Why do we as a church, as a body of believers exist? 

<p>Why do we as a church, as a body of believers exist? </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

Our Greatest Privilege

Loving Lord, thank you for this beautiful new day, a new day of life, and just pray that you be with us as we consider spiritual things and calibrate our minds towards the mission.

Back in 2008, there was a burglary in Berlin.

Some thieves managed to steal a very expensive and precious gold coin that Canada had lent to a Berlin museum.

It had Queen Elizabeth on 1 side and a maple leaf on the other.

And they're still not sure how these 4 thieves were able to get this coin out of the building, down a ladder, across the street, across some railroad tracks, into a getaway car.

They eventually apprehended some thieves and never did recover the coin.

They're afraid that it's been melted down now and converted to money.

You know, we have a gold rush in America.

I don't know if you know that in Australia they had a gold rush also.

Matter of fact, the largest gold nugget ever found was found in Australia and it weighed 173 pounds.

Like 1 gold nugget, they turned it up with a wagon wheel by accident.

And in Australia, in honor of their gold history, of course in Sacramento, we've, you know, we got a lot of history surrounds us with Sutter Creek and the gold rush in San Francisco.

I think the first gold up here was found actually on Sutter's Mill, if I'm not mistaken.

Well in honor of that in 2011 the Perth Mint, wanting to outdo Canada, They achieved an incredible triumph with a successful casting of the world's largest gold bullion coin.

It's called the Australian Kangaroo 1 Ton Gold Coin.

And this colossal coin is 31 inches around and 4 inches thick.

And it's worth 50 million Australian dollars.

Depending on the economy, their dollar's worth less than ours now, but that's the biggest coin in the world.

It's not the most valuable coin necessarily in the world.

For coin collectors, 1 of the most valuable coins, well there's a few, that depends on what auctioneers or what people will pay at an auction.

For more than a hundred years 1 of the most valuable coins in America has been an 1804 silver dollar.

The coin is dated in 1804 but actually it wasn't made until 1834 which is 1 reason it's so rare.

The president at that time he wanted to mint a number of coins to be gifts for international figures that he was going to be visiting.

And so he asked them to make a limited number of these coins.

But they didn't have a die for 1834 coins.

So they pulled out their old dies that they found from the 1804 coin that was 30 years old and they issued a number of silver.

Now the original 1804 coin dye was made for gold but they use it now for silver.

So they made a limited number of these 1804 silver dollars and the guys in the Mint realized hey you know these are gonna be valuable someday so they made a few extra for themselves that they ended up selling and I think that 1 recently sold 1 coin, a 1 dollar coin, sold for 3000737 dollars in Dallas, Texas.

So Luke 15 verse 8, then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him to hear him.

And the Pharisees and the scribes complained, saying, this man receives sinners and he eats with them.

He talks about the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son.

I'm gonna talk about the lost coin, not very long.

What woman, having 10 silver coins, If she loses 1 coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search successfully until she finds it.

And when she has found it, she calls her friends and her neighbors together saying, rejoice with me, I've found the piece which I lost.

Likewise, I say to you, there will be joy in the presence of the angels of God over 1 sinner who repents.

You ever lost something precious and you had to search for it?

But in Bible times, it's implied these are not coins that are used in regular currency.

Sometimes when a woman got married, different family members would bring them a coin.

Now coins were pretty special because, you know, in the Bible when they paid, coins actually didn't come around until the time of, oh, they became popular in the time of maybe the Persians and the Romans.

Before that, when the children of Israel left Egypt and they got paid for the wages, did they get coins?

Or did it say they spoiled the Egyptians and the Egyptians paid them with gold jewelry?

I don't know why they never thought about just pressing it into equally weighed coins, but back then they gave him bracelets and rings and that's all that was their money back then.

And when Elegazer paid Rebecca for watering his camels he took and gandered her jewelry.

So these were usually something that she received at her wedding as a dowry or gifts and they're very precious and when 1 was gone it was a tragedy and she looked high and low.

Now, you know, it's not 1 of these typical car keys you just plug in, you turn the key, they're 1 of these expensive things that you, see I just lost my chapstick.

I looked online and it's $140 to replace it.

I knew I had it and I looked, I mean you folks would be laughing.

And so I thought, could it have fallen out of my pocket into the trash and the trash now was not full of it wasn't good I mean I dumped the vacuum dust in there and it was it was a mess and I thought well you know for $100 I'd look through the trash And so I didn't look very deep, but I kind of ferreted around in the trash a little bit.

And I went through the laundry hamper and pulled through.

And when you're searching for something, you know, have you ever looked for something, you go back and then you say it was there and I missed it the first time.

So I not only looked in the obvious places once I look like 3 or 4 times I checked my pocket 50 times I mean I'm looking all over the house and Karen I had a lot of other plans for yesterday but I'm looking all over for this key.

Is it occurred to me, I can't start my car unless the key is in the car.

I'll leave the second key in the bedroom and I'll go see if the car starts.

So it's somewhere in the car, but I haven't found it yet.

She's lost one-tenth of something very precious.

Can you think of something biblically that comes in denominations of 10?

By word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path.

The broom is usually something you use for just diligence and work.

Back to Menu

Our Greatest Privilege

Transcript

Description

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine