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TeacherAide The First Epic SESSION 6 ILLUSTRATING
THE POINT Saddam Refuses to Repent Soon after Saddam Hussein's
capture—out of an eight-foot hole that one observer said was filled with rats
and mice—he was flown to a secret location for a meeting with four members of
Iraq's Governing Council. They wanted to confirm that it was indeed Saddam
Hussein. When the men were offered the chance to see Saddam through a window or
by camera, they said, "No, we want to talk to him." Despite his condition, Saddam
was defiant and unrepentant. Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National
Congress, said: "He was quite lucid. He had command of his faculties. He
would not apologize to the Iraqi people. He did not deny any of the crimes he
was confronted with having done. He tried to justify them." "The world is
crazy," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, one of the council members in the room.
"I was in his torture chamber in 1979, and now he was sitting there
powerless in front of me without anybody stopping me from doing anything to him,
just imagine. We were arguing, and he was using very foul language." The four men spent about 30
minutes in the small room, confronting Saddam with his crimes. As they left, Mr.
Rubaie delivered these final words to the former dictator: "May God curse
you. Tell me, when are you going to be accountable to God and the Day of
Judgment? What are you going to tell him about Halabja and the mass graves, the
Iran-Iraq war, thousands and thousands executed? What are you going to tell
God?" Saddam answered using foul language. Citation:
Ian Fisher, "New
Iraqi Leaders Confront Their Former Dictator", (12-14-03); ACTIVITY
TO ILLUSTRATE Spirit of Offense One of the most common mistakes that
Christians make today is that they carry their emotions on their sleeves. When
someone wrongs us, we hold on to it and allow the anger to build a Spirit of
Offense. Just like Cain, we do not forgive and suffer in our relationship with
God. To get this message across to
students, have a leader put on a long raincoat with a hood (make sure it reaches
to their knees or lower). Begin to slowly pour – drop by drop – some water
onto their head. As the students will see, the water rolls down the jacket
without getting the person wet. Drive home the point that when we allow offense
to build up in our lives, it acts as a raincoat, spiritually. It makes it
difficult to receive anything from God. Then tell them that when they ask for
forgiveness for themselves and the person who offended them, it removes that
Spirit of Offense so they can again receive from God. Show them this by having
the leader remove the raincoat then pour water (drop by drop) on them, showing
that now, with the offense removed, they can receive from God.
Idea from Ryan Kramer THE
MORE YOU KNOW Teens online, ages 12 to 17, revealed
which issues concern them most:
(USA
Today, Oct. 20, 2000) In the UK, the Higher Education Union
is extremely concerned about a new report exposing shocking levels of violence
of students against staff working at higher education schools. The report
revealed over 1,000 incidents of student aggression, sometimes leading to
serious injury, against staff working in universities and colleges. The report added that this figure
could represent the tip of the iceberg because 37 institutions had not reported
their aggression incidents in the past five years. Citation-
AUT The Higher Education Union; June
9, 2005
I
THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY “In the past, I’ve been
able to overcome my fears because of an acute sense of an even greater
fear—that of feeling remorse. You can live with pain. You can live with
embarrassment. Remorse is an awful companion. And whatever the unwelcome
consequences of courage, they are unlikely to be worse than the discovery that
you are less than you pretend to be.”
—Arizona Senator
John McCain “It is a bewildering experience to
come face to face with the fact that you are angry with the almighty Creator of
heaven and earth.”
Nancy Anne Smith “If life is a family, then sin is a
feud between family members.”
Brian McLaren “You may have had a bad start in
life, but you need not have a bad ending.”
Our Daily Bread “We must equip young people to
resist a life of violence. The next step is to present alternative,
biblically-based methods for solving conflict and dealing with the challenges of
urban violence.”
Efrem Smith |