1) The document discusses how the presents piled under large Christmas trees in shopping malls are actually empty boxes, containing nothing. 2) It draws a parallel between these empty boxes and the empty promises of pursuing materialism, hedonism, existentialism, and trends/fashions in the world. 3) The author argues that pursuing the empty boxes and promises of the world will ultimately prove disappointing and meaningless, and encourages the reader to not waste their life on empty worldly pursuits but to instead leave their purpose and choices to God.

1. Empty Boxes
A presentation by Dr. Peter Hammond

3. Empty Boxes
Have you noticed the impressive large Christmas trees
set up in many shopping malls?

4. Surely you have noticed the beautifully wrapped presents
piled up under most of these trees?

5. You will see many children’s eyes wide as they look at these bright,
shiny, shimmering presents, often with attractive ribbons around them?

6. Over the years, when my children were very young,
they each asked: What is in those boxes?

7. The answer is: Absolutely nothing!
They are beautifully wrapped and attractively presented,
but the presents under these Christmas trees
in the shopping malls are all empty!

8. Empty Promises
The world offers so much,
but in the end it turns out to be empty.

9. The world, the flesh and the devil promise you everything
you could possibly desire.

10. If only you will buy their product or service, you are
promised all the fun, fame and fortune you could desire.
All the power, popularity, prestige and possessions
your heart could desire.

11. But like those alluring and attractive looking presents under
the Christmas trees in the mall, the promises of the world turn
out to be disappointingly empty.

12. Those who pursue materialism will find merry go rounds
that get them nowhere, mazes that get them lost and dead-end streets
that will frustrate their desires.

13. Hedonism and existentialism prove to be short sighted,
meaningless, empty and purposeless.

14. What are you searching for?

15. What is your purpose in life?

16. What is in the boxes you have been obtaining from the world?

17. Trends are Treadmills
Do not waste your life on the empty boxes of the world.
The time wasting treadmill of trends, fashions and fads
are ultimately frustrating.

18. Do not settle for less than God's very best.

19. God gives the best to those who leave the choice to Him.

20. "And you will seek Me and find Me,
when you search for Me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29: 30

21. www.FrontlineMissionSA.org