CHAPTER 19
What If You Could Really “See” How Much Jesus Loves You?
SINCE THIS BOOK was first published, one of our greatest joys has been to receive letters that tell how a word picture has benefited someone. An especially encouraging report arrived a while back that described one of the most unusual uses of a word picture we’ve ever heard.
Imagine you’re ministering to those at the very bottom of society’s ladder. Seated in front of you are several rows of dirty, downcast, skid-row alcoholics. While a few might be at your rescue mission out of a pure desire to hear about God’s free gift of grace, most are there because they know that once you finish your sermon, they’ll get a free, hot meal.
Like many on the homeless trail, these men have heard the gospel message countless times, from countless preachers, in countless shelters across the country. And while familiarity with the gospel might put words of faith in their mouths, their minds are on physical, not spiritual, nourishment.
Interested in getting up and trying to motivate this crowd?
That was the situation facing Chaplain Bill one cold November night. He knew the challenge before him, and it frustrated him. How could he break through to those men’s hardened hearts with the light of God’s love? How could he tell the old, old story in a way that brought a new response of faith?
Chaplain Bill always worked hard on his talks. But in preparing to speak to his castaway congregation this week, he had come across a new communication tool he couldn’t wait to try. Bill had just finished reading the first edition of the book you hold in your hands. With a strong inner conviction, he believed a word picture was just what he needed to break through the barriers that the hard edge of life had put on his parishioners’ lives. So, he prepared to do something he’d never done before in a sermon.
Standing before the men, Bill pulled something out from behind the podium as he began to speak.
An Unlikely Picture of Unconditional Love
“Okay, men, what’s this I’m holding?” Bill asked with a mischievous grin.
Slowly, he drew something out of a brown paper sack. As the hidden item came into view, a chorus of laughter swept across the room.
“You’ve got yourself a bottle, Rev!” one man shouted.
“I’ve seen a few of those!” another said with a laugh as the familiar green glass of a cheap wine bottle was brought into sight.
“That’s right, men,” Bill said, looking out on his smiling audience. “I’ve got a bottle here. Now, let me tell you a little about myself, and then I want to tell you a story about this bottle and what happened to it.”
The crowd was unusually attentive as Bill continued. “Instead of finishing high school, I joined the Navy at 17. After 10 years in the service, I made petty officer and was doing real well. I had a fine wife, a good job, and a family. I even had a house I was paying on. But then my wife was killed in an accident, and I was left alone with our two young kids.
“It was like my heart died when she did, and I took to drinking hard. In less than two years, I had turned myself into such a problem the Navy discharged me. Then I lost my kids to the state because I was neglecting them due to the drinking, and things just got worse from there.
“You see, my life was a lot like this bottle here. I always thought I was going to be something special. Maybe I’d be used to hold some special medicine, or I might be made into a fine piece of china to set in some rich person’s house. But when it came right down to it, I ended up just a plain, green bottle, sent down on a conveyor belt and filled with cheap wine.
“I was packed with a bunch of other bottles and shipped to a big city. There I sat on a dark, dusty shelf for a long time. And while that was bad, something worse finally happened; an old wino pulled me off the shelf and carried me out back into a dark alley.
“Three of his drinking buddies met him there, and they all passed me around and finished me off. Finally, that old wino staggered to his feet. Swaying side to side, he drew back and heaved me into a brick wall, smashing me to pieces.
“That’s where my life was, men,” Chaplain Bill said. “And for a long time, I lay there in that alley, so shattered and mixed in with all the other broken bottles that I knew there was no way the pieces of my life could ever come back together.”
Shifting his weight and looking the men in the eyes, he continued, “But I was wrong.”
Bill told us that by this point in his weekly sermon, he was usually preaching to nodding heads and frozen smiles or hearing snide remarks about getting on to dinner. But not that night. “No one was saying anything,” he said, “and the eyes of every man in that room were riveted on me.”
His sermon continued, “For what seemed like a lifetime, I lay in that alley, all out of hope. Then suddenly, I saw a dark shape coming toward me. Whoever it was actually kneeled down in that dirty, smelly alley and began sifting through all those broken pieces.
“How He did it, I don’t know, but that Man found all my shattered pieces, one by one. And starting with my heart, He pieced me back together. It’s been five years since He found me in that alley, and He’s been polishing away at the cracks ever since.”
Choked with emotion as the memories flooded back, Bill finished his talk with an invitation.
“I know what you men are like on the inside,” he said. “I was just as broken up as you are —just as hopeless, just as filled with doubt that anything or anyone could ever piece my life back together. But there’s someone who can make you whole —the same Man who sought me out and found me in that dark alley.”
Holding up the bottle, Bill continued, “His name is Jesus, and you can know Him as your personal Lord and Savior. You can have Him put the pieces of your life back together, just as He did for me —and He can do it tonight.”
Bill’s sermon was over, and the response he got staggered him. With smells of dinner wafting up from the kitchen below, no one stirred from his seat. The usually rambunctious crowd was quiet as the men thought through what the chaplain had said. And while such services often yield no visible results, that night there was rejoicing in heaven —two men came to know the One who made them and who alone could put their lives back together. Several others rededicated their lives to the Restorer of their souls.
Why did a word picture work so well in communicating spiritual truth to those men? Actually, it shouldn’t surprise us that word pictures are so powerful in conveying truth. The pages of Scripture are filled with them, and emotional word pictures can help strengthen our spiritual lives in four major ways.
1. Word Pictures Can Draw Us Closer to God.
Imagine living in a small, rural town, and in all your life you’ve never driven more than a few miles from home. If you were asked to put yourself in the shoes of your favorite musicians, with all their traveling and international networking, understanding who they are and what they do could seem impossible.
But open your computer, follow them on social media, turn on the television, or read an entertainment magazine, and suddenly the whole world of those musicians is at your doorstep —and you feel closer to them as a result.
Words and pictures can help us bridge the distance between a musician and a fan. Yet for all time, finite people have struggled even more in trying to bridge the immense gap between themselves and a God who is all-powerful and all-knowing.
The psalmist wrote of God, “The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,”[83] and through the prophet God Himself proclaimed, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”[84]
How dare we draw near to such a powerful God? Thankfully, He took the initiative in revealing Himself to us. We see the invisible God most clearly in the visible expression of His Son. And throughout the Scriptures, emotional word pictures provide the best means of getting to know Him and communicating His love to others.
Consider parents who want to bring God’s love up close to their children. Where will most of them turn? To Psalm 23, where they can read to their little lambs, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.”[85]
Those same fathers and mothers, when faced with the inevitable tragedies of life, will often turn to the same passage to catch a glimpse of their loving Shepherd: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”[86]
Word pictures have always made God more accessible, more real, and more understandable to our finite minds. Perhaps that’s one reason Jesus employed them so much. Our Lord’s primary teaching style was to use parables. Word pictures filled His messages to the crowds and disciples alike. On any given day, you could hear stories about the good Samaritan, the fig tree, the lost coin, and the lost sheep. At other times, He would issue great challenges by talking about different types of soil, buried or invested talents, and the need for His followers to pick up their own crosses and follow Him.
Jesus also described Himself as the Good Shepherd, the Door, the Way, and the Truth. He was called the Cornerstone, Bread, and Living Water, to cite just a few examples.
THE PICTURE BEHIND THE VERSE
While many of Jesus’ word pictures are well known, others go overlooked. And perhaps the most neglected word picture Christ used in describing Himself comes just before one of the most familiar verses in all the Bible.
The first verse many people memorize after becoming Christians is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” But do you know what John 3:14-15 says?
Jesus had been speaking to Nicodemus at night, answering the fearful Pharisee’s questions regarding salvation. He heard from Jesus that he would need to be born again. When Nicodemus couldn’t comprehend the necessity to be born physically and spiritually, Jesus called to his mind a word picture that would explode with meaning for this learned teacher of the Law.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” Jesus said in 3:14-15, “even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life.” Then, to further explain the word picture, Jesus went on to say the often-quoted words, “For God so loved the world . . .”
A snake lifted high in the desert? What was Christ referring to? How would that word picture help Nicodemus understand who Jesus was and what He had come to do?
While we today may struggle to connect the two verses, Nicodemus instantly would have seen Christ’s allusion as a crystal-clear picture of who He was claiming to be. That’s because this religious leader had surely studied Numbers 21:4-9 and the story of how many people were saved by looking up to a snake hung on a pole.
When the nation of Israel was wandering in the wilderness, the people began to grumble about Moses’ leadership. They even questioned God’s wisdom in leading them into the desert at all —and that’s when they crossed the line.
God judged the critical Hebrews by sending fiery serpents among them. Once bitten, the individual would die, and that led to a massive cry from the people for Moses to plead with God for a way of escape. Moses did intercede on their behalf, and God gave him a most unusual remedy to their life-and-death dilemma.
Moses was directed to cast in bronze a likeness of the lethal snake. Then that bronze serpent was to be placed on one of the poles used to carry the tribal banners —a long pole with a crossbeam attached. Now, when any of the people were bitten by the deadly vipers, all they had to do was to look up at the serpent —on a cross —and they would be healed.
Look up at a snake on a cross and be healed? As simple as it sounds, I’m sure some people who were bitten by the snakes felt it was just too silly a request, or not complicated enough, or it didn’t involve enough effort on their part. But as they soon learned all too well, those who put their faith in what God said and looked up would live, and all those who didn’t would die.
Now can you understand the word picture behind the most familiar verse in the New Testament? Jesus was telling Nicodemus, “I’m like that snake Moses lifted up in the wilderness. Every person has been bitten by sin and will die, yet God has provided a way of escape. For when I take on the sins of the world —and become like that snake on the cross —those who look up to Me will be saved.”
What clearer picture could Christ have given about our need for salvation and the only way of escape? Yet still today, there are those who think God’s plan is too simple, not scientifically demonstrable, or doesn’t involve enough human effort —and all those people stay poisoned by sin and chained to the terrible consequences, because they refuse to look in faith to Christ on the cross.
Whether it’s the well-known word picture of a Good Shepherd or the powerful imagery of a bronze serpent, God has always shared bits of His character and personality through emotional word pictures. And those same pictures can also help us remember the truths of Scripture.
2. Word Pictures Help Us Understand and Remember the Truths of Scripture.
How could the Infinite communicate His truths to finite human beings? The problem is similar —though on a much greater scale —to meeting with a doctor (perhaps a specialist) and having him explain your condition in technical terms. He’s probably literally speaking Latin for all you know. Yet when he asks if you understand, you nod your head and say, “Mmm,” knowingly. But inside you’re thinking, What was all that? Am I going to live another 80 years or die tomorrow?
When it comes to understanding some of the great truths of the Bible, we can feel just like that. We know we’re supposed to understand, so we look at each other and say, for instance, “Wow, isn’t justification great?” But on the inside, we’re as confused as if we were in that Latin-loving doctor’s office.
God knew, however, that emotional word pictures can cut through the fog and help us understand His Word in a deeper, more intimate way. In fact, God uses emotional word pictures to communicate almost all His most important truths.
You may have heard your Sunday school teacher or a Bible college professor use the word reconciliation to describe one of the aspects of our relationship with Christ. But if you’re like most of us, that word doesn’t seem to have much personal impact.
Watch how Ephesians 2:14-15 makes that truth come alive, however. Talking about how Gentiles are now able to share a relationship with God that was once reserved for Jews, Paul said, “For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall . . . so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace” (italics added).
What a powerful picture! For centuries, the Jews were privileged to be God’s chosen people, standing on one side of a “wall” that separated them from the rest of humanity. To symbolize this separation, the Jews even built a literal wall around the inner and outer courts of the Temple, allowing only Jews to pass into the inner court, where God’s presence dwelt in the Holy of Holies.
Try as the Gentile nations might, they could never find a battering ram big enough to break down that wall to become full participants with the Jews in God’s blessings. But when Christ came, through His death and resurrection He tore down the dividing wall so that everyone could have a loving relationship with the Father.
Like East and West Germans celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, we realize through Paul’s dramatic picture that something we once could not have (peace with God) is now ours for the taking. That’s reconciliation, made clearer than any theological definition.
Our security as believers is also made clear by yet another word picture. In Ephesians 1:13 we read, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation —having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” (italics added).
In biblical times, when a king wanted to make sure his letter went undisturbed to its final destination, he poured a spot of molten candle wax on the end of the scroll, then stamped in his seal with a signet ring. The only way to open the letter was to break the seal. Thus the letter was safe, because any tampering would be obvious and would bring down the king’s wrath.
What a picture of how God has provided “safe passage” for us who believe in Him! As New Testament believers, we can know we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and don’t have to pray like David of old, “Take not your Holy Spirit from me.”[87]
Even the book of Romans, held by many to be the crown jewel of Paul’s theological teaching, is filled with word pictures. To explain how all are bound up in sin, both Jew and Gentile, he quoted a series of Old Testament word pictures: “‘No one does good, not even one.’ ‘Their throat is an open grave.’ ‘The venom of asps is under their lips.’”[88] Regarding our dedication to Christ, Paul wrote, we are to “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God”[89] —that is, we’re to lay our lives and talents on God’s altar.
Biblical word pictures also help us remember what’s being taught. For example, try reading Isaiah 53 (the gripping picture of the suffering Messiah) without experiencing —and remembering —the emotions wrapped around the many word pictures there:
“Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”[90] “All we like sheep have gone astray; . . . and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”[91]
Word pictures can draw us closer to God and bring more clarity to our knowledge of Him. Yet with the positive emotion word pictures carry, they’re also a powerful tool God uses to bring us comfort and encouragement.
3. Word Pictures Are a Primary Way God Gives Us Hope and Encouragement.
To see how word pictures can deepen our love for God and help us experience His love, there’s no better place to turn than to the many prayers found in the Psalms.
When David was fleeing for his life from his son Absalom, for example, he prayed, “O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me. . . . But you, O LORD, are a shield about me.”[92]
On another occasion, David was celebrating his deliverance from Saul and praised God using a word picture: “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”[93]
In our own lives, we’ve seen that using a word picture can help turn a stale prayer time into a meaningful conversation with God. For example, I (John) have often turned to Psalm 1 and used the word picture there as a pattern for prayer.
The psalm reads, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, . . . but his delight is in the law of the LORD. . . . He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.”[94] That picture can become a clearly guided prayer: “O Lord, I ask that You keep my feet in the path of wisdom today, and that You would send my roots deeper into You than ever before.”
As for me (Gary), my entire life and view of prayer were changed through experiencing the word pictures Christ gave of the widow seeking protection, and of the man who woke his neighbor at night to get food for an unexpected guest.[95]
Besides being the tool that both David and Solomon used to express their fears, doubts, praise, and sorrow, word pictures are also one of the primary ways in which God ministers His love to us.
PICTURES OF LOVE, HOPE, AND SUPPORT
Have you ever gone through a difficult trial and doubted God cared for you or that He would protect you during that tough time? Listen to the word pictures God chose once to reassure us of His love:
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’ For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.”
Like a young child standing in her daddy’s shadow, a soldier retreating to an armed fortress for cover, or a young eagle seeking the warmth of its mother’s wings, we see in those encouraging words from Psalm 91:1-4 (ESV) pictures of God’s love and care for each of us.
Have you ever been so alone that you doubted even God was there? Let’s look at a snapshot from a trip someone took centuries ago down the dimly lit road of doubt:
“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me.”
Those reassuring words from Psalm 139:7-10 (ESV) show us that no matter where we go or how lonely we feel, we can never lose God’s presence or His ability to lead us through whatever situation we find ourselves in.
Have you wondered if God really deals with the Castros, Gaddafis, and Saddam Husseins of the world? Gaze at this picture from the hand of the prophet Isaiah:
“Do you not know? Do you not hear? . . . [He] brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.”[96]
Whether the issue is depth to our prayers, help for our doubt, or aid in our fears, Scripture uses word pictures time and again to bring comfort and encouragement.
Even on the last night of Christ’s earthly life, He employed word pictures to make sure the disciples knew of His Father’s care and provision for them. While they were in the Upper Room, not only did Jesus promise the presence of a great Counselor who would come alongside them, but He also told them, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”[97]
So far, we’ve seen that word pictures can draw us closer to Christ, help us grasp and remember key biblical truths, and give us hope and encouragement. But one more fact stands out as an important reason for Christians to use them regularly. Just like Jesus, we need to be able to translate the gospel into a picture that can span even the greatest differences.
4. Word Pictures Provide a Powerful Tool for Evangelism.
A welder used his welding tools as visual aids in helping a coworker come to know Christ. Both men understood how important a good welding job would be on a key stress point of a building. By explaining how Christ is the only one who can weld our lives together without having the seams come apart, the welder led his friend to the Lord.
An airplane mechanic used an “unsafe plane” illustration to confront a fellow worker with his sins and lead him to the Savior. Time and again, the everyday objects, stories, and remembrances drawn from the search fields we wrote about in chapters 7–11 have been used for deeper communication between people —and between them and God.
Just ask those on the mission field how important it is to use word pictures in communicating spiritual truth. They’ll tell you stories like Chaplain Bill’s from earlier in this chapter or Don Richardson’s, which he captured in his exceptional book Peace Child.[98]
Don was laboring among the Sawi tribe of Indonesia, struggling to teach the gospel. Yet to this savage band, known for their human sacrifice and even cannibalism, he seemed to be going backward rather than forward.
They had accepted him warily into their midst because of the tools, medicine, and farming skills he brought, but they weren’t interested in what he said about Jesus —until he told them about Judas.
When he recounted the story of Judas’s betraying Christ around the tribal fire one night, suddenly the tribesmen became agitated and even cheered and shook their spears. Little did Don know that in their culture, treachery was admired. Tricking an enemy into thinking you were his friend —and then killing him —was considered one of the greatest warrior skills!
Don was totally frustrated that in all his months of labor, the only reaction he had gotten from these men was cheers for Judas, not praise for Jesus. But that’s when God opened his eyes to an enormously effective word picture.
This culture had a custom Don had heard about. If war broke out between neighboring tribes, they had one sure way to restore peace. The chief of one tribe was to take a young child from among his people and give it to the chief of the opposing tribe. Then, as long as that child lived —that peace child —there would be a truce between the tribes.
At last, Don had his entry point into this culture that so needed Christ. And that night around the tribal fire, he told the natives about God and how all people struggle because of sin, and of the war inside them as a result. Then he told them about God’s Peace Child —Jesus Christ —and how He lives forever to make peace between God and humanity.
In Don’s stirring book, you can read about the evangelistic fervor that broke out in that tribe, and in neighboring tribes, when the people received a picture of God’s love they could understand.
It’s not only on the mission field that word pictures can help spread the good news, either. For years, Cru (formerly called Campus Crusade for Christ) used its Four Spiritual Laws booklet as a witnessing tool, complete with drawings and even an explanation of the Christian life showing the “locomotive” of facts pulling the “caboose” of our feelings. This small tract, basically an extended word picture, has helped thousands come to faith Christ.
From evangelism to discipleship, from encouragement to correction, word pictures help us strengthen our own spiritual lives. And perhaps as an added benefit, they can help us pass that life on to others.
How About You?
As we close this chapter and this book, we’d like to tell you about a final word picture used by one of the greatest preachers of all time, the British pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He died in 1892, but even now, one of the best compliments preachers can get is for someone to say they preach like Spurgeon.
While the printed messages of other great orators are gathering dust, Spurgeon’s sermons are still read —and preached —today. And it should come as no surprise that his sermons were full of word pictures aimed at his listeners’ hearts.
Several of his books remain in print, but a story about him recounted on Paul Harvey’s radio program just before one Easter is our personal favorite. It seems that Spurgeon was struggling with his Easter sermon one year, and even as late as the Saturday before, he was walking the streets of London, trying to capture just the right phrases and illustrations.
That’s when he saw a young boy walking by, one of the city’s many street children. This rough, ill-clothed lad was carrying an old, bent bird cage, and inside was a sorrowful-looking field sparrow.
Intrigued by the sight, Spurgeon stopped the boy and asked him about the bird.
“Oh, this?” the boy answered. “It’s just a sparrow, and it’s my bird. I found it.”
“What are you going to do with it?” the great clergyman asked.
“Well —” the boy said. “I think I’ll play with it for a while, and then when I’m tired of playing with it —I think I’ll kill it.” He made that last comment with a wicked grin.
Moved with compassion for the bird, Spurgeon asked, “How much would you sell me that bird for?”
“You don’t want this bird, mister,” the boy said with a chuckle. “It’s just a bleeding field sparrow.”
But when he saw the old gentleman was serious, suddenly his mind took a step toward extortion. “You can have this bird for —two pounds.” Two pounds at that time would be worth more than a hundred dollars today —an astronomical price for a bird worth only pennies. “That’s my price. Take it or leave it,” the boy said defiantly.
Spurgeon did pay the price, and then he took the bird to a nearby field and let it go. . . . But he wasn’t finished with the cage.
The next morning, at the great Metropolitan Tabernacle where he preached, an empty bird cage sat on the pulpit as people took their seats.
“Let me tell you about this cage,” Spurgeon said as he began the sermon he had stayed up late rewriting. Then he recounted the story about the little boy and how he had purchased the bird from him at a high cost.
“I tell you this story,” he said, “because that’s just what Jesus did for us. You see, an evil specter called Sin had us caged up and unable to escape. But then Jesus came up to Sin and said, ‘What are you going to do with those people in that cage?’
“‘These people?’ Sin answered with a laugh. ‘I’m going to teach them to hate each other. Then I’ll play with them until I’m tired of them —and then I’ll kill them.’
“‘How much to buy them back?’ Jesus asked.
“With a sly grin, Sin said, ‘You don’t want these people, Jesus. They’ll only hate You and spit on You. They’ll even nail You to a cross. But if You do want to buy them, it’ll cost You all Your tears and all Your blood —Your very life!’”
Spurgeon concluded, “That, ladies and gentlemen, is just what Jesus did for us on the cross. He paid the ultimate, immeasurable price for all who would believe, that we might be free from the inescapable penalty of death.”
How about you? Has there been a time in your life when you responded to what Jesus did for you on the cross? Has there been a specific moment when you know you trusted Christ as the only way out of the cage of death?
Our prayer is that all who pick up this book will find the word pictures in Scripture to be a light to their path —a guiding light leading them out of the cage of death and into the wonderful freedom and everlasting life of a deep, personal relationship with Jesus Christ.