Capital Christian Center in Sacramento, with Pastor Rick Cole, has a wonderful Christian school. About once each year I am invited to speak for them. I love it! It was my turn again last Thursday.
The estimated 400 kids K-5th
grade were as usual very quiet and attentive. I regret that I forgot to take pictures of the whole
impressive group that filled the entire activity center. A teacher did take a few pictures of me however.
I knew I would only have about 30 minutes for my part of the chapel time and, what with Perfume showing up and with Felipe doing a song, it only left me about 15 or 18 minutes.
In this shot Felipe is resisting returning to his suitcase as usual.
I had really wished I had the time to
draw a picture and preach from it, but that takes 15 minutes or more just to draw the
picture, so I drew the picture at home the night before and left it unfinished…
so that I could just add the crosses and the people on Golgotha’s hill top.
That only took about two minutes or so. Then I told a story that I heard long ago from
Pastor Richard Exley. It may be printed now in one of his many
books. It is about a four year old girl who had never been to Sunday
School, but her parents let her go on the SS bus. Her teacher was giving
the life of Jesus, Sunday after Sunday and giving out a little picture of
Jesus’ miracle, or whatever the story had been about, to take home.
Finally
she came to the crucifixion and during class this little girl asked over and
over “What does this picture mean? Why did Jesus have to die?” And kept
doing so even after teacher explained it several times as well as she could.
But this caused a problem with her non-Christian parents when she arrived
home, because she refused to release the picture and kept asking these same two
questions over and over. They sent her to her room, but every time they
opened the door the same two questions came out. The father, a Vietnam
veteran, was very upset about this and went to her SS teacher’s house to insist
that she come to straighten out this fixation in their little girl’s
mind. When they opened the front door out ran this little girl with the
crumpled up, dirty picture in her hand, crying, “Teacher, teacher; What does
this picture mean? Why did Jesus have to die?” “See what I mean?”
yelled the father. The young lady teacher was frightened, but silently asked for
God’s help. Then said, “I think I need to tell you what this
picture means… and why Jesus had to die.” The teacher was sitting in their living
room answering these two questions when the parents melted under conviction and
right there accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior. It’s a great story.
Then I told the kids I wanted to answer
those same two questions for them. What does this picture mean? And... Why did Jesus have to die? It was a simple, short message and I concluded with my personal testimony of accepting the Lord Jesus as a little
child. Then I prayed for their salvation. Many among that 400 are
probably from Christian families, but certainly not all. So only the Lord
knows what is happening down on the inside where the wonderful Holy Spirit is faithfully doing
His work.
Afterwards some of the littlest kids were hugging my legs as the last small group slowly filed out, so I asked their teacher for permission to take their picture. They were so cute!
Ralph
