In 1519, an extraordinary man set sail on the final leg of a voyage from the shores of Cuba to the Yucatan Peninsula of what is now Mexico. On 11 ships he led 500 soldiers, 100 sailors, and 16 horses. Their mission was clear: to take the world’s richest treasure! It was the Aztec treasure of gold, silver, artifacts, and jewels. It had been held by the same army for 600 years. The treasure was not a secret. The world knew about this treasure because army after army had tried to take it. Conqueror after conqueror had come with their forces to take the treasure, but nobody had been able to do it. Not for 600 years.

 

 

 

b. He talked about how their lives would be changed once they had the treasure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.      When they arrived at the Yucatan Peninsula, Cortez gathered everybody on the beach. They grew quiet, waiting for Cortez to say, “You go here, we’ll go there. If the arrows start flying, meet me at this coconut stump…we’re out of here.” 

 

 

7.      When the men said “no way” he repeated, “Burn the boats. Torch the boats. If we go home,” he added, “we’re going home in their boats.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Rom. 8:29—“For whom God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son,…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a. “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect,”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.       God can use you now!

 

 

 

 

a. It doesn’t matter if your parents liked your sister more than you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Adversity introduces a man to himself

 

2. Helen Keller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. “One hop at a time” (Double amputee Don Bennett on how he climbed 14,410 Mt. Rainer)

 

 

 

 2. When you get to heaven, God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the race the successful runner was summoned from the floor of the stadium to the judge’s seat to receive the prize. This prize was a wreath of leaves. At Athens after the time of Solon, the Olympic victor also received the sum of 500 drachmae. Moreover, he was allowed to eat at public expense, and was given a front row seat at the theater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

d. The time when God calls each believer up to heaven and into His presence

 

1. It will be the moment when we receive the prize which has been an unattainable goal in earthly life

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was in the critical days of World War II, and England faced the need for increased coal production.

 

The Prime Minister called a meeting of labor leaders to give them the facts and enlist their support in his inimitable way of using imagination and power oratory. He closed his presentation by picturing in their minds a parade that would surely be held in Piccadilly Circus after the war was over. There would come the men of the Royal Navy whom everyone would know had kept the vital sea-lanes open. There would pass the Army who had come home from Dunkirk and then gone on to defeat Rommel in Africa and fight under Montgomery in Berlin. There would come the Air Force who had driven the Luftwaffe out of the sky and beat it at its own game. Then, he said, last of all, there would come a great host of sweat-stained soot-streaked miners. Someone would cry out from the crowd, “Where were you?” And from ten thousand throats would come the answer: “We were deep in the earth with our faces against the coal.” Winston Churchill sat down to a wildly cheering throng, many with tears running down their cheeks.