Synonyms: renounce, relinquish, dispense with, forswear, disclaim, disown, disavow, discard, wash one's hands of, give up, stop, cease, drop, forgo, desist from, have done with, abjure, abstain from, discontinue, break off, refrain from, set/lay aside, desert, leave, leave high and dry, turn one's back on, cast aside, break (up) with, vacate, quit, evacuate, withdraw from, surrender, cede, yield, indulge in, give way to, give oneself up to, yield to, lose oneself to/in, uninhibitedness, recklessness, lack of restraint, lack of inhibition, unruliness, wildness, impulsiveness, impetuosity, immoderation, wantonness
Antonyms: keep, claim, continue, stick by, self-control, power through, achieve, defend, bear, hope, acquire, quick visit, adopt, continue along, adhere, remain, pursue, support, take up, keep up, reuse, advocate, stay, persevere, cherish, keep going, carry on
Showing 526 to 550 of 975 results
Sermon
King Duncan
Every pastor would like to have the kind of response to a sermon that Peter had on the Day of Pentecost. Three thousand people were added to the church after Peter had finished. Even more importantly, three thousand people had their lives profoundly changed. For most of them it was a change that would make them a pariah in their community and even in their own family. Some would go on to die for their faith. Their faith was no surface affair. It involved a complete commitment to the work of God. There is a ...
527. Ultimate Freedom
Matthew 11:25-30
Sermon
King Duncan
The battle cry in our society over the past two decades has been freedomfreedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from discrimination, political freedom, economic freedom, sexual freedom. We want to be free! This is that week in our life as a nation when we celebrate our freedom. For Christians, however, every Sunday morning worship service ought to be a celebration of freedom. Maybe we should replace our Call to Worship with a fireworks display and our organ with a brass band. There is no greater ...
Sermon
King Duncan
There is one similarity between mice and men. None of us wants to die. Self preservation is one of the strongest instincts in living creatures. And yet high in the Scandinavian mountains lives a small mouselike creature that every few years commits mass suicide. The creatures are called lemmings. They have given us the phrase, "like lemmings headed for the sea," for that is what they do. Every few years when their population has grown too large and the food supply has become too scarce they leave their ...
529. Eat And Live
John 6:25-59
Sermon
King Duncan
This morning we want to talk about food. That's a relevant subject for most of us. The two biggest sellers in any bookstore, according to Andy Rooney, are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it. Orson Welles once said, "My doctor has advised me to give up those intimate little dinners for four, unless, of course, there are three other people eating with me." Champion archer Rick McKinney confesses that he ...
Sermon
King Duncan
We Americans are suckers for the underdog. We ought to appreciate the story of Samuel Logan Brengle. Brengle gave up an opportunity to pastor one of the largest churches in Mid-America in order to join the ranks of the Salvation Army when that organization was just getting established in the United States. One of his early assignments was in Danbury, Connecticut, where Brengle’s entire congregation often numbered less than a dozen people. Determined to reach Danbury with the Gospel, each evening Brengle ...
Sermon
King Duncan
There are certain texts in the Bible that have a built-in excitement about them. There is no text more exciting than this morning ™s. Imagine if you will a great grandstand-the largest grandstand ever constructed-larger than that erected for the Kentucky Derby or the Indianapolis 500 or any Super Bowl. This great stadium is filled to capacity with spectators come to witness a racea race with vital consequences. At the starting block of that race are you and I. All eyes are upon us as we begin crouching ...
Sermon
King Duncan
There is a time-honored story about a skeptic who was continually harassing the local pastor. His one delight in life seemed to be making the pastor appear inadequate intellectually. The pastor bore these challenges to his theology and faith with great restraint. One day the skeptic was heckling the pastor about his views on miracles. "Give me one concrete example of a miracle," the skeptic taunted. "One concrete example." Whereupon the pastor hauled off and kicked the skeptic furiously on the shin. The ...
Sermon
King Duncan
TIME magazine, January 27, 1992: There is an article that will tear your heart out. It is titled, "Corridors of Agony." It tells the stories of children caught in the almost hopeless jungle of our juvenile courts. There is Antwan, age 10. His mother warned him about the drug dealers who hang around the playground where he spends hours each day. A mother's warnings are no match for threats by street thugs, though. These thugs know how to shield themselves from the law. They keep a small child nearby when ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Did you ever notice that some people always get it wrong? Paul Harvey, in his book FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, tells about a county jail in south Florida where jail officials found a plastic trash bag hanging to the bars of a cell. Inside was Jimmy Jones, a prisoner who hoped he'd get taken out with the trash. And he might have -- except during roll call his reflexes took over. And when the name Jimmy Jones was called... From inside the bag came a muffled response: "Here." Some people just can't get it right. But ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Motivational speaker Danny Cox tells an interesting story in his book, Seize the Day. Danny and his wife took a hot air balloon trip early one morning in Africa. As the balloon rose gracefully, they saw a herd of wildebeest running frantically across the vast expanse below. The herd stopped suddenly and began looking around as if they were confused. Danny asked their pilot why the herd had stopped so suddenly and what they were looking for. He told them that the wildebeest, which migrate by the millions ...
536. Trees
Jeremiah 16:1--17:18
Sermon
King Duncan
"I think that I shall never see," wrote Joyce Kilmer, "a poem as lovely as a tree." Trees are lovely and, like people, they come in so many varieties. Some, like the giant sequoias in California, are large enough to drive a car through. Others, like the slender, ungainly dogwood, remind us of the cross of Christ. Easterners see a palm tree and they think of Florida or the coastal areas of the Carolinas or Georgia. In the springtime tourists flock to Washington, D. C. to enjoy trees filled with cherry ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Nicodemus was probably an old man when he came to Jesus. He was confronted with the reality of a body that was no longer as vigorous as it once was. He was also conscious of dreams that would never be fulfilled. It's not easy to age, is it? Even middle-age is disconcerting to some of us. Someone has made a list of the Top Ten Ways You Can Tell if You're Middle-Aged. 10. You rank the invention of remote control TV right up there with the discovery of fire, the invention of the light bulb, and elastic ...
Sermon
Eric Ritz
As we open our lesson today, we see a conflict brewing. Actually there are two conflicts. Let's label them "the fast" and "the past." Let's deal first of all with the fast. When our lesson opens, the Pharisees and even the disciples of John the Baptist are fasting. Jesus and his disciples are not. To the casual spectator it might appear that Jesus is not paying proper tribute to his faith. Other religious people are fasting. He refuses. What gives with him anyway? We need to know that Jesus practiced ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Two centuries before Christ, King Ptolemy of Egypt wanted a lighthouse built in Alexandria, Egypt. Ptolemy was a proud king. He wanted his name engraved at the top of the lighthouse. The builder carried out his orders, but first, he carved his own name in the stone. Then he plastered over his name and engraved the name of the king. The salt spray, wind, and rain gradually loosened the plaster, which erased the king's name completely. This left only the real builder's name. The builder had the last laugh, ...
Sermon
King Duncan
A 6th grade teacher posed the following problem to her arithmetic classes: "A wealthy man dies and leaves ten million dollars. One-fifth is to go to his wife, one-fifth is to go to his son, one-sixth to his butler, and the rest to charity. Now, what does each get?" After a very long silence in the classroom, little Joey raised his hand. The teacher called on Joey for his answer. With complete sincerity in his voice, Joey answered, "A lawyer!" He's probably right. Where there is a will, there is often a ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Former President Reagan told a humorous story during the last days of his administration. It was about Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. It seems that Dumas and a friend had a severe argument. The matter got so out of hand that one challenged the other to a duel. Both Dumas and his friend were superb marksmen. Fearing that both men might fall in such a duel they resolved to draw straws instead. Whoever drew the shorter straw would then be pledged to shoot ...
Sermon
King Duncan
I am always thrilled and uplifted by the faith of little children. Maybe that is why when anyone sends me a list of CHILDREN'S LETTERS TO GOD, I read them not only with a smile, but also with a sigh: Oh, to have faith like that. Here are a few that are circulating right now: God, Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? --Norma Dear God, Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't You just keep the ones You have now? -- Jane Dear God, Who draws the ...
Sermon
King Duncan
(Thanksgiving) The juxtaposition is startling--the Thanksgiving feast we have just enjoyed and our text for the day: " . . . I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me water; I was a stranger and you invited me into your homes; naked and you clothed me, sick and in prison and you visited me." (Mt. 25: 35-36 The Living Bible). And yet what better day is there than this one--between the celebration of Thanksgiving, the one day when gluttony is transformed from a sin to a sacrament and Advent ...
544. Bearing The Right Fruit
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Sermon
King Duncan
There was an absurd newspaper item quite some time ago from Iowa City, Iowa. It concerned a woman whose palms suddenly started bleeding. A researcher who examined her said that the wounds resembled a certain stigmata that often appears on very religious people. Some of you may have heard of the stigmata. It refers to a condition where people bleed from the palms, especially around Good Friday, resembling the bleeding hands of Jesus on the cross. And this lady in Iowa City had these same kind of wounds on ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Over the years, a certain mythic status has been earned by White House telephone operators, who are rumored to be able to find anybody, anywhere, at any time. President John F. Kennedy once challenged a friend to name someone that the operators wouldn't be able to track down. The friend mentioned writer Truman Capote, who kept an unlisted number. Within thirty minutes, the operator had Capote on the line. The amazing thing about this feat is that Capote was not at his own home in New York at the time. He ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Do you remember Kipling's classic story titled "Letting the Jungle In"? It is the story of a group of people who went into the jungle, made a clearing, brought their livestock, planted their crops, and built their homes. For awhile it was a veritable paradise, until the rain years came and the jungle crept back. Wild animals killed their stock. The prolific vegetation of the jungle moved in faster than they could cope with it. The jungle took back their paradise. Of course, Kipling wasn't writing about the ...
547. Yes, But How?
Romans 7:7-25
Sermon
King Duncan
I believe that every one of us can identify with St. Paul when he cries out in anguish that the good that he would do, he does not; and the evil that he would not do, he does. You might even be tempted to say, "He sounds a lot like me!" We all have good intentions. But we also know where the road that's paved with good intentions leads to! One pastor tells about a man who borrowed a book from an acquaintance. When he read it, he was intrigued to find parts of the book underlined, with the letters YBH in ...
Sermon
King Duncan
A heart patient visited his cardiologist for his two-week follow-up appointment. He informed the doctor that he was having trouble with one of his medications. "Which one?" asked the doctor? "The patch," the man replied, "the nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours, and I've run out of places to put it!" The doctor was flabbergasted. He had the patient quickly undress. The man had over fifty patches on his body! He didn't understand that each time he put on a new patch, he needed to remove the ...
549. Amazing Grace
Romans 5:1-11
Sermon
Edward Inabinet
When Al Smith was the governor of New York, he was invited to speak at Sing Sing prison. He was asked to address a gathering of the prisoners, and he wondered how he should begin. After they ate, he stood up and just automatically said "My fellow Democrats." Well that didn’t suit, because he felt that "no good Democrat should be in prison." So he backtracked and he started again. He said to them, "My fellow citizens." And then he realized that some of those fellows had lost many of the privileges of ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
In 1865, in a small town in Wisconsin, five-year-old Max Hoffman came down with cholera. Three days later, the doctor pulled the sheets over the boy’s head and pronounced him dead. Little Max was laid to rest in the village cemetery. That night, his mother awoke screaming: she had dreamt that her son was turning over in his grave. Trembling with fear, she begged her husband to go to the cemetery and immediately raise the coffin. Mr. Hoffman did his best to calm his wife, assuring her that while her ...
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