Real Gold

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Symbol: Gold Bracelets

Lesson: Don’t be fooled by supposed “value”

Illustration: You are in a jewelry store and are shown several bracelets. The first, you are told, is pure gold. It is completely free. Next to it are other bracelets, all of them shiny and beautifully crafted. They are made of fool’s gold and are priced at $5,000 each. Right away your mind starts racing with questions and confusion. Something is not right. How can a purportedly pure gold bracelet be free? How can mere fool’s gold trinkets be priced more than the pure, real gold item? Something is not right. Even though in reality you would lose nothing by taking a chance on accepting the pure gold item, instead of taking it and having it tested to ensure you have pure gold, you decide to buy the one of the fool’s gold items. After all, the design of the fool’s gold items are delicate and intricate where the supposed pure gold item is sort of plain.

Such is the case when people hear the good news of the Bible as freely declared by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Witnesses claim their offering is the pure gold of God’s Word. To some, it is sort of plain because there is no ceremony, ritual or extravagant showiness. In fact, the Witnesses are known for their meetings being truly educational events without pomp and circumstance. If those hearing the message would only test what we preach against the measure of scripture, they’d find out that what is being offered is indeed pure, real gold of God’s truth. But instead, they want to accept the fool’s gold because it is so much more beautiful in their eyes. They love all the celebrations, all the ceremonies, all the music and while all of that may not be bad in and of itself, it is not what God wants of us.

Notes: (n/a)

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Air Mask - Comfort From God

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Symbol: Air masks in depressurized plane cabin

Lesson: Accept God’s help so you’ll know how to help others

Illustration: You are on a flight with your children flanking you. Suddenly there is an emergency—the cabin depressurizes and the air masks drop from the ceiling. Did you pay attention to the flight attendants when they briefed you before the flight? Who’s mask do you put on first—your own or your children’s? Parental instinct is to help your children first but unless you get air to yourself first, you may become unconscious before you’ll have time to help your children. The flight attendant was very clear on this matter—put the mast on yourself first.

Notes: We live in a world whose love has not only cooled off but grown absolutely cold! Even what was once considered natural human affection (kindly love for others), has depressurized within human society leaving a world of “me first.” In such a critical environment we need to first get ourselves situated, breathing in the life-saving word of God. But it is not a selfish act. In fact the scripture says that the reason we receive God’s comfort is for the purpose of comforting others. Details on how to help others is found in this article.

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Ripe Good Fruit

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"Goodness is moral excellence. It involves not just what we do but, more important, what we are. Picture a woman preparing fruit for her family, examining each piece as she slices it to make sure that it is sweet and ripe all the way through, without defect inside or out. Similarly, the goodness produced by holy spirit permeates a Christian’s entire way of life."—Eph. 5:8, 9. w11 4/15 (See paragraph numbered "9")

In other words, spiritual beauty is more than skin deep (what people see on the surface). It is in our hearts (which God can see.)

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Raw Meat

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Truth is like raw meat -- it needs to be cooked (with objectivity), seasoned (with gentle kindness), and presented with appealing sides (illustrations) in order to be palatable.

See "Naked Truth And Parable" here.

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Picture Puzzle

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Symbol: Putting together a large picture puzzle

Lesson: Becoming a well-balance, knowledgeable Christian takes time

Illustration: Have you ever tried to put together a large picture puzzle? Some have a very methodical approach--first they will study the cover; then they may start sorting the pieces by dominant colors. Let's say that the puzzle has both a blue sky and a blue Lake. Additionally, it had trees with leaves in autumn colors along with green and tan-colored grass. You can readily see there may be problems in accurately sorting.

However as you continually check the box cover for clues, you slowly start to make progress. Maybe one blue piece did end up in the wrong blue-colored pile. Maybe it even seemed to fit when you pieced it into the puzzle. But as time, diligence, and concentration progressed you discovered & fixed those errors.

The same goes for our learning to live the way God wants us to. When we first try to figure out the big picture of what is involved, we think we have clearly in mind how to make that picture part of our lives. Perhaps first we try to group major facets (colors) of pure worship--there is morality, doctrine, social requirements and more.

When we start to actually examine each piece in the group, we may realize that some things seem confusing and aren't piecing together quite right. As we make progress, we also study the box (Christ our exemplar) more closely. The more we correctly piece the puzzle together in our lives, the clearer the image of truly living a Christian life becomes. Being imperfect, it is very likely we will make misfits in that puzzle from time to time. But determination pays off.

As you approach the finish of the picture (your lifetime of service to God), putting the puzzle together gets easier and easier. Seeing as none of us are perfect, none will have that puzzle complete until the end of the thousand-year reign of Christ. At that time, our life will be a wonderful picture of a godly person.

Notes: Some may claim that "just believing" in God is sufficient. However, the writer James pointedly shows the error of that conclusion.

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Garden of Plants

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Symbol: Garden of plants

Lesson: Badness is easy. Goodness takes effort

Illustration: The mind and heart are like a garden. If you plant flowers in a garden, you get flowers. If you plant weeds, you get weeds. If you plant nothing, you get weeds anyway, because in the absence of productive gardening, weeds grow automatically. Therefore plant productive thoughts and enjoy the blossoms of a positive & godly character.

Notes: Heard this illustration but can't remember where/when. (Update)

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Parents Require Respect

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Symbol: Parents require respect

Lesson: Exodus 20:7 does not say to avoid using God’s name.

Illustration: Those that argue that the name of God (Jehovah) is too sacred and should not be pronounced (especially those that cite the 3rd commandment given to Moses cited at Exodus 20:7), might reflect on the following: If a parent told a child, "Don't you talk to me in that tone of voice!" is that parent saying they don't want their child to talk to them at all? Certainly not.

What if subsequently the child reasoned in his own mind, "Fine! I won't speak to you at all," would that not be just as disrespectful as speaking in a disrespectful tone of voice? The answer is obvious--it is the child's disrespect the parent was trying to correct. For the child to retaliate with a different type of disrespect is STILL wrong.

The same is true with us. There is much evidence in scripture that God wants us to talk to him. He wants us to call him by name--otherwise he would never had revealed it. He wants us to praise him to others (don't we all naturally speak highly of those we care for?). Therefore those that refuse to use the name at all are really being just as disrespectful as those that use God's name "in vain" or a “worthless way.”

Notes: "Profaning God’s Name—By Not Using It" (Watchtower 1986 Issue:5/1 page:25)

JEHOVAH dealt mercifully with the people of Israel for the sake of his own name, that it might not be profaned among the nations. (Ezekiel 20:9, 13, 14, 22) In time, however, the Israelites refrained from using God’s name, so that eventually its pronunciation was lost. This disuse of God’s name was tantamount to profaning it.

Regarding this, R. Laird Harris remarked: “It is a most curious fact that the ancient pronunciation of the name of the God of Israel has been totally lost. Israel’s faith was the only worthy faith in antiquity. It was the world’s first monotheism and is the only ancient faith to have become truly a world religion. It was unique in being wholly spiritual and without a material representation of the deity. It was also unique, unfortunately, in its loss of the pronunciation of the deity’s name. The situation is strange indeed and would hardly have been forecast by those sincere men who felt that they dared not pronounce the ineffable name lest they should profane it. The result seems really to have been a profanation of a different kind. Not to use the name of God seems to profane it just as the coarse use of the Name would have done. But the facts are plain. The ancient Hebrews, naturally, pronounced and wrote the name of God.”—The Law and the Prophets, edited by John H. Skilton, Nutley, New Jersey, 1974, page 215.

The Israelites knew that should they forget Jehovah’s name, God himself would “search this out.” (Psalm 44:20, 21) Subsequently, when this happened, he “turned his attention to the nations to take out of them a people for his name.” (Acts 15:14) While we today do not know precisely how to pronounce the divine name in Hebrew, a suitable and an adequate rendering of the Tetragrammaton (the four Hebrew consonants representing the name) into English is Jehovah. Today, more than three million people are known as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they are happy to bear the name of their God and to be identified with it.

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