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1. The Call To Victory
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
Sims Robert
The book of Revelation is a powerful and beautiful book designed to answer one question. The people of the early church were suffering under persecution and many were being martyred. They looked for the second coming of Christ as the grand and glorious answer to their pain. They asked the question, “How long will it be before Christ returns? How long will it be before the victory is final and comp...
Sermon
Charles L. Aaron
As the movie Contact opens, the audience sees a precocious girl named Eleanor learning how to use a ham radio. Nicknamed "Sparks" by her father, she has reached a man in Florida, and is excited that her radio lets her speak with someone so far away. In a later scene she asks her father wistfully if she can call her deceased mother on the radio. He responds sadly that no antenna is big enough...
Sermon
When Dr. Gerhard Frost, much beloved and saintly retired professor of Luther Northwestern Seminary, died quite suddenly, in less than three weeks, in May, 1987, he did have time to plan his funeral service with his wife and pastor. Hymns to be sung included: "O Day Full of Grace," "Jesus, Priceless Treasure," "O Bread of Life from Heaven," and "In Thee is Gladness." The Lessons were from 1 Corinth...
4. The Shepherd King
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
On those Sundays when I am able to attend worship services in the parish to which I belong, I am confronted, upon entering and taking my place in the nave, with an artist’s attempt to transport the image of the oldest Christian representation into the twentieth century. It is a painting of the risen and ascended Lord, obviously sitting upon a throne in the heavens, surrounded by a half-halo of ang...
Sermon
Christian unity believes in immortality and the promise of heaven. The victorious stories of the saints in the early centuries of the church can hold anyone spellbound. The heroism and total commitment to the faith of their resurrected Lord have provided permanent images in the Body of Christ for all time. In a sense, they are very much our brothers and sisters in Christ, even at this moment. The...
Sermon
Steven E. Albertin
Who is Jesus? How are we to understand him? In the novel, The Brothers K, David James Duncan tells the story of the Chance family, a family of four boys, two girls, an agnostic father, and a mother of passionate fundamentalist faith. They all have very different ideas about who Jesus is. One of the boys, Kincaid, describes how each family member tries to make sense of Jesus and religion: It's str...
7. The Victory Is Ours
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
Timothy J. Smith
All Saints provides an opportunity to remember and give thanks for all the believers who have lived before us. Some of the saints are people we might have known quite well, we might recognize the names of others, and still there are many more numbering in the millions whose names and lives are known only to God. There are people we knew personally who impact our faith in profound ways: our parent...
8. Heroes
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
King Duncan
Not long ago, a company in California opened Tinseltown Studios, a theme park devoted to celebrities and the power of stardom. Tinseltown had an interesting twist: for a measly $45 entrance fee, the guests would get to feel what it's like to be famous. Park employees were paid to fawn over visitors, cheer for them, line up along the streets and gawk at them, pester them for autographs. Paparazzi l...
Sermon
King Duncan
Near the end of 1981 a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Lewenetz, took a flight from Moscow to the United States to visit his father. When they emerged from their airplane at the end of the trip, they expected to find warm, sunny Florida. Instead, they found themselves in frigid Alaska. The couple did not even realize their mistake, however, until they tried to get a cabdriver to take them to the address of M...
Sermon
King Duncan
Memory is a tricky thing. Particularly as we get older. You may know the story about three women who were talking. The first said, "Sometimes I go to the refrigerator and forget what I need by the time I get there." The second woman said, "When I go upstairs, I can't remember whether I'm going up for something or I'm on my way back down." The third woman said, "I'm lucky, I guess (knocking on w...
11. A Loving Parent
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
King Duncan
I want to begin today by saying, “Happy Mother’s Day” to all the Moms here today as well as to those who serve as Mom substitutes. You deserve to be celebrated on this special day because of the incredible impact you have on so many lives. A good mother is such a powerful example of God’s love. Many mothers are willing to do almost anything to communicate their love to their children. Some even t...
Sermon
King Duncan
Dr. Carlyle Marney once remarked that a person can be understood as being similar to a house. We have our living rooms, where we entertain, and our basements, where we hide the trash. The way to observe All Saints’ Day, he suggested, is to walk out into your front yard and salute the people on your balcony. The balcony people in our lives are those who have gone before us, who have been our encour...
Sermon
King Duncan
Are you prepared for the end of the world? December 21, 2012 is supposed to be the magic date. That’s less than two years away! This date is supposedly based on a prophecy contained in an ancient Mayan calendar at least that is what the sci-fi thriller film 2012 tried to tell us this past winter. Why we should take this prophecy seriously, I don’t know. However, according to The Complete Idiots’ ...
14. To a Life Beyond
John 6:51-58, Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
Stephen M. Crotts
The torches burned long into the night in the banquet hall. Their flickering light cast grotesque shadows across the huge table. Most of the seated revelers were slumped in their places sleeping off the effects of food and grog. There were a few murmured conversations, occasional outbursts of ribald laughter. Few but the king noticed when a tiny sparrow flew in the open window, pecked at a table s...
Sermon
Richard Gribble
"In the seventh year of his reign, two days before his 65th birthday, in the presence of a full consistory of cardinals, Jean Marie Barette, Pope Gregory XVII, signed an instrument of abdication, took off the Fisherman's ring, handed his seal to the Cardinal Camerlengo and made a curt speech of farewell." So begins the power novel, The Clowns of God, the second volume of a trilogy of tales about p...
Sermon
J. Howard Olds
Whenever there are people who share a common interest they tend to congregate in crowds. According to the Guinness World Records 23,600 people got together in Upton Park London in May 1999, to blow bubbles. The largest number of visitors to a department store in one day took place on December 20, 1995, in Nextage, Shanghai. A million shoppers showed up. The greatest number of live spectators to an...
17. The Lamb
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
Argile Smith
Have you ever heard of a man named Polycarp? Don’t feel badly if you haven’t. Polycarp’s not exactly a household name, at least in most houses. Yes, it’s an odd name, to our ears anyway. The name conjures up for most people today a product that’s manufactured from something made of plastic that tastes like freshwater fish. In the history of the church, the name lived through one century after ano...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Life can go from normal to nightmare in a nanosecond. Take hurricane Katrina. In two days there was no “normal” left for hundreds of thousands of Gulf coast residents. The well-housed went to homeless overnight, and people were left struggling just to find shelter, find food, and find clean water. The bare basics of life became the most all-important “finds.” But not long after — once two days b...
Sermon
John E. Harnish
The adventures in C. S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe begin in a rambling old British manor house in an empty room with nothing but a wardrobe. Looking inside, Lucy saw several coats hanging up—mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against the...
Sermon
Robert S. Crilley
Most readers of the Bible seem to have a love-hate relationship with its concluding book. In fact, the Revelation to John almost appears to possess the uncanny ability of being frustrating and fascinating at the same time -- much like a toddler playing with a piece of Scotch tape! They are, no doubt, the most famous last words ever written. However, "well-known" does not always imply "well-thought...
21. Oh, God!
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
King Duncan
Some of you will remember a couple of humorous films a few years ago in which the late comedian George Burns played God. Oh, God, parts I & II, were not great movies, but they did allow us to reflect on what God is really like. A pastor was trying to explain to a child about God.  The pastor said. “God is everywhere!” "Everywhere?” asked the little boy. “Everywhere!” said the pastor. The boy w...
Sermon
King Duncan
A couple of years back a movie came out that had phones ringing all over this nation. The movie was "Bruce Almighty." And the reason phones were ringing was that, for the first time, Hollywood published God's phone number. In the movie, a TV newsman played by Jim Carrey is endowed by God with divine powers, allowing him to perform such feats as parting a bowl of tomato soup like the Red Sea. God's...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
I did a little Googling recently. I put in the question "Why do they hate US?" and I came up with 21,000 links. One Web site is dedicated to answering this question "Why do they hate US?" By going country by country and giving specific reasons why people in that country would hate US so. In my lifetime, it seems like the United States has gone from being talked about by the rest of the world as ...
Sermon
John E. Harnish
Ever been to a circus? I mean a big, super-duper, three-ring, Barnum and Bailey, Greatest Show on Earth-type circus? Under the big top, there is continuous activity, with performances in all three rings—bands and barters, jugglers and gymnasts, all going on at once. Let's say you go to the circus, then come home and try to describe it, or even better, try to write a letter to a friend sharing "the...
25. Heaven
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon
Will Willimon
This summer I received a long email from a student who was in the wilds of Montana. To pass the time, he began reading Augustine's Confessions. He sent me this long list of questions about his reading of Augustine. Why did Augustine appear to be so troubled by sex? Isn't sex good? What was the deal with the stolen pears? Had he not an odd relationship with his mother? I suggested, in my reply, th...
Showing 1 to 25 of 28 results