Uncovering Mysteries
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- Mysteries captivate us. We Love to dig into a good mystery story
+Top Crime-Solvers:
>- A favorite programs on television is Unsolved Mysteries, Hosted by Robert Stack, the series features re-enactments of stories in which viewers participate to help solve cases.
- If you go to the Internet, you find that through that viewers have helped law enforcement officials apprehend approximately 40% of the fugitives profiled on the series since its premiere.
- In addition, the show has been responsible for 93 reunions and has solved nearly 300 cases to date
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> Sherlock Holmes - Fictional London Detective by A. C onan Doyle X
> Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew Came out in 1927 - Over 200 vol.& 200 million sold world X
> Charlie Chan- Chinese-Hawaiian detective has 6 novels X
> Alfred Hitchcock - Master of Suspense British film director X
> Monk on USA - an obsessive-compulsive detective with phobias X
> Agatha Christie - Worlds most popular mystery writer 1920-1970 billion books X
> There is a Mysterynet.com Online mysteries, mystery games, mystery books and resources. For everyone who enjoys a mystery...
Take a break...2-5 minute mini-mysteries
Solve-it Mysteries, Get-a-Clue! daily - "Three Non-Burglaries "
Solve-it monthly - "The Bloody Elevator"
See-n-Solve monthly - "Amy and the Five-Cent Blue"
Mystery Stories with a monthly twist - "Playing with Murder"
Reason - we like to solve mysteries but don’t like mysteries that we cannot solve.
+ Mystery & the Bible
>- Mystery is found only in NT
>-22x singular 27x plural in the Bible
>- Dictionary - "a truth known only through faith or revelation and incomprehensible to the human reason."
+ Christ a Mystery
> - Col 1:26-27 Hid until he came
>- OT Jews looking for a Messiah, Savior, King
>- Now made know to those who believe – Col 2:2
- Philip Yancey’s book The Jesus I Never Knew (1995,p.188) picked up on this, and he noted, of the many biographies he had read,
“few devote more than ten percent of their pages to the subject’s death – including biographies of men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi, who died violent and politically significant deaths. The Gospels, though, devote nearly a third of their length to the climatic last week of Jesus’ life. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John saw death as the central mystery of Jesus.”
>- Jesus - Definition Lk 8:9-11 parable of the
sower of the seed. - meaning of the parable. v.11
- Jesus said, "unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parable’s."
- Notice ’unto you it is given, to know the mystery’
>- To understand a Bible mystery, it is given to us
by the Lord.
+ Some Mysteries Solved
> 1. The Mystery of His Will
> Made known unto us - Eph 1:9
> 2. The Mystery of the Church
> Understood through the relationship of marriage
- Eph. 5:32
+ 3. Mystery of Death
> I Cor. 15:51 We are going to be changed
> 4. Mystery of the Gospel
> Eph 6:19 - NEWS - Sin’s wages are paid
- Oops I stumbled here
+ The Greatest Mystery
> Why Reject the Gospel? - Rom. 11:25..
Paul’s question - Rom. 11:25..
> Israel’s Input
- Instructed by Prophets - Moses. & Abraham.
- Were given the covenant & promises of God.
- Why did they not embrace Jesus as their savior?
- Now personalize for yourself
- We know the blessing of reading His word.
- We’re blessed by hearing it.
- The Holy Spirit speaks to our heart that I need a savior & make Him Lord.
- I can understand this teaching
- Why don’t I embrace His Word
- To reject Jesus has got to be a mystery.
Most Priceless Treasure
+ Robert Fulghum in It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, tells a story involving his daughter, Molly. One day, as Fulghum was ready to leave for work,
> Molly handed him two brown paper sacks. In one was his lunch.
> What was in the other was a mystery. When Fulghum asked Molly what was in the
mystery bag, she said, "Just some stuff—take it with you." At lunch time, Fulghum tore open the mystery bag, Dumping the contents onto his desk.
> The contents consisted of: two hair ribbons, three small stones, a plastic dinosaur, a pencil stub, a tiny seashell, two animal
crackers, a marble, a used lipstick, a small doll, two chocolate kisses, and thirteen pennies.
Later in the day, when Fulghum was cleaning off his desk before going home, he wiped the contents of Molly’s bag into the waste basket. As he said, "There wasn’t anything in there I needed." That evening Molly asked where her bag was. He told her he had left it at his office, and asked, "why?" Molly said, "Those are my things in the sack, Daddy, the ones I really like—I thought you might like to play with them, but now I want them back.
You didn’t lose the bag did you, Daddy?"
"Those are my things in the sack, Daddy, the ones I really like." To Fulghum the hair ribbons, small stones, pencil stub, a used lipstick and all the rest did not seem like much. To Molly, they were her most priceless treasures. The things she loved the most. But Fulghum did not have the sight to see their true value.
Long ago some shepherds left their fields and made their way to a stable. When they looked into the manger they saw a very ordinary baby wrapped in swaddling cloths. Whether the baby was sleeping, crying, or cooing, we are not told. But the shepherds saw something more, something which others who were gathered with Mary and Joseph apparently did not see. In this baby in the manger the shepherds saw none other than the One in whom all God’s people find joy and peace, just as the angels had told them. The shepherds had heard the promise, had believed the promise, and in believing saw more than met the ordinary eye. In Jesus they saw the One in whom we have joy and peace.
1. Donald L. Deffner, Seasonal Illustrations, Resources, 1992, p. 16-17
+ Billy Graham once said, “What is heaven going
to be like? Just as there is a mystery to hell, so there is a mystery to heaven.
> Yet I believe the Bible teaches that both are
literal places. I’m not worried about where they are, beause I know where Jesus is and he told me to meet him there."
