KING TUT’S BEAUTIFUL CASKET Michael P. Green, Illustrations For Biblical
Preaching
When Howard Carter and his associates found the tomb of King Tutankhamen, they opened up his casket and found another within it. They opened up the second, which was covered with gold leaf, and found a third. Inside the third casket was a fourth made of pure gold. The pharaoh's body was in the fourth, wrapped in gold cloth with a gold face mask. But when the body was unwrapped, it was leathery and shriveled. Whether we are trying to cloak a dead spiritual life, or something else, in caskets of gold to impress others, the beauty of the exterior does not change the absence of life on the interior.

Jesse James killed a fellow in a bank robbery and shortly thereafter was baptized in the Kearney Baptist Church. Then he killed another man, a bank cashier, and joined the church choir and taught hymn-singing. He liked Sundays, Jesse did, but he couldn't always show up at church. On two Sundays, he robbed trains.

1. We sing "Sweet Hour of Prayer" and are content with 5-10 minutes a day

2. We sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" and wait to be drafted into His service.

3. We sing "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" and don't use the one we have.

4. We sing "There Shall be Showers of Blessing" but do not come when it rains.

5. We sing "Blest Be the Tie That Binds" and let the least little offense sever it.

6. We sing "Serve the Lord With Gladness" and gripe about all we have to do.

7. We sing "I Love To Tell the Story" and never mention it at all.

8. We sing "We're Marching to Zion" but fail to march to worship or school.

9. We sing "Cast Thy Burden on the Lord" and worry ourselves into a nervous breakdown.

10. We sing "The Whole Wide World for Jesus" and never invite our next-door neighbor.

11. We sing "O Day of Rest and Gladness" and wear ourselves on traveling, cutting grass or playing golf on Sunday.

12. We sing "Throw Out the Lifeline" and content ourselves with throwing out a fishing line.

Few persons pass through life without being forced to take a position on a controversial question. Some such questions are in the "Have you stopped beating your wife?" category and require fancy footwork to escape unscathed. The zenith of this art was reached by a Mississippi State Senator in 1958 when he addressed the Legislature thus:

"You have asked me how I feel about whisky. All right, here is just how I stand on this question: "If when you say whisky, you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge; the bloody monster that defiles innocence, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacles of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation and despair, shame and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it with all of my power.

"But, if when you say whisky, you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the stuff that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes, if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentlemen's step on a frosty morning; if you mean the drink that enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrows, if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirmed, to build highways, hospitals and schools, then certainly I am in favor of it."

"This is my stand. I will not retreat from it; I will not compromise."