For a Ninety-year-old Clergyman This is a funeral sermon for a retired minister who lived in our neighborhood and continued to serve the Lord in a quiet, unobtrusive manner. He was a genuine saint of God - faithful, humble, talented, effective. When he died at the age of almost ninety, the entire community mourned. It is much more personal and individual than my typical funeral sermon. Such an occ...
Paul For personal reading: Acts 9--28 For public reading: Philippians 3:4-14, 20 Outline Jewish Citizenship (Philippians 3:4-6; Romans 9:3; 10:1; Acts 23:6-8) Roman Citizenship (Acts 16:16-39; 22:24-29; 25:9-12) Heavenly Citizenship (Philippians 3:20) Q-SHEET Paul - A Citizen of Three Worlds Acts 9--28 QUIZ: (Match a city with each statement, then a person with the city; try first without a Bible,...
You will remember that, in God’s dealings with mankind, he chose one particular man, Abraham. Through that man, God intended to raise a special nation, through which he could bring his message of redemption to the whole world.
God directed that nation down into the land of Egypt to preserve it during a time of world-wide famine and need. Joseph was our outstanding leader at that point.
In the la...
The Bible begins, as we all know, with the beginning - the story of creation, of God’s making his universe. But following the impressive story of the creation of the world, and then the majestic story of the creation of man (God "breathed into his nostrils, and man became a living soul"), sin was introduced into God’s beautiful world. The man, whom he had created, disobeyed and fell into sin; the ...
In the last chapter, we considered Daniel, a prophet who lived in captivity in the land of Babylon. After the inhabitants of Judah had been carried away as slaves into Babylonia and remained there for a period of approximately seventy years, some of them were permitted to return to the city of Jerusalem.
The city had been destroyed and left in ashes. Under extremely difficult circumstances, they ...
Another of the apostles of Jesus, the Messiah and Savior, was selected by our congregation as one of the favorite men of the Bible: John, often called "the beloved disciple."
Like Simon Peter, he too was one of the "inner three" - the three disciples whom Jesus seemed to choose to be with him on special occasions. Jesus had a large group of followers; of those, he selected twelve. Of the twelve, ...
In our consideration of the favorite men of the Bible, we have looked at them in chronological order, trying to retell the story of God’s redemption of his fallen creatures. We have followed God’s chosen people (through Abraham) into the land of promise (Moses) and have seen the building of a mighty kingdom (David). Then came the division of the nation - between the north and the south - and the c...
We are seeking to tell the story of the Bible by selecting certain key people at particular points along the way. In the previous chapter, we indicated how God had decided, after the fall of man, to choose one person and through him to build a nation - a nation to be the instrument by which his message of redemption might reach the whole world. That man was Abraham.
After Abraham, we pass very qu...
The favorite man of the Bible for this chapter is one who is rarely mentioned in the Scriptures, yet is an important Bible personality. Not only is he a biblical character; he is also one who was responsible for writing part of the Bible, one who helped to bring the New Testament into being. His name is Luke.
Luke, the Doctor
We could call him Dr. Luke, because we read that he was "Luke, the bel...
God’s chosen nation - through which he would send the world’s Redeemer - had been brought to a pinnacle of earthly glory by King David. When his son, Solomon, assumed the throne, he consolidated David’s gains and led Israel to a power and a prominence, a prosperity and a prestige, unequalled in the world of his day.
The Queen of Sheba, who had been told of the wealth of Solomon’s court, could not...
We have looked together at some of the favorite men of the Bible we have traveled through the Old Testament ... and in the last chapter, we entered into the New Testament in the person of John the Baptizer.
Now we pass over the period of the life of Jesus: the coming of the promised Messiah ... the climax of God’s redeeming work ... the time of the Incarnation ... when God became man ... when the...
In the beginning, God created his world and his people. Mankind fell into sin in the Garden of Eden. God worked out a plan of salvation. To institute that plan, he selected a man and determined that through that one man, he would build a nation - a nation to accomplish his redemptive purpose. That man was Abraham. Through the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God was building a chosen people.
D...