We Can Not, And We Must Not Forget… (Memorial Day)

YOUTUBE – You can hear this sermon preach on youtube.

Type Youtube - Lykesland

That night one of the hunters returned alone, staggering under the load of an 8-point buck which he was carrying.

• "Where’s Harry?" He was asked.

• "Harry had a stroke of some kind. He’s a couple of miles back up the trail."

• "You mean that you left Harry laying there, and carried the deer back?"

• "Well," said the hunter, "I FIGURED NO ONE WAS GOING TO STEAL HARRY."

The moral of the story is: A DEAD ANIMAL WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN A LIVING HUMAN BEING.

One of the sad things about the society in which we live we see such little value that people put on the human life in our society.

Illus: For example, it was broadcast on national radio that a young man was walking down the street during the wintertime wearing a brand name leather jacket. Another young man saw him wearing the jacket and he came up behind him and hit him in the head with an iron pipe and killed him, and took his jacket.

This young man considered a name brand jacket worth more than the life of this young man.

However it is refreshing to come across people who recognize the value of a human life.

Illus: Makes us think about boy named Ron who was a fifteen-year-old teenager, a tenth-grade student at Granger High School. It was game day, and he was the only sophomore suiting up with the varsity team.

Excitedly, he invited his mother to attend. It was her very first football game, and she promised to be there with several of her friends.

The game finally ended, and she was waiting outside the locker room to drive Ron home.

• Ron said, "What did you think of the game, Mom?

• Did you see the three touchdown passes our team made?

• And how about our tough defense?

• Did you see the fumble on the kickoff return that we recovered?" he asked.

• His mother replied, "Ron, you were magnificent during the whole game. I was so proud of you:

• I was proud of the pride you took in the way you looked. You pulled up your knee socks eleven times during the game.

• And I could tell you were perspiring in all those bulky pads because you got eight cups of water and splashed water on your face twice.

• I really like how you went out of you way to pat number nineteen, number five and number ninety on the back every time they came off the field."

• "Mom, how do you know all that? And how can you say I was magnificent? I didn’t even play in the game."

• His mother smiled and hugged him. "Ron, I don’t know anything about football. I didn’t come here to watch the game. I came here to watch you!"

Listen, this mother knew what was important! SHE KNEW THE VALUE OF PEOPLE!

We live in an age where little value is placed on PEOPLE and much value is placed on MATERIAL THINGS.

Illus: A favorite actress of many in Hollywood is the Italian actress Sophia Loren. During one of the shootings of a movie, she was upset because someone stole some of her valuable jewelry.

She went to the Italian film director Vittorio De Sica, about the theft of the jewelry. He gave her some very good advice, he said, “Listen to me, Sophia. I am much older than you and if there is one great truth I have learned about life, it is this: NEVER CRY OVER ANYTHING THAT CAN’T CRY OVER YOU!” Good advice!

One of the lessons we have to learn in this life is that PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MATERIAL THINGS!

On this Memorial Day We Can Not, We Must Not Forget Our Soldiers.

On this Memorial Day we need to…

I. LOOK BACK

Some tell us we should never look back, that we should always look ahead. Those who say this have not thought this through.

We need to look back because for two reasons:

(1) If we did not LOOK BACK, we could not learn from the mistakes we, and others have made.

Illus: For example in this nation there are some folks who feel compelled to tear down the statue of our forefather who were the founders of this nation because they had slaves.

Listen, if we are going to tear down these statues how are we going to learn:

(1) From the good they did

(2) From the bad they did

We need to look back into our history and learn from the good and the bad.

Also we need to look back…

(2) If we do not LOOK BACK, we can not show our gratitude to those who have made such an impact on our life.