Back before the collapse of communism the government of Poland issued an order that all crucifixes were to be removed from classroom walls, just as they had been banned in factories, hospitals, and other public institutions. Many church leaders protested stirring waves of anger and resentment all across Poland.

Ultimately the government relented, insisting that the law remain on the books, but agreeing not to press for the removal of the crucifixes, particularly in the schoolrooms.

But one zealous Communist school administrator decided that the law was the law. So one evening he had seven large crucifixes removed from lecture halls where they had hung since the school’s founding in the twenties. Days later, a group of parents entered the school and hung more crosses. The administrator promptly had these crosses taken down as well.

The next day two-thirds of the school’s six hundred students staged a sit-in. When heavily armed riot police arrived, the students were forced into the streets. Then they marched, crucifixes held high, to a nearby church where they were joined by twenty-five hundred other students from nearby schools for a morning of prayer in support of the protest.

Soldiers surrounded the church. But the pictures from inside of students holding crosses high above their heads flashed around the world. So did the words of the priest who delivered the message to the weeping congregation that morning. “There is no Poland without a cross.”

Charles Colson, “Kingdoms In Conflict”
(Zondervan, ISBN 0-310-39770-7)

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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I leave aside my shoes
– my ambitions,
undo my watch
– my timetable,
take off my glasses
– my views,
unclip my pen
– my work,
put down my keys
– my security,
to be alone with You,
the only true God.

After being with You,
I take up my shoes
to walk in Your ways,
strap on my watch
to live in Your time,
put on my glasses
to look at Your world,
clip on my pen
to write up your thoughts,
pick up my keys
to open Your doors.

-Graham Kings
Source: Unknown

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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There is a vivid picture of Christ’s sacrifice for sin in Mark Twain’s novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

The story tells the adventures of an ordinary man (the Connecticut Yankee) from the 19th century, who is transported back to the medieval world of King Arthur. At one point he convinces King Arthur to dress like a peasant and take a journey through his kingdom. The results are generally laughable as the king, completely oblivious to life in the trenches, tries to carry on with all the pomp of the court while those around him simply think he is crazy.

But there is a touching chapter titled “The Smallpox Hut” describing how the king and his companion happen upon a beggar’s hovel. The husband lies dead, and the wife tries to warn them away: “For the fear of God, who visits with misery and death such as be harmless, tarry not here, but fly! This place is under his curse….”

The woman asks the king to go into the loft and check on their child. “It was a desperate place for him to be in, and might cost him his life,” observes the Yankee, “but it was no use to argue with him.”
The king disappears up a ladder looking for the girl.

“There was a slight noise from the direction of the dim corner where the ladder was. It was the king descending. I could see that he was bearing something in one arm, and assisting himself with the other. He came forward into the light; upon his breast lay a slender girl of 15. She was but half conscious; she was dying of smallpox. Here was heroism at its last and loftiest possibility, its utmost summit; this was challenging death in the open field unarmed, with all the odds against the challenger, no reward set upon the contest, and no admiring world in silks and cloth-ofgold to gaze and applaud; and yet the king’s bearing was as serenely brave as it had always been in those cheaper contests where knight meets knight in equal fight and clothed in protecting steel. He was great now; sublimely great. The rude statues of his ancestors in his palace should have an addition-I would see to that; and it would not be a mailed king killing a giant or a dragon, like the rest. It would be a king in commoner’s garb bearing death in his arms.”

There is Jesus on the cross! A king in commoner’s garb bearing sinners in his arms.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

Learn More…