Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1501 to 1525 of 3852 results

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... have done that. Man continually has blamed on God all of the illogical happenstance that he encounters. Perhaps early societies had no other way to explain natural phenomena and calamities, such as earthquake, lightning, floods, and diseases, except to posit their origins with God, or gods. But even in this Christian era, when we are able to unravel many of these former mysteries, and have come to understand through the Scriptures and the revelation of himself through Jesus, the essential and continual ...

1502. BAKER

Genesis 40:1; 1 Samuel 8:13

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... among the Hebrews. By the first century of the Christian era, pastry bakers in Caesarea made 100 different kinds of egg pastries! And our bakeries that work through distributors rather than with the consumer directly aren’t so new, either - the bakers of ancient Jerusalem did the same thing! Although originally the baker was concerned only with the making of bread, and, on occasion, of cake, he soon learned to branch out and became almost as diversified as his brother of today.

1503. CARPENTER

Isaiah 44:13; Mark 6:3

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... masons who built David a house." Matthew 13:55 - "Is not this the carpenter’s son?" We can’t really talk about carpenters in the Old Testament, because there is no such word in Hebrew. And this has a logical explanation. Because of their nomadic origin, the early Hebrews were backward in this skill. Actually, when the word is used, it is in reference to cabinet-makers, cartwrights, wood-sculptors, and such. Since they didn’t settle in one place long enough to build houses, timber work as such was not ...

1504. CENSUS TAKER

Exodus 30:12; Numbers 1:1

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... theory among scholars is that this taboo was imposed because the taking of a census (head-counting) is a presumptuous usurpation of God’s rights: only God knows who is to live or to die, and by assigning a military rating to a man (the original purpose of the census), this pre-knowledge of man’s fate can be somewhat assumed. So, we as often find when God is crossed, terrible consequences were thought to follow the taking of such a census. Joab tried very hard to deflect David from this undertaking ...

1505. DANCER

Judges 21:23; Psalm 87:7

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... by women, with one leading, as in the case of Miriam; 3. dancing usually took place out of doors. Hebrew contains six verbs to describe the actions of dance: 1. sahok - usually translated as sporting or playing and conveys the expression of joy in dancing. 2. rakod - original meaning was "to leap like a lamb" 3. karkar - suggests a round dance and may refer to turning on the heel in one sport 4. hol - to writhe or to turn 5. pesah - refers to a limping dance 6. hag - means "holiday," possibly from the word ...

1506. MUSICIAN

Judges 5:11; Amos 6:5

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... to the harp, the violin, and other stringed instruments. The only instruments not included in any of these three groups make sounds produced by electrons, as in the electronic organ. Like all the men of the ancient world, the Hebrews attributed a quasi-divine origin to music: it was at mankind’s very beginning, a few generations after Adam, that Jubal invented the "flute and the kinnor," according to Genesis 4:21. Hebrew music was primarily vocal, yet many of the Psalms have signs indicating that they are ...

1507. PHILOSOPHERS

Acts 17:18

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... is the most general and abstract kind of thought. The philosopher tries to organize knowledge into a logical system, and he questions all of the ideas that men take for granted, trying to discover whether they can be justified by reason. To the Greeks, who originated philosophy in the Western world about 600 B.C., it was the search for truth of every kind - the ultimate meaning of the universe, and the reasons for and the meaning of all phenomena. This, of course, makes it self-evident why the early ...

1508. POTTER

Jer. 18:4; Rom. 9:21

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... ’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. Later, crude vessels were conceived and formed, and ceramics, one of the oldest ...

1509. SEER

1 Samuel 9:9

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer." It is presumed (especially when reading our text), that the office of the seer antedated the office of prophet in Israel, although the functions of each were the same. Our text is probably a gloss on the original text, added at a later date by someone who realized that Samuel was not a member of a roving band of ecstatics, such as the early prophets (see PROPHET), but that he was a solitary man in close communication with God, who spoke the messages of ...

1510. SHOEMAKER

Exodus 3:5; Luke 15:22

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... antiquity, shoes have symbolized authority. In the Bible, man humbled himself by removing his shoes, as our text shows. A Jew gave over his shoes to bind an agreement. The custom of throwing old shoes after newlyweds for luck is believed to have originated as a symbol of the bridegroom’s authority over his wife. The progress of civilized man, the vagaries of fashion, and great changes in manufacturing are woven through the long history of shoes and shoemaking, which also gives us a comprehensive view of ...

1511. TENTMAKER

Acts 18:3

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... , for by trade they were tentmakers." Because of the general use of tents by the Hebrews, the making of tents was an important industry. Both men and women were involved in this trade, and many of them worked in their own homes on homemade looms. Although originally the tents were probably made of animal skins, it is likely that the early biblical patriarchs had ones made of a coarse cloth, such as is still used by Bedouins today. This cloth was made from black goat’s hair, which would shrink after a rain ...

1512. TOWN CLERK

Acts 19:35

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... , he would be the liaison man between the civil administration and the Roman provincial administration, whose headquarters were at Ephesus. The clerk may have been literally a temple-keeper, for this term, found on Ephesian coins struck around the time of Paul, originally signified a temple servant whose business it was to sweep out and decorate the temple, and which then ultimately grew to be an honorary title to towns in Asia Minor which were especially devoted to the service of any divinity and possessed ...

1513. Judgement Day Is Coming

Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43, Matthew 13:47-52

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... pitchfork. But the Bible declares that there is an intelligent, active spiritual presence in this world opposing God. This Satan and his followers were angels who rebelled against the rule of God and were cast out of heaven. Satan tries to connect with the original sin in all of us, attempting to separate us from God and make this world resemble hell. The late great Bishop Ken Goodson of Virginia was considered a staunch conservative. He had a very liberal Methodist lady in his conference named Tess Hoover ...

1514. A Thanksgiving Question

1 Corinthians 4:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... States, one of his liberal critics said, "You have set the church back fifty years." Billy Graham lowered his head and said, "I'm deeply ashamed. I was trying to set the church back 2000 years." Billy Graham wanted to take the church back to the original faith of the early Church, when still wet with the fresh dew of Resurrection. He was not really worried about that liberal critic. Billy Graham knows that God's evaluation is the only one that really matters. Even if Time Magazine makes you the Man or ...

1515. Only One Superpower

1 Chronicles 29:1-9

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... convocation and speaks to the assembled throng. He does not recite his military victories; never even mentions Goliath's name! Nor does he discuss the national wealth. Not one word about the Psalms he has written or how far he has come from humble, shepherd-boy origins. Instead, David offers one of the most beautiful prayers of the Bible, a prayer that ascribes to God all glory, power, and majesty, a prayer in which David humbly asks, "Who are we that we dare to give to you, O Lord, because even what we ...

1516. Humankind: The Climax of Creation

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... his image. If all this be true, if we are made in the image of God, what does it all mean? What are the implications for our living? Let me lift up three and I beg you to write them down: FIRST EACH OF US IS AN INCREDIBLY PRECIOUS ORIGINAL DESIGN OF ALMIGHTY GOD God does not create trash or disposable people. The world puts dollar values on people. In a recent court case, the estate of an unborn child was awarded damages totaling $75,000. An economic index used by the government for health planning put the ...

1517. The Snake: A Slick Salesman

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... to remove our freedom of choice. God wanted us to follow him as volunteers, not as draftees. God told Adam and Eve up front that the penalty for disobedience would be death. You see, God did not invent death. Disease and death were not part of his original plan for the world. Sin brought death into the human situation. As the Bible tells us, "The wages of sin is death." Sometime ago a sign was seen outside a small Baptist church. It read, "The wages of sin have never been reduced." LOOK NOW AT VERSES ...

1518. Stand Up Straight

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... woman was never able to look into adult faces or gaze at the stars or glory in a blue sky. Jesus regarded this woman's paralyzed back as a terrible wrong. He called it the work of Satan. In the Methodist tradition we refer to this as the legacy of original sin; it's the baggage we bring into this world. You may not have a bad back, but you've got some sign of brokenness. It could be a distorted appetite for alcohol or pornography; it could be a tendency to depression or an inability to get along with people ...

1519. The Seeds of Social Conflict

Genesis 4:1-26

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... the social problems in our world, when traced to their sources, point back to the angry little boy or little girl in us, sitting in a closet, so to speak, angry, brooding, jealous, or spiteful. That kind of anger can be traced all the way back to our human origins. In the fourth chapter of Genesis, we have a sad three-act drama introducing social conflict and violence into our world. Let’s try to glean some lessons from it. In Act I, verses 1-5, we find Cain and Abel, the first two brothers born on Earth ...

1520. God of Wrath and Grace

Genesis 6:1-8:22

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... to think about. We Methodists try to subcontract the message about wrath of God to certain other denominations which I won’t mention. We Methodists focus on the grace of God. But Methodists did not always avoid the subject of God’s wrath. John Wesley’s original invitation to membership in Methodism was simple: “Come all who wish to flee the wrath to come.” Of course, if we minimize one side of God’s character, our witness is whop-sided, and we do not declare the full counsel of God. St. Paul in ...

1521. Mary's Revolutionary Song

Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... . Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, both women sensed that God has chosen them for special tasks and would do great things through their children. Mary was then given by the Holy Spirit insights far too profound for a simple teenager to originate. She declared the impact that her son would have upon the world. She announced three distinct revolutions which Jesus would instigate and activate. She spoke of these revolutions in the past tense, as if they had already happened. The world has been reeling ...

1522. Lessons from a Shrewd Crook

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... cow was missing from a field through which the railroad passed, and the farmer was suing for the value of the cow. Before the case was to be tried, the lawyer cornered the farmer and convinced him to settle out of court for half of what he originally wanted. The farmer signed the necessary papers and then accepted the check. The young lawyer could not resist gloating a bit about his success. He said to the farmer, "You know, I couldn't have won this case if it had gone to trial. The engineer was asleep ...

1523. Making a Name for Ourselves

Genesis 11:1-9

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... the whole earth has one language and few words (or the same words.)” Someone suggested that this must have been before preachers and lawyers went to work. The Bible means that all people had the same language. Just out of curiosity, I wonder if that original language had the clipped, sharp sounds of a New Yorker or the slower, more fluid drawl of Mississippi? Recently, I listened to the gifted country singer Reba McEntire and marveled that she could sing the word “h-i-m” and give it three syllables ...

1524. Friction Points

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... FIRST, CHRISTIANS SHOULD BE DELIGHTFULLY DIFFERENT. Notice what Jesus said about us, the church: "They are not of this world even as I am not of this world." Do you know how we got the name "Methodist"? We did not choose it because it sounded nice. Originally it was a term of ridicule thrown at John Wesley and his Eighteenth Century followers because they were so methodically different in their lifestyle. When I was in college, there was a young man on our campus who really stood out. Each day he wore shirt ...

1525. How to Handle Criticism

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... about a department store that made a big fuss over its millionth customer. The store president made a speech in her honor. She was given gifts. Her picture was taken for the paper. After these ceremonies, the customer continued to her original destination – the complaint department. If anyone ever received lots of criticism, surely it was Jesus. The religious establishment called him a blasphemer. He was accused of being a glutton, a drunkard, a Samaritan, and a friend of sinners. The Bible refers to ...

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