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Showing 676 to 700 of 2844 results

676. Return to Jerusalem

Acts 20:7-12

Sermon Aid

CSS

Times have changed. It took Paul and his company five days to travel from Philippi to Troas, a journey past some Greek islands that can now be negotiated by steamer in five hours. Ancient Troas or Troy is well remembered because of Homer’s epic stories of its great early glory. Helen of Troy, the beautiful goddess who became an enchanting woman; the long Trojan wars; the episode of the Trojan Horse - what a wealth of mythology and history surrounded the group as they climbed from the ship up the hill and ...

677. Listening or Hearing?

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat there; and the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: "A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were ...

678. Are You Still Frightened of the Dark?

Genesis 1:1-5 · John 1:4-5 · Psalm 139:11-12

Sermon

Robert Noblett

Children go through a period when they are frightened of the dark. They are convinced that there is a robber inside their clothes closet. They are sure there is some kind of ethereal character lurking about in the basement. Beyond a doubt, they are of the conviction that there is a ghost-like essence biding time beneath their bed. Children usually outgrow that stage, but occasionally you find those who don’t, and they carry this fear of the darkness into their adult lives. In one of my former congregations ...

679. Hooray for Humility!

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

My husband John tells of attending a football game a few seasons back in Knoxville, Tennessee, where the battle was between Army and the University of Tennessee. Before the game started, there were some preliminary features. Each side showed off his mascot. UT proudly displayed a beautiful high-stepping horse. A pretty young girl, dressed in riding garb, rode it around the stadium. The horse’s tail was high, his head held high, he lifted his legs proudly as he trotted around the area to the applause of ...

680. Chapter VII

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

"You will not commit adultery" Exodus 20:14 If I had my "druthers" I would skip this Commandment and go on to the next one, because this "word" speaking about sex is a difficult one to deal with frankly and directly. What makes it so hard to do that without beating around the bush is the fact that most people are still skitterish about the subject. Oh, most of us are able to talk about sex with a few choice friends, or in some small groups, but a lot of us still start to get up tight when the subject comes ...

681. Pillars of the Church

Exodus 17:8-16, Colossians 3:1-17

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

A young woman named Linda was driving alone through the lonely area from Alberta, Canada to the Yukon. She spent one night in one of the rare hotels in the area. The next morning in the breakfast area she was seated near two truckers. They asked where she was going. She said "Whitehorse." "In that little Civic?" they asked. "It's dangerous this time of year in this kind of weather." Linda replied, "Well, I'm determined to try." "In that case," one of the truckers said, "We're just going to have to hug you ...

682. Saturday Night And Sunday Morning

Drama

Pamela Urfer

(Maria, Salome, Magdalena and Joanna are sitting together, talking. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is sitting quietly in a corner, praying.) Maria: (Jumping up and beginning to pace up and down.) Where is Peter? I don’t understand it. Shouldn’t he have been here by now? Magdalena: Don’t fuss so! You’re making me nervous. Joanna: Maria’s right. I’m worried too. Do you think they might have caught him? Maria: They could have, Joanna. They’re all over Jerusalem looking for any followers of Jesus who are still in ...

683. Spiritual Blindness

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

"Go your way; your faith has made you well." (v. 52) Blind Bartimaeus! What a haunting theme; what a never-to-be-forgotten scene. It is the concluding narrative in Mark. The setting is Jericho, some fifteen miles from Jerusalem. The point of this dramatic occurrence is simple: Only a blind man saw Jesus. The Sermon At one time, every minister has preached on this text. How could any clergyperson be so unimaginative as to miss it? How vividly I recall a sermon I preached. My parishioners congratulated me on ...

684. The God of the Unlikely

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Moses. One of the genuinely towering figures of the biblical story. Protected by God at his birth, chosen by God as a man, led by God throughout his career, buried by God at his death - as the scripture says, "Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses...unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the LORD sent him to perform...for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power..." Hollywood needs a handsome, powerful Charleton Heston with flowing hair and full beard to ...

685. There's No Such Thing as Too Much Sugar

Psalm 91:1-16

Sermon

David E. Leininger

The Archangel Michael. We meet him here in Revelation as commanding General of God's forces in heaven. We meet him in the book of Daniel as the guardian of the nation of Israel,(1) who, together with Gabriel, fought against the prince (the angelic patron) of Persia. Then we meet him once more in Jude 9 where we read of a strange dispute between the devil and Michael over Moses' body. We meet him today on the liturgical calendar - in some church traditions, today, September 29th, is the Feast Day of St. ...

686. Ephphatha...Be Opened

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

More than a generation of preachers at Princeton Seminary were schooled in their homiletical skills by Dr. Donald Macleod. Among the points Dr. Macleod would make during the semester was the importance of choosing a compelling sermon title. In fact, he asked students to give their sermon title before beginning each sermon. He used to tell of Mrs. O'Leary who would hop on the Fifth Avenue bus on Sunday morning in Manhattan and pass the great churches along that thoroughfare. As the bus would approach each ...

687. Face To Face With The Devil

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

King Duncan

First Sunday of Lent There was a strange story that came out of Vinton, Louisiana last summer. Police there stopped a car with twenty passengers packed in it ” none of whom were clothed. No, this was not a college fraternity prank. According to news reports, Sammy Rodriguez, a Pentecostal preacher from Floydada, Texas, told police he and his family fled Texas in their four cars because the Devil was after them. Along the way they decided their clothes were "possessed" and discarded them along with three ...

688. Why Do We Call Him Good?

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, in his autobiography TREASURE IN CLAY, recounts a visit he made to a leper colony in Buluba, Africa. He intended to give a silver crucifix to each of the 500 lepers residing in Buluba. The first person who came forward, however, was a man so disfigured by the ravages of leprosy that Sheen was repulsed by the sight. The man's left arm was eaten off at the elbow by the disease; so he extended his right hand. This hand, too, was unspeakably corrupted by this awful disease. Unable ...

689. Power Praying

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

King Duncan

A man stopped by a computer store where he'd recently purchased a personal computer. "I have a question about a computer I bought here the other day," he said to a salesman who greeted him enthusiastically. "What kind did you buy?" the salesman asked. "A Crimean Extravaganza 1900," said the customer. "Wow! That's a nice computer," exclaimed the salesman. "It has a 100 megahertz pentium processor, 16 megabytes of ram, a 256 kilobyte pipeline burst cache. It has PCI 64-bit video and a 1.2 gigabyte hard drive ...

690. Living With The Birth Pangs

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon

King Duncan

We made it so far. Nineteen hundred and ninety-six is nearly over and the world is still here. Why shouldn't it be? Glad you asked. Once there was a bishop named Usher who sat down to figure out exactly when the world began. He did it by consulting Scripture. By tracing the begats and other chronological data in the Bible, he deduced that the world was created in 4004 B.C. Some of our older members may remember when it was common practice for King James versions of the Bible to carry a notation in the ...

691. Extreme Sports, Extreme Fashions, Extreme Faith

1 Samuel 3:1--4:1

Sermon

King Duncan

A high school drama class was performing at a local theater. Somehow an accident occurred and a hole was cracked in the stage floor. Carefully the performers avoided the damaged area until little Joey, juggling bowling pins, accidentally stepped through the hole up to his knee. He apologized to the audience for his clumsiness which caused a heckler to shout, "Don't worry, Joey . . . It's just a STAGE you're going through!" We all go through stages, don't we? One of the stages that Generation X seems to be ...

692. Good Neighbors

Luke 10:25-37

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

Object: Bring a box of Band-Aids Today I am going to need your help to tell the story. I will tell the story and you help me with the actions. Jesus was explaining to the people who their neighbor is. He told this story: A man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho (pat legs to sound like walking) and was attacked by robbers. They stripped him and beat him (beat fists on chest) and went off leaving him half dead. A Priest came along the road (pat legs) and just passed on the other side of the road (continue ...

693. Grace Is Not a Blue-eyed Blond

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I often wonder what goes through people’s minds when they hear certain words which we use in church. Words like “incarnation,” “redemption,” and “grace.” I have a hunch that a lot of people confuse incarnation with reincarnation, which is something totally different; and redemption is something one used to do with “green stamps.” As for “grace,” well, that is, indeed, a strange word. Some years ago a minister by the name of R. Lofton Hudson wrote of an experience he had during a conversation with a friend ...

694. So Who Needs A Shepherd?

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

One Sunday morning, following the church service, a layman accosted the pastor and said, “Tom, this church has been insulting me for years, and I did not know it until this week.” The stunned pastor replied, “What on earth do you mean?” “Well,” said the layman, every Sunday morning the call to worship in this church ends with the words, We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.’ And I have heard ministers over the years call the congregation, God’s flock.’ Then this past week I visited ...

695. The Autobiography of God

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Halford Luccock once told of a woman in a certain American city, who called a local minister on the telephone a week or so before Christmas. She was in much agitation, and explained that she was in charge of the community Christmas tree lighting ceremony. What disturbed her was the limited selection of carols to be sung. She could not, she said, find just the right songs for such an occasion. “Most of the Christmas songs,” she said, “are so distressingly theological.” “Well, replied the minister, “ ...

696. The Thirteenth Apostle

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

At the end of the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, there is a curious story of how the eleven remaining apostles filled the vacancy in the band of the Twelve left by Judas’ suicide. The record says that the choice came down to two: a man named “Joseph, called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was enrolled with the eleven apostles.” (Acts 1:23, 26) But Matthias was never heard from again! Evidently some sort of ...

697. Salty Saints

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

“He’s the salt of the earth!” That’s a common expression. We all know what it means. It means that the person is “grand guy, one in a million.” It is a badge of honor, an accolade reserved for someone we admire tremendously. And it all got started in Jesus’ words to His disciples. I. ACTUALLY, AS IT APPEARS IN MARK’S GOSPEL, THE SAYING IS A BIT CONFUSING. Commentators have been tearing their hair out for centuries trying to understand what the verse at the tag end of Jesus’ harsh saying about radical ...

698. What Is Your Response to the Resurrection?

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Were you as surprised or shocked as I was to read that Mark concludes his marvelous Gospel writing in chapter 16, verse 8 with the words, "and they said nothing to anyone--for they were afraid." We know from personal experience that fear is not always a negative response, but to end a portion of God''s word in this way almost seems out of place. However, it is not God''s response to the resurrection that Mark is being honest about; it is the human response. The resurrection was God''s response, but the ...

699. Too Good to Miss

1 Peter 3:8-22

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

C. S. Lewis, in his famous book Mere Christianity, tells the story of a school boy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was "the sort of person who is always snooping round to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it!" Those who see God as that kind of a deity would then most likely see Lent as one long God-filled forty days, when we are to make room in our hearts and our homes for this fun-bashing divine guest, who checks out ...

700. Food That Is Needful

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Listen to a letter I received from a friend of mine in Laurel, Mississippi, a few months ago. "A few years ago when Lessie and I moved back to Laurel I took on the job of trying to sell a farm that was left to Lessie and her two sisters and one brother. After a period of a year or so of being unsuccessful at the task, I decided to buy the other shares and keep the farm in the family for future years. The farm was overgrown because of many years of neglect. One of the beauty spots of the farm that I always ...

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