Help From On High

INTRO.- ILL.- A Hollywood maternity shop received this note in the mail: "Dear Sirs, you have not yet delivered that maternity dress I ordered. Please cancel the order. MY DELIVERY WAS FASTER THAN YOURS."

Sometimes babies do come sooner than expected. Doctors can set the date, but God ordains the date! Doctors are human, just like you and me. Doctors can sometimes make mistakes, just like you and me. But God never makes a mistake.

How much did you weigh at birth?

ILL.- The heaviest baby I read about was born in Turkey 1961 and weighed 24 lbs. 4 oz. The lightest-weight baby that I read about was a girl and she weighed only 10 oz. She was 12 1/2 inches long. On her 21st birthday, she weighed 106 lbs.

Regardless of the weight of any newborn baby, they still require a lot of attention, a lot of affection and a lot of TLC!

Someone said, "A perfect example of minority rule is a baby in the home."

Babies sometimes make a lot of noise. They cause a lot of commotion, but yet, they can’t do much for themselves.

ILL.- Babies can eat, but only if you put the bottle in their mouths. Even then, you have to hold the bottle for them. Then after they stop eating, they can’t burp themselves. They need help.

Babies can’t clean up after themselves. They can’t change their own diapers. They can’t bathe themselves. They can’t dress themselves. And when they are first born, they can’t even entertain themselves. Babies require a lot of help in life.

Even as we grow older we still need a lot of help in life. At every age we need some kind of help. Even in our so-called years of maturity.

ILL.- Since my mother passed away I’ve been trying to do some repair work at her house. She has a ceiling fan in the living room which quit working. I took that thing apart 4 or 5 times before I figured out what was wrong with it and was able to repair it.

I really needed help with it, but help didn’t come. And I didn’t know where to get any help. I’ve been working on a three-way electrical switch in her home and I haven’t been able to fix it yet. I NEED HELP! We all need help at various times and in various ways in our lives. Knowing where to get the right help can be something of a problem.

David said, "I lift up my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."

ILL.- James A. Garfield was our 20th president. He was shot to death on Sept. 19, 1881. He only lived to be 50 years old. But had it not been for help from on high he might not have lived that long. As a 16-year-old, Garfield worked on a canal boat named the Evening Star. When he went on duty one midnight, it was raining as he took his turn at the bow. When he picked up the rope on deck and began to pull on it, the rope caught and wouldn’t budge. He gave it another pull, and the rope freed itself and Garfield fell back and into the dark waters.

As he plunged beneath the waters of the canal, Garfield held on to the rope. Suddenly, the slack was gone. Much to his relief, the rope became taut in his hand. Scared out of his wits, young Garfield quickly pulled himself back on deck.

Later, back on the boat, he picked up the rope and threw it toward the crevice in which it had been caught the night before. Although he threw the rope many times, it never once caught in the crevice.

Concluding that God saved his life for a purpose, young Garfield determined to make something of himself. After quitting his job on the canal, he went home to Ohio. When he walked into his home, he found his mother on her knees, praying for his safety.

Could it be that Garfield had received some help from on high? If it’s good, it must be from God. We can only conclude this was a God-incident.

Brothers and sisters, we all need help in life. We all need divine help in life. And I think perhaps many times we have received God’s help and didn’t even realize it. We all are spiritually insensitive.

There are just some things that we human beings can’t handle by ourselves. If anybody seemed to know this, David, the Psalmist, did.

Ps. 9:9 "The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble."

Ps. 34:4 "I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears."