Movie Titled “Karla Faye Tucker”
Plot Outline: On February 3, 1998, Karla Faye Tucker was put to death by the state of Texas, the first woman to be executed in America in 15 years. She was a confessed pick-axe murderer. But in prison, her life dramatically changed through a religious conversion experience. This former drug-crazed prostitute and savage killer became what many saw as a fully rehabilitated and beautiful, loving person.
Our Past, Our Present and Our Future!
Ps 40:4-5 How happy is the man
who has put his trust in the LORD
and has not turned to the proud
or to those who run after lies!
5 LORD my God, You have done many things —
Your wonderful works and Your plans for us;
none can compare with You.
If I were to report and speak of them,
they are more than can be told.
Isaiah 55:8-12 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
and your ways are not My ways."
This is the LORD’s declaration.
9 "For as heaven is higher than earth,
so My ways are higher than your ways,
and My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For just as rain and snow fall from heaven,
and do not return there
without saturating the earth,
and making it germinate and sprout,
and providing seed to sow
and food to eat,
11 so My word that comes from My mouth
will not return to Me empty,
but it will accomplish what I please,
and will prosper in what I send it to do."
12 You will indeed go out with joy
and be peacefully guided;
the mountains and the hills will break into singing before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands
1. Our Past
1 Peter 2:10 Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.
A Call to Good Works
Hosea 1:9 Then the LORD said:
Name him Not My People,
for you are not My people,
and I will not be your God.
Eph 5:8-13 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light — 9 for the fruit of the light results in all goodness, righteousness, and truth — 10 discerning what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness , but instead, expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret.
Acts 26:18 to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’
People who do not know God were:
2 Tim 3:3-52-Describes 18 sinful conditions for people without Christ
• Lovers of self
• Lovers of money
• Proud and Boastful
• Blasphemers
o Swear
o Insult God by denying the work of the Holy Spirit in their live. (Unpardonable Sin)
• Unloving
• Slanderers
• Without love for what is good
Self-love under a form of holiness
2 Tim 3:3-52 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of religion but denying its power. Avoid these people!
2. Our Present
Rom 10:8-13 On the contrary, what does it say? The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: 9 if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved . 10 With the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation. 11 Now the Scripture says, No one who believes on Him will be put to shame, 12 for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, since the same Lord of all is rich to all who call on Him. 13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved .
Acts 8:37 And Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart you may." And he replied, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."]
Rom 8:34-35 Who is the one who condemns?
Christ Jesus is the One who died, but even more, has been raised; He also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. 35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution
or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
Illustration:
SOME SAY: Everyone is basically good.
GOD SAYS: "All have sinned" (Romans 3:23).
SOME SAY: There is no hell, so there’s no need to be concerned.
GOD SAYS: "Fear him who...has power to throw you into hell" (Luke 12:5).
SOME SAY: Heaven is not a real place.
GOD SAYS: "I am going...to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2).
SOME SAY: There is no such thing as life after death.
GOD SAYS: "Man is destined to die...and after that...judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
SOME SAY: We can do nothing about the future. What is going to be will be.
GOD SAYS: "You must be born again" (John 3:7). How can you be born again? -- "Whoever confesses and renounces [his sins] finds mercy" (Proverbs 28:13). "To all who received him [Christ]...he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12).
SOME SAY: We cannot be sure of salvation or our destiny when we die.
GOD SAYS: "You may know that you have eternal life" (I John 5:13). -- Dwight Hall
3. Our Future
Psalms 40:5 LORD my God, You have done many things — Your wonderful works and Your plans for us; none can compare with You.
If I were to report and speak of them,
they are more than can be told.
Illustration: God’s wonderful works and thoughts to us-ward: --
I. LET US RECALL SOME OF THE WONDROUS WORKS AND THOUGHTS OF GOD TO USWARD DURING THE YEAR.
1. The first wondrous mercy is life itself, How wonderful is life! We lavish upon it our choicest and fondest expressions. With what jealous care we guard it. What are all our daily toil and efforts but a battle for life! When the last stroke seems about to fall, how, do we quiver and weep! When that stroke is suspended, what joy thrills through our frame! Life with its five mysterious senses -- life, with its powers of knowing -- life, with its susceptibilities of loving and aspiring -- life, with its sublime sense of duty, and with its affections and hopes that soar towards God and heaven -- is a treasure that makes the weakest man the possessor of boundless wealth. But life is not more sweet and precious than it is frail. At any moment the small dust of the balance may turn the scale against us. A slight pressure of the brain, a pause of the breath, and all is over. Life is a frail ship that ploughs the great ocean amidst hurricanes and lightnings, by quicksands and rocks. How wonderful is it that this frail ship should sail for twenty, forty, seventy years -- that this breath should flow on -- this flower bloom, not for one, but for many years!
2. We have another illustration of the wonderful works and thoughts of God to us-ward, in the means of life and the comforts of life. Life hangs on the power of God, and no means can give life one moment longer beyond God’s will; but life cannot be maintained without means, and those means of life are truly wonderful. The head of a family knows best how much work and thought must go to the getting of food and raiment and other needful things for the children. But what are his work and thought to the work and thought of the great Father of all for each of His children? Think of what is needed for each harvest; what exact adjustment of natural laws so as to suit the different stages of the plant. And these wondrous works of God are not mere works without soul in them. They are His thoughts also. We do not praise the earth, or the clouds, or the sun, but we thank God. But I would notice as the crowning example of God’s many and wonderful works and thoughts to us-ward.
3. His works and thoughts in regard to the supreme purpose and aim of life. Life and the means of life are not the end, they are only the means of a greater end. They only give us a basis. We still want a structure to be built upon them. And our Father in heaven knows that the gift of health and life and all temporal blessings Will be no blessing, but only a curse to us, unless we rear upon these the structure of right principles, and holy affections, and Christian usefulness -- in a word, all the work of faith, and hope, and charity. He has destined us for these as our chief end.
II. THE GOOD EFFECTS WHICH SHOULD FOLLOW SUCH A REVIEW OF GOD’S WORKS.
1. There should be grateful acknowledgment of His mercies. Gratitude ploughs up the field which is to others only a barren waste, and plants it, and keeps it fresh and green with its tears of joy. The whole past life is the field which it ploughs up, and out of which it makes to spring all that can refresh and strengthen us.
2. The grateful review of the Divine works of mercy will inspire us likewise to be workers of good -- to be good, like Him, that we may be His children -- to be merciful as our Father is merciful.
3. Lastly, let the grateful review of the wondrous works of God to us-ward produce in us, not only the works of mercy, but the thoughts also of mercy, the spirit of mercy and charity.
(J. Riddell.)
(from The Biblical Illustrator Copyright (c) 2002 AGES and Biblesoft, Inc.)
(All scripture from Holman Christian Standard Bible® Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers.)
All Illustrations unless otherwise noted from “Bible Illustration for Windows Copyright (c) 1990-1998, by Parsons Technology Inc.
