Unbroken? – 2 - Wednesday July 15, 2015
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. . . . Hebrews 4:12 ESV
The Bible powerfully changes lives. I read the biography of Louis Zamperini, Unbroken, a couple years ago. A movie based on it came out last year. Zamperini was an Olympic runner. After World War II breaks out, Zamperini is on a bomber in the Pacific. His plane goes down. He and one other crewman survive on a raft for 47 days! Then they are picked up by a Japanese boat. He spends the next couple years in a POW camp facing unbelievable abuse. He’s subjected to physical and psychological torture—for years. There was a particularly evil guard, nicknamed the Bird, who made it his mission to break Zamperini. It is a powerful, tragic story. When I read of the war ending and the prisoners leaving the camp, I started crying, imagining what these men went through, to survive unbroken.
But that is not all of the story. Zamperini returned to the United States and got married. Happily ever after, right? No, he became an alcoholic, he was a broken man. He was tormented by nightmares from the POW camp. Then his wife invited him to a Billy Graham crusade. He refused to go for days, but eventually did. The message of salvation and forgiveness found in the Bible changed his life forever. He accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. His whole life changed. He stopped drinking, forgave his former captors, and the nightmares stopped. He even had a chance to go back to Japan and speak to some of the guards who treated him so poorly. A number of them came up, and he hugged them—they were dumbstruck by his forgiveness. God transformed him through the Bible!
Submitted by:
Josh Whitney
Frontline 2014
Is the Whole Bible True?,
One-Year Reading Plan:
1 Chronicles 19:1-21:30
Romans 2:25-3:8
Psalms 11:1-7
Proverbs 19:10-12
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SCRIPTURE REFERENCB-ES: Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible B) The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy, Bible, New International Version, copyright B) 1973, 1978, 1984 by InternaB-tional Bible Society; (NKJV) are from New King James Version B) 1982 by Thomas Nelson; (NLT) are from the New Living Translation, B) 1996, Tyndale House Publishers; (ESV) are from English Standard VersionB., B) 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers; (TM) are from The Message B) 1993 by NavPress Publishers.