The King Has One More Move

Image via Wikipedia

Tony Campolo, on Sunday evening, used a version on the story below in his talk.  I had never heard it before but found some evidence that it was used by a younger Billy Graham years before.  It's a truly awesome illustration and would work well on Easter Sunday.  Please forgive me if it makes its way in to next year's sunrise service.

I tried to get one of my students to research this to see whether it was true and I couldn't find out. But I've heard the story that when the great movie, "The Seventh Seal," by Ingmar Bergman was shown in 1958 in New York, Bobby Fischer, who had just won the world championship in chess, was there in the audience. The movie is built around the story of a medieval knight who's playing a game of chess with the prince of darkness. All the way through the film, the prince of darkness is making moves on the knight, trying to trap him. And in the last scene, the prince of darkness makes a move on the chessboard, looks at the knight, and says, "Checkmate." The game is over. And the curtain comes down. Bobby Fischer is reported to have turned to his friend and said, "Why is that knight giving up? Doesn't he see it? Doesn't he see the pieces on the board? The king has one more move. He can win. The king has one more move!"

Now if you can't preach that, you can't preach.

I found this version over HERE in a sermon preached by Campolo earlier this year.