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Showing 476 to 500 of 975 results

476. The Un-Parade

Matthew 16:21-28, Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Robert Noblett

In the section of the country where we live, February and March are always cold and slushy months. So come April, nothing dampens my ardor for the coming of spring. I’m ready for it! Part of the reason I am ready for it is the fact that warm weather means the return of parades, and as the song says it, "I love a parade!" A community in which we lived some years back boasted the first Bicentennial parade in the nation, and well do I remember a family’s invitation to share that event with them from the bluff ...

477. Habakkuk

Habakkuk 3:1-19

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

Gratitude is one of the noblest words in the English language. It pictures us at our best. Conversely, ingratitude reveals a person at his or her worst. "How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!"2 lamented King Lear. Thoughtful people everywhere, of all ages, faiths, and cultures have extolled gratitude. Let us think of gratitude as it relates to our American Thanksgiving. For most of us, Thanksgiving means eating. First we stuff the turkey then we stuff ourselves. We go to a ...

478. God Made Me Do It!

Genesis 45:1-28

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

"God sent me," "God made me" - strange words for most people to say! We say instead, "The devil made me do it!" It is almost remarkable then, that in a few short verses in the text, Joseph says four times: "God sent me," "God made me." Joseph feels that all of his life is under the guiding hand of God. Since God is his master, Joseph feels that no matter what happens - of good or bad - sadness or joy - God is in it and nothing can touch him but that God will ultimately work it out for the best. Things did ...

479. Justification and Reconciliation

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

Two fundamental and interrelated concepts in Paul’s message of salvation are justification and reconciliation. When the apostle speaks of salvation in terms of vicarious sacrifice and redemption, he is describing salvation as a purely objective salvation-occurrence. The saving sacrifice has already been made. The redemptive deed has already been done. The victory over the forces of evil has already been won. Justification and reconciliation, on the other hand, show how what Christ has done can become for ...

480. The Narrowness Of The Christian Way - 1950 (date estimated)

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

It is perfectly possible to tell a lie without saying anything untrue. As a matter of fact, the most effective liars are those who never deliberately say anything that is not so; they simply tell a piece of the truth and refuse to tell all of it. Let me illustrate the lying power of partial truth. I know a man who, with two other men, deliberately planned to get a fourth man in a particular situation where he would be utterly at the mercy of the three men. It would then be possible for them to kill their ...

481. The Evangelism Of Emphasis - 1946

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

Emphasis on evangelism is essential to vital Christianity. The evangelization of the world is its main business. But this means vastly more than a matter of additional church members. It is, above all else, a matter of transformed, empowered personalities. Evangelism means preaching the gospel to secure conversions. The essence of the gospel that the Christian Church is supposed to proclaim is simply this: "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; they are become new ...

482. EPISODE 4: THE FOURTH WEEK IN LENT

Drama

Robert Clausen

ACT II EPISODE 4: THE FOURTH WEEK IN LENT JOHN MARTHA JESUS MARY SECOND CLERGYMAN LAZARUS (Non-speaking: PETER, THOMAS, JUDAS) [MARTHA is alone. JOHN enters to her.] JOHN: Martha! MARTHA: John ... you’ve finally come? JOHN: We didn’t know how bad things were. MARTHA: But we sent word to Jesus days ago. JOHN: I know. It’s very strange. He didn’t seem ... MARTHA: He didn’t seem to care? JOHN: No. Not that at all. I can’t explain it. MARTHA: Where is he now? JOHN: Just up the street. MARTHA: Isn’t he...? JOHN ...

483. Thorns and Roses

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Around the turn of the century a young man named Clarence took his girlfriend on a summer outing. They took a picnic lunch out to a picturesque island in the middle of a small lake. She wore a long dress with about a dozen petticoats. He was dressed in a suit with a high collar. Clarence rowed them out to the island, dragged the boat into shore, and spread their picnic supplies beneath a shade tree. So hypnotized was he by her beauty that he hardly noticed the hot sun and perspiration on his brow. Softly ...

484. This Adulterous Generation

Matthew 5:27-30, Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

A cartoon in a national magazine showed Moses with two stone tablets under his arm coming down from Mount Sinai. He said to the Israelites, "I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that I got Him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery is still in there." The seventh commandment is very simple: "You shall not commit adultery." The word adultery means the sexual involvement of a married person with someone other than his or her spouse. In the original Hebrew it meant to add something to a ...

485. The Glory of Christ

John 17:6-19, John 17:1-5

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

Call To Worship Leader: Let us gather together all who seek the glory of the Lord! People: Let us know the glory Jesus came to show us on the Cross. Leader: Let us share the Glory Jesus gave to us in the resurrection. People: Let our lives be in Christ that all might come to know God's love. Leader: Let us lift our voices in praise and song for the glory of God. All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect O God, in one of the great paradoxes You used total rejection to bring forth redeeming love. Fill us ...

486. Perhaps Next Summer...

Acts 24:1-27

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

The poet said it: "The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year." And suddenly, it came to us this past week that summer was over. Unbelievably, it was the first day of autumn. Actually, we don’t regret the passing of any other season, but, somehow, it is different with the summer. We all look sadly at each other and ask: "Where did it go to?" We all have the frightening feeling that something precious has slipped through our fingers. Somehow, the days went by and we didn’t savor them like we ...

487. PLASTERER

Lev. 14:43; Daniel 5:5

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

Leviticus 14:43 - "If the disease breaks out again in the house, after he has taken out the stones and scraped the house and plastered it," Daniel 5:5 - "Immediately the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand; and the king saw the hand as it wrote." From early times, people have known how to secure lime for plastering walls by burning limestone until it yielded white caustic alkaline earth. The Egyptians plastered their stone ...

488. POTTER

Jer. 18:4; Rom. 9:21

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

Jeremiah 18:4 - "And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do." Romans 9:21 - "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lamp one vessel for beauty and another for menial use?" The exact origin of pottery is not known, although its use is traced to Neolithic times, and probably discovered accidentally that clay could be shaped by hand and then that it could be hardened by the sun. ...

489. Advertised Goodness

Matthew 6:1-2, Matthew 6:5-6

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Children and adults, listen as I tell you the legend of the proud frog. This frog wanted to visit his cousins in a pond several miles away, but that's a long journey for a slow moving frog. But in the pond where he resided, there were some Canadian geese. The observant frog noted how much they liked corn. This enterprising frog found a flat, strong stick about four feet long. He approached the geese with a proposition: "If two of you will take the two ends of this stick in your mouths, I will clamp my ...

490. Right on the Money!

Proverbs 10:1-32

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

One day a mother was having a deep discussion with her 12- old daughter about values. She said, "Honey, What you need in order to survive in this world is faith in God and a good sense of humor." The daughter thought about that and then, with a twinkle her eye, said, "It also helps to have a credit card." How thoroughly American is that 12-year-old. We are a credit culture. Partly because of the credit cards, many of us have le irresponsible and undisciplined in our finances. If the average 65-year-old ...

491. Mary's Revolutionary Song

Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

At home I have a yellow copy of one of the world's most revolutionary documents. In it are found these immortal words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Of course, that document, the Declaration of Independence, is the charter of the American Revolution. Though we have not yet lived up to it, it has been the vision that inspires us. The only document I know that is more revolutionary is in our Bible. It is called the Magnificat and is found in Luke, chapter 1, ...

492. The Wolf and the Lamb Inside Us

Isaiah 11:1-16

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Try to imagine a world in which the wolf and the lamb will share the same stall. The leopard and the baby goat will sleep together. A little child will put halters on a lion and a calf and lead them around. The lion will eat straw like the oxen. A little child will reach down into a cobra's den and not be harmed. That's what the world will be like one day, according to Isaiah the prophet. At some future time the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the oceans are with water; then no ...

493. Our Scheduled Appointments with God

Hebrews 10:19-39

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

That epic movie "Titanic" is breaking attendance records at the theaters, proving yet again that the awful tragedy of 1912 continues to fascinate people. 1645 passengers died that night in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. Over 600 were saved. As the movie demonstrates, most of the survivors were people who stayed close together and encouraged one another. That same principle applies in our faith journey. The evil one (Satan, the devil) is angered by every profession of faith in Christ. Each person ...

494. Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?

Luke 9:18-27

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

In Douglas Southall Freeman’s classic biography of the famous Southern commander, Robert E. Lee, he tells about a young mother who brought her baby to him to be blessed. General Lee took the infant in his arms, looked at it, and then said to the mother, “Teach him that he must deny himself.” Both of our scriptural texts for today agree wholeheartedly with General Lee. The prophet Joel declared, “Return to the Lord with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” Jesus said, “If any want to become my ...

495. Song of the Vineyard

Isaiah 5:1-7

Illustration

Larry Powell

Three observations about Isaiah’s "Song of the Vineyard": 1. It was a song. That is to say, it was a marked variation in the prophet’s manner of proclamation. Isaiah was an eloquent, forthright orator, not a balladeer. It has been suggested that the reason for this temporary departure in style may have been the circumstances at that particular time. Deuteronomy 16:13-16 describes the carnival-like atmosphere which occurred in the ancient Feast of Booths. Some commentators have surmised that Isaiah rendered ...

496. The Richest Hill On Earth

John 19:17-27

Sermon

Robert Allen

All of us have taken trips that were memorable. There are certain vacations that stick in our minds. Perhaps, we were lying on a beach on a tropical island. Perhaps, the crisp cold wind was whipping against our face as we skied down the side of a mountain. Perhaps, we simply curled up with a good book and forgot about our everyday routines. We all have memories of certain trips or vacations that are as clear today as they were when we took them. Many years ago, I was with my family on vacation in Montana. ...

497. Blessed among Women

Luke 1:39-45, 1 Samuel 2:1-11

Sermon

Erskine White

"And Elizabeth ... exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’ " (Luke 1:42) No one knows what she looked like. European artists have made her look European. African artists have made her look African. Native American artists have drawn her in their image, as have artists from South America, the Far East and nearly every other part of the world as well. In a sense, she has become the universal woman, adapted in every generation to every race and culture ...

498. Resurrection: From Sin to a Second Chance

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

The afternoon sun was waning as the shepherd boy, David, led his sheep down the well-worn path that led from the green pastures to the pool of still water where his flock would quench their thirst before heading back to the fold. He glanced back at the flock following him; then stopped and looked more closely. Where was Ayin, his big ram? One of the lambs was gone, too. The shepherd boy shaded his eyes against the late afternoon sun. In the distance he saw the big ram lumbering down the hill along a ...

499. All-Out Love

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

James W. Robinson

Jesus is now in Jerusalem, where the death he has predicted is little more than a breath away. His enemies are closing in, firing salvos of accusations impugning his religious orthodoxy and his loyalty to Caesar. They hope to find blasphemy and treason in his responses. What pastor has not found himself in somewhat the same situation? The telephone rings in the parsonage, manse, or rectory. A caller, who prefers to remain anonymous, launches a mini-probe of the pastor’s beliefs about heaven and hell, and ...

500. Take a Close Look (At the Widow)!

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

James W. Robinson

Mark is a marvel when it comes to storytelling. He is the O. Henry of the New Testament, a magician with words, who squeezes a novel into a paragraph or two. His skill is nowhere more evident than in his account of the widow with the two coins at the temple treasury. It is a gem of a short story. He makes it so easy for us to visualize the woman as she waits patiently in line to drop her offering into the chest with the trumpet-shaped tube. Without going into a detailed character study, he makes us feel ...

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