A Peanut Between Two Elephants- By Ray Comfort
Many years ago I asked God to cause things to happen to me that I could use as sermon illustrations. There have been times that I regretted that prayer--from the time I caught on fire while making a cup of tea (I wasn't injured), to where I have hung for a second by my wedding ring from the top rung of a ladder. These weren't too much fun at the time, but they made great sermon illustrations.
Since praying that prayer, my life has become an interesting adventure. Take for instance a recent trip I took to Denver, accompanied by my manager (Mark Spence) and Kirk Cameron's parents. We went there for the Christian Booksellers Convention.
One of my publishers very kindly decided to design the theme of their booth around one of my new books, Intelligent Design versus Evolution. I decided that I would do my part and take Link--our 6' 6" fake gorilla to Denver. Link is very realistic, and has a mechanized head. I didn't trust the "gorillas" (as they are often called) who handle the baggage, so I purchased a seat for him on the plane.
As we unloaded Link onto the sidewalk at Los Angeles airport, an LAPD squad car with two smiling officer's turned on their vehicle's loud speaker and broadcast, "No gorillas allowed on the plane!" I was acutely aware of that fact, after calling eight airlines and asking if we could take a "relative" onto the plane. This was for or TV program and a video called "The Science of Evolution." When they found that my relative was a real orangutan every one of the airlines said that he would have to go into the cargo hold. They intuitively knew that an orangutan on a plane could go ape.
We checked in Link's legs, and then wheeled the rest of him through security. Other than people asking for pictures of us together, and two police officers telling us to stop monkeying around, there were no problems. That is, until I placed him on the seat next to me. He didn't fit. His chest was about 55 inches, and so that put his left arm onto my seat.
A few minutes later I saw a sight I could hardly believe. A monster of a man walked down the aisle and sat next to me. He was huge. So huge I told him that I used to make leather jackets and suede coats to order for people, and guessed his chest size. I was right. This man had a 60" chest. I had been on around 2,000 flights and had never sat next to anyone this big. With Link on one side and him on the other I felt like a peanut between two fully grown elephants. When the woman in front put her seat back, I didn't even have room to even work on my laptop.
Derek Bigchest was an atheist who backslid as I talked about proof for God's existence. It turned out that he was another product of the modern gospel. He had tried Jesus in his teenage years and the world turned out to be more attractive than the life he was promised. I have always maintained that if you address someone's conscience, you won't find yourself going down sidetracks like the monkey trail of evolution. A testimony to the power of biblical evangelism was that despite overwhelming presence of a huge gorilla beside us, the subject of evolution didn't even come up.
On the way to our hotel in Denver, the taxi stopped at some lights. Suddenly my eyes met those of a homeless and hopeless looking girl. Her sign and her eyes pleaded for help. I didn't have time to question if she was legitimate. I quickly grabbed $5 and a tract and asked the driver to wind his window down. She stepped up, he passed her the money, and she said a sincere "Thank you!" He said, "Be careful!" She turned around and was almost struck by a car that was speeding through the now green light. It must have missed her by inches.
How I thank God it didn't strike her. What a horror it would have been to see her die in such a way. And die she would have in an instant, if she had turned to leave just one half a second before she did.
It was a vivid reminder of how transient this life is, and how speedily death can take any one of us, if God allows it.
The next day I pushed Link onto the busiest escalator I had ever seen. We had arrived at the convention at opening time and there must have been 5,000 people in the lobby, all trying to get up the escalator. At the top, I pushed Link forward but unfortunately a bump at the top caused him to slump to the left and fall off the wheels on which he was traveling. I didn't panic, but the 5,000 people who were on the escalator behind me certainly did. It's amazing how human beings begin to yell as they pile up on one another. I quickly pulled Link up, and lifted the wheels over whatever was catching them. It's also amazing how one small man and a slumped gorilla can cause so much havoc in such a short space of time.
What a huge stumbling block evolution is for humanity! It hinders so many from entering the Kingdom of God, that is, until we learn how to evangelize biblically and speak to the human conscience to clear the way.
We set Link up at the publisher's booth. Then we plugged him in and watched his mechanized head turn. It was worth buying him a seat. His presence added class to an already classy booth.
That night, an alarm went off at the hotel in which we were staying. As Mark Spence and I quickly walked down the stairs, two other patrons were on their way up. Over the sound of the alarm we heard them say, "Go back up. The management told us it's a false alarm." Other evacuees believed them, turned around and without question went back up the stairs. Mark and I kept evacuating. Both of us were reminded of how in 2001, thousands were told to stay in Tower Two of the World Trade Center, because there was no danger.
How quickly this world believes it when they are told (despite the alarm of their conscience) that there is no danger when it comes to sin. God is love and all is well. How true the scripture-"There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death."
The bookseller's convention was predictably tiring. They always are. Author's sign books, buyers get free copies. Authors hope that the buyers will then buy. Sometimes they do. But amidst the necessary routine, there are always highlights. One was when Tim Lahaye shook my hand and said, "I've been meaning to write and tell you that I love The Evidence Bible." It was a great encouragement.
On the flight back home, Link's legs were lost on the last leg of the journey. Thanks to the incompetence of the airline "gorillas," we had a missing link (partly). This greatly concerned me because we used him each Saturday to help draw a crowd for our open air preaching, and their incompetence left him without a leg to stand on. A three-foot gorilla doesn't have the pull of one that normally stands head and shoulders above the crowd. The missing legs confirmed that I had made the right decision not to trust the airline with his torso.
During those two days of travel, Link turned more heads than his own head had turned since his conception. I travel with Kirk Cameron and we are both continually amazed at the power of his celebrity, but Link easily out-turned Kirk. Hundreds of strangers smiled at me as though they knew me, and they took every tract I offered. I gave out hundreds of Million Dollar Bills with only one refusal, and even he was very polite.
So if you want people to take tracts like they were going out of fashion, don't wait for a celebrity to call you; simply find your own missing Link and wheel him through a busy airport.