Rev. David Holwick Z
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
September 9, 2001
Jeremiah 1:13-16
GETTING BURNED
I. Burned by fire.
A. My experience in Sequoia National Park.
Bears in adjacent campsite.
I am boiling water for dinner on tall single-burner stove.
Water already boiling, then I pump up pressure.
Pot slips off, I scream and roll on ground.
Neighbors think I am wrestling a bear.
I cool off under faucet; my skin hangs in shreds...
Two-hour ambulance ride to hospital in Fresno.
Halls are filled with immigrants, drunks, and a Baptist
minister.
Remarkable progress in one week:
From hardly standing to eating brownies at carnival.
B. Fire hurts and can leave lasting scars.
C. Fire teaches important lessons about life and eternity.
1) Jeremiah's "boiling pot" that tilts and scalds.
2) God must be worshiped correctly.
II. Burned by people.
A. The pain of fire is a metaphor for bad relationships.
1) "She burned me."
2) Usually applied to people we thought we could trust.
a) We open our hearts to them, and they betray us.
b) No one can hurt you like someone you love.
3) If your focus is not on God, failed relationships can
crush you.
B. On fire ourselves - smoldering anger in our lives.
1) A family tragedy.
Our family made many friends as we moved from base to
base.
We lived for six years in Heidelberg, Germany, and became
close to another family.
Their mom was the kind of person, when you visited,
you couldn't leave for three hours.
And you never got a word in edge-wise.
They had a daughter and a son, who was younger than me.
I went off to college and lost touch, but my parents
kept in contact.
Six years ago we heard about their son.
He had worked in an oil refinery inspection company in
Texas.
They fired him.
Soon after that he walked into the company and killed his
former boss, his wife and three other employees.
He then walked out the back door and shot himself.
2) People don't just "snap" like this.
a) They allow their anger to build up over time.
It smolders... then bursts into flame.
b) They are ordinary people like you, not monsters.
c) (my experience the previous day watching a semi-truck
tailgate a minivan that wouldn't change lanes...)
C. Healing from burns of others.
One day Ron Hutchcraft saw a mother and her daughter hustling
to make a plane in an airport.
But the little girl's face was covered with a mask that was
basically a screen.
She could see through it, but it was protecting her face.
In just a glance, he could see that her face had been badly
burned.
She had long sleeves and long pants on ... probably she had
burns on other parts of her body, too.
It got Ron to thinking about spiritual burn victims.
Physical burns affect your outside, and they can often be
treated medically.
When you've been burned spiritually, the scars are inside
where they're hard to get at.
Way too many people who have withdrawn to the spiritual
sidelines because they feel burned.
Or they harden their hearts and using the hypocrisy of others
as an excuse to do wrong things.
Rather than talking about the hurt, Ron thinks we need to
talk about the healing.
We need to move from burn victim to burn victor.
God's program of burn therapy on your soul includes several
action steps on our part.
It starts when you focus on Christ and not on Christians.
Jesus didn't burn you - and the heart of being a Christian is
Jesus' simple command - "Follow Me."
Next, you need to open up to healing.
You've nursed and rehearsed your wounds long enough - now it
is time to get well.
You also need to recognize your own imperfection.
We've all been hurt - but we've all been hurters, too.
You and I stand as guilty of hurting people as the people
who hurt us.
That makes the next step slightly easier - release the
bitterness.
The grudges inside are an emotional burn that smolders and
ruins so much of our life.
Ask God to heal you of the bitterness that costs you so much.
(Hebrews 12:15)
Then, forgive the hurters - as Colossians 3:13 says, "Forgive
as the Lord forgave you."
It's a good idea to forgive quickly - before the sun goes
down.
And then we need to rejoin the family of God where we belong
and become part of the answer.
You know what's hurting people in the church - use that
knowledge and experience to help others.
#19083
III. Burned by God.
A. Fire as a cleansing agent.
1) Western fires, burns away garbage and debris.
a) To save their homes, people deal with the debris
before fire comes.
b) It is the same way with Christians.
2) Unproductive "Christians" face fire. Hebrews 6:7-9
"Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and
that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is
farmed receives the blessing of God.
But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless
and is in danger of being cursed.
In the end it will be burned.
Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are
confident of better things in your case - things that
accompany salvation."
a) How productive are you as a Christian?
b) Lack of fruit may not mean you are a bad Christian,
but a non-Christian.
c) The thorns in your life are fuel for fire.
1> Get rid of them, before fire comes.
B. Fire can do more than cleanse.
1) Hellfire and brimstone, beginning with John the Baptist:
"His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his
threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and
burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
Matthew 3:12
a) Some of you remember when every sermon seemed to focus
on this.
b) It is not just cranky preachers. The Bible's book of
the End Times, Revelation, concludes with this:
Revelation 20:10
And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into
the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the
false prophet had been thrown. They will be
tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Revelation 21:8
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the
murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice
magic arts, the idolaters and all liars -- their
place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
This is the second death.
2) This is the fire that can't be put out.
a) The spiritual decisions you make, matter. Forever.
b) Movie on vacation - Sean Connery says:
"I would not believe in a God that condemned."
By the end of the movie, in the face of real evil,
his character changes some of his beliefs.
c) There is only one insurance against the fires of hell -
Jesus Christ.
There is a volunteer Fire Department in Arkansas that
drew criticism for letting a house burn down.
It seems the owner hadn't paid a twenty-dollar annual
fee for fire fighting service.
Because of the fire fighters' inaction, two adjacent
furniture shops also were destroyed.
A resident behind the shops did pay the fee -- while
the fire was burning. His house was spared.
The Chief told reporters, "Once your house is on fire,
you can't join, but if you're a neighbor to some
property that's on fire, you can join."
When a house would burn down, fire fighters would simply
stand by to see that the blaze didn't spread to the
homes of people who had paid the twenty-dollar fee.
#5356
1> This cruel fire department makes a valid point.
A> Putting out fires carries a price.
B> And it can't be paid when it's too late.
2> You can't pay the fire fee. Only Jesus can.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 5356 "Stewards," by Rev. Ron Newhouse, Daily Devotions News -
http://www.devotions.net; March 12, 2000.
#19083 "When You've Been Burned," by Ron Hutchcraft, A Word With You,
May 9, 2001.
These and 18,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://illust.holwick.com
=========================================================================
HOLWICK'S ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION Number: 13488
SOURCE: Associated Baptist Press, Http:/www.abpnews.com
TITLE: Divinity School Student Still Asks Why After Tragedy
AUTHOR: Irma Duke
DATE: 1-4-2001
BUIES CREEK, N.C. (ABP) -- Forty-four years after he was burned beyond
recognition, Frank Hensley is still asking why. But the student at
Campbell University Divinity School is not questioning why this awful
tragedy happened to him, but instead why God chose to use him in this
way and how he can use his experience to glorify God.
Frank's elementary school in Mt. Airy, N.C., burned to the ground Feb.
22, 1957. With third-degree burns over 75 percent of his body, the 10-
year- old faced eight months at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C.
-- three weeks of that in a coma -- and dozens of surgeries. Decades
later, he doesn't want to talk about his pain or struggles, however, but
his spiritual journey.
If his scars get in the way of a person seeing God in his life, he says
his witness has failed.
Frank was the last person to leave his fourth-grade classroom, because
he wanted to get his brother's jean jacket hanging in the back. As he
entered the hallway, he lost consciousness in the smoke and intense
heat. When he came to, he tried to open the door of another classroom.
It immediately exploded when he edged open the door. The impact threw
him back across the hall, into the wall, where once again he passed out.
He remembers waking up out in the schoolyard and running toward home.
"God had to be the one that carried me outside," he believes.
A high school student corralled him and other injured students and led
them toward the principal's office, located in the adjacent high school.
An ambulance took five badly burned children to a nearby clinic in
Dobson, N.C. It wasn't until he was there in a room alone that he saw
himself in a mirror and then saw a "figure dressed in white who said,
'You will be all right.'"
During the next eight months, he had skin grafts all over his body. When
he had no more skin to graft, his father volunteered to be skinned from
his thighs to his ankles on both legs to provide what Frank needed.
During Frank's hospital stay, his mother missed visiting only one day.
She and another burned child's parent wore out a car, so the community
purchased one for them.
Frank remembers his own pain, but tears come when he talks about what
his parents went through. "The pain and itching that my father
experienced had to be almost unbearable," he says as he wipes his eyes.
When Frank first came home from the hospital, he wanted to die. His
sister screamed in shock when she saw him the first time. Others just
stared. He felt helpless. He was able to wear street clothes but he
couldn't buckle his belt or tie his shoes. A banner waved to welcome
him, but he didn't want to be there. If his 52-pound body had had the
strength to pull the trigger on his father's gun, he says he would have
done it.
Just days later, he says the Lord turned him around. "God said you
can't do that. You've got to do something about your life."
On his 11th birthday, just 10 days out of the hospital, Frank joined the
Boy Scouts. He passed every requirement for Eagle Scout except the
swimming merit badge.
At age 12, he started going door-to-door selling Fuller brushes with an
older gentleman. He drove a school bus for two years and worked at a
service station before going Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C.,
to start his college career. In the meantime, he was a member of the
student council, the Spanish club, and the key club in high school. He
was determined to be all that God wanted him to be. "I had to get
myself out in public."
Life still wasn't easy, however. He had blood transfusions every week
for several weeks. He had a tube in his throat for four years to help
with breathing. He and his family created therapy machines for
stretching his elbows and fingers, which had drawn up in the healing
process. He put together model cars with intricate details such as
spark plugs to push his fine motor skills. His surgeries continued four
or five times a year until after his freshman year in college when he
refused to have any more. The doctors had done all that they could do to
help him functionally. "At least, I never had to worry about 'zits,'"
he says with a chuckle.
He completed his requirements for a degree in business administration,
married his high school sweetheart, whom he met on his school bus route,
and moved to Salisbury, N.C., where she completed her nursing degree.
He worked in vocational rehabilitation for nine years there. While in
Salisbury, they attended Stallings Memorial Baptist Church. That is
where they first became involved in preschool work. Soon thereafter,
the pastor "sat me down and told me that we were going to Ridgecrest
[Conference Center] for training, and we did." Along the way, he has
been involved in a variety of secular jobs, but "God was continuing to
work on me." He said he visited the Campbell University Divinity School
to see what it was all about and had every question answered and every
objection dismissed. "Every time I tried to run, something was there to
put the skids on it."
He finally gave up and "decided to make something of myself." He admits
that he probably should have been in ministry 20 to 30 years ago.
During his time as director of the preschool department at Green Street
Baptist Church in High Point, NC, the department grew from 80 to 350
preschoolers and from 12 to 45 teachers. "If you see me in the hall,
I'll be on my knees, eyeball to eyeball with those little kids." For
the past year, he has served as the interim minister of education.
"One of my passions in life is putting people at ease with me," he
explains. He remembers as a 12-year-old catching himself staring at a
person in a wheelchair. "I've got to help them look past my scars and
see Christ in me."
Part of the reason that he says he resisted the ministry so long was
that "the devil constantly made me question my motives. Did I just want
to draw attention to myself?"
He says he has failed Christ if all people see is Frank.
