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THE GAME OF MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION (2 OF 4)

by Jeff Strite

Scripture: Matthew 5:43-48
This content is part of a series.


The Game of Mutually Assured Destruction (2 of 4)
Series: The Games of Life
Jeff Strite
Matthew 5:43-48

OPEN: (We showed a picture of a checker board on the overhead)
What is this game?
That's right, it's a checkers game.
How many of you have ever played checkers? (almost everyone held up their hands)

You know, I did not realize it until I began my research for this morning's sermon, but checkers is one of the oldest games known to man. Archaeologists think the earliest form of the game was unearthed in an archaeological dig in the ancient city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia, which is now modern day Iraq around the year 3000 B.C.

Egypt had their own form of the game (called Alquerque) around 1400 B.C. (about the time Moses led the people of Israel out of their slavery and to the Promised Land).

Now neither of those games looked quite like the form of checkers that we play now. That happened around 1100 A.D. when an innovative Frenchmen made the game board bigger with more spaces.

In 1847 the first championship award was given and to this day checker championships are held around the world. The US Tourney (for example) was held this last year in Louisville, KY.
There are Women's championships.
Men's championships.
AND there are WORLD championships like the one held in Italy last July.

Now, when I play checkers I don't give much thought to the game. I jump the other guy's pieces and try to get as many of mine to be Kinged. But when you get to the championships, these folks take the game very seriously and they have strategies and gambits that I have never thought of. There's the ''Double Corner Master Opening'', the ''Fife'' Opening, the ''Spider Web'' and the ''Zorro Trap''.
In fact, these folks have the game down so well, that in championship tournaments there are 3 specific plays that are illegal because those moves would give the player an unfair advantage from the very beginning.

And there's one oddity to the game that purists hol ...

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