRE MOUNTAIN.

I had friends die there. My sister and her husband wrecked on the mountain.

Today there is no worry traveling through Middlesboro, KY. They did the impossible, people laughed, --- dig a tunnel?

Today travel 25 and Massacre Mountain has been tamed,

a huge beautiful tunnel goes under Cumberland Gap, it is level road.

THEY DID IT! It took many years, but the tunnel will save thousands of lives.

THANK GOD SOMEONE DREAMED AND DID NOT ACCEPT THE NORM AS THE NORM.

There was more than death on the mountain, a team of believers came together, and changed the history of this area.

This team operated in a realm beyond human reasoning.

C. Let me take you to one county away from West Virginia, the county is called PIKE COUNTY. The county seat is PIKEVILLE.

Pikeville is in the middle of the coal fields. At one time the coal fields were booming.

Today coal has hit the bottom and the huge coal operations have all closed. A few family mines still produce coal, but coal is not King like it was

30 years ago. Pike County and Floyd County are home to many sweet mountain people.

For the history of the mountains flooding has been a terrible destructive force. I pastored in Floyd County, the Big Sandy River flows through the

center of Pikeville and Prestonsburg.

First Assembly of God was flooded in 1952, 1957, 1963, 1972, 1982.

The flood waters leave much mud and destruction.

Pikeville could never over come the floods.

The river ran through the middle of the city. On the average of about once in seven years a massive flood destroyed the heart of the city.

Many years ago, the city voted, they were tired of the floods and a multi-million dollar project began.

The Army Corps of Engineers began what was an impossible project.

They dug around a mountain and re-routed the Big Sandy River.

Today where there once was a river that flooded the city, today the river bed is a massive four lane highway, and the river does not pass through the city.

Now the city has built and grown without the threat of massive floods.

Pikeville is forever changed because some people THOUGHT OUT OF THE BOX.

D. Then in Harlan County, they began a massive project, and now the city of Harlan

has overcome it’s massive flood problems.

E. Then in Bell County, the city of Pineville has massive flood walls and the road is not the same, the flooding that limited the city --- is now a city that lives beyond the threat of the massive floods that seemed to forever limit it’s future growth.

F. Go over the mountain into Virginia, there was a town forever doomed by flooding. Today the city has moved and they worry not of floods?