Sermons

Four Traits of Wise Men! Opening Illustration: In U.S. Navel Institute Proceedings, the magazine of the Naval Institute, Frank Koch illustrates the importance of obeying the Laws of the Lighthouse. Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.  Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow."  "Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out.  The lookout replied, "Steady, Captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.  The captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: ’We are on a collision course, advise you change course twenty degrees.’"  Back came the signal, "A

God With Us! God…In The Flesh Opening Illustration: The Man Who Snuck Into Auschwitz In September of 1940, Witold Pilecki, a Polish army captain, did the unthinkable—he snuck into Auschwitz. That's right, into Auschwitz. Pilecki knew that something was terribly wrong with the concentration camp and as a committed (Roman Catholic) Christian and a Polish patriot he couldn't sit by and watch. He wanted to get information on the horrors of Auschwitz, but he knew he could only do that from the inside. So his superiors approved a daring plan. They provided a false identity card with a Jewish name, and then Pilecki allowed the Germans to arrest him during a routine Warsaw street roundup. Pilecki was sent to Auschwitz and assigned inmate number 4859. Pilecki, a husband and father of two, later said, "I bade farewell to everything I had known on this earth." He became just like any other prisoner—despised, beaten, and threatened with death. From inside the camp h