Winston Churchhill: A speech at a Royal Albert Hall Concert in Celebration of American Thanksgiving Day. November 23, 1944

We have come here tonight to add our celebration to those which are going forward all over the world, wherever allied troops are fighting in bivouacs and dugouts, on battlefields, on the high seas, and the highest air. Always this annual festival has been dear to the hearts of the American people. Always there has been that desire for thanksgiving, and never, I think, has there been more justification, more compulsive need than now.

It is your Day of Thanksgiving, and when we feel the truth of the facts which are before us, that in three or four years the peaceful, peace-loving people of the United States, with all the variety and freedom of their life in su…

The first perversion of the doctrine of the second coming of Christ is perpetrated by those I'm going to call "prophecy mongers." You know these people. They come with their charts and graphs, with their predictions and projections, claiming to have special insight into the workings of God in the world, so that they're able to cue us in on just where we are in the divine timetable. And somehow, every political event of the past fifty years fits neatly into their scheme of things. But Jesus said that no one not even himself knew the day or the hour of his co…

Some folk in Seattle were sure the end of the earth would come in the year 2000. Earthquakes. Floods, wars, and tornadoes will devastate the earth, they said, by the year 2001. They had planed to build an airship so …

During his 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with the story of Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives:   On May 19th, 1780 the sky of Hartford darkened ominously, and some of the representatives, glancing out the windows, feared the end was at hand. Quelling a clamor for immediate adjournment, Davenport rose and said, "The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candle…

In Warren Wiersbe's Meet Yourself in the Psalms, he tells about a frontier town where a horse bolted and ran away with a wagon carrying a little boy. Seeing the child in danger, a young man risked his life to catch the horse and stop the wagon. The child who was saved grew up to become a …

We decided to let our three-year-old son record the message for our home answering machine. The rehearsals went smoothly: "Mommy and Daddy can't come to the phone right now.…

After 14 years of studying the Bible, William Miller became convinced that Christ would return in 1843. When Miller announced April 3 as the day, some disciples went to mountaintops, hoping for a head start to heaven. Others were in graveyards, planning to ascend in reunion with their departed loved ones. Philadelphia society ladies cluster…

At their school carnival, our kids won four free goldfish (lucky us!), so out I went Saturday morning to find an aquarium. The first few I priced ranged from $40 to $70. Then I spotted it right in the aisle: a discarded 10-gallon display tank, complete with gravel and filter for a mere five bucks. Sold! Of course, it was nasty dirty, but the savings made the two hours of clean-up a breeze.

Those four new fish looked great in their new home…

I am always impressed with the litany-like phrases Martin Luther uses in The Small Catechism as petition by petition he explains the Lord's Prayer:

To be sure, God's name is holy itself ...To be sure, the kingdom of God comes of itself, without our prayers ...To be sure, the good and gracious will of God is done without our prayer ...To be sure, God provides daily bread, even to the wicked, without our prayer...

To be sure, to be sure, to be sure!…

United Church has a tradition. They were known for supporting their pastors very well. Any pastor who has ever served at United will verify the truth of this tradition. Pastors, for example, consider it a privilege to serve in this congregation deep in the heart of Texas. Pastor Mike Snyder surely did. Pastor Mike, as everyone called him, had had a kind of love affair with this congregation throughout his nine years of service at United. The feeling was mutual. The people of United felt uniquely blessed by him as well.

It was not much of a surprise, therefore, when the church board at United decided to hold a special evening meeting to honor and celebrate the ministry of Pastor Mike Snyder. Someone on the board had found out that this year was the 25th anniversary of Pastor Snyder's ordin…

A poem of repentance and discipleship:

They cast their nets in Galilee,
just off the hills of brown;
Such happy simple fisher folk,
before the Lord came down,
Before the Lord came down.

Contented, peaceful fisherm…

That God does not compare or rank his children seems to be a point almost impossible for us to grasp, because we live in a world which ranks and compares people. People are seen as more intelligent, or less intelligent, more beautiful or less beautiful, more successful or less successful, and we have convinced ourselves that love must do …

The idea of being poor in spirit is the key to all that is to follow in the Beatitudes. I like the note in the Life Application Bible:

• You cannot mourn without appreciating how insufficient you are to handle life in your own strength.
• You cannot be meek unless you kn…

I used to believe that children were born pure and innocent. Then I became a parent. Now I believe in original sin.

When my oldest son was about three years old, I was outside doing some yard work. I took Kevin outside to play while I trimmed the hedges. Holding his hand, I knelt down beside him so that we could look at each other face to face. Slowly and carefully I said, "Now, Kevin, you can play here in our front yard. You can go next door and play in your friend's front yard. You can ride your Big Wheel up and down the driveway. You can go in the back y…

One of the things that most young children fear are monsters. Unlike the imagined monsters of children, the early church had a real monster of its own. It was a most deadly enemy that roamed about. The monster was the notion that Christ alone was not adequate for a person’s salvation. And this monster gave birth to another monster, the monster of uncertainty over our own salvation. Both monsters were real - both were inspired by the devil. Unfortunately, they are still very much with us today. Many of us are puzzled and uncertain as to whether we will be saved. To solve the salvation puzzle we must kill the monster of uncertainty that suggests we trust in something other than Christ alone for our salvation.

Recently, I surveyed a large sample of our congregation. I was amazed to discover …

"How the mighty have fallen." King David of old once spoke those words concerning the death of King Saul. "How the mighty have fallen." These words have transcended the Bible and become the language of popular culture. A newspaper report a few years ago on some pastors who had fallen from grace used this biblical passage as its headline. The article was about two well-known television preachers -- Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker -- whose sins had been publicly exposed. "How the mighty have fallen" the newspaper headline gloated! Jimmy Swaggart is an interesting case in point.

Newsweek magazine once carried an article that featured this highly talented preacher. The article quoted one man as saying that Jimmy Swaggart was one of the most entertaining people on television in any field. The ma…

Scripture's covenants and their significance:

Eternal covenant, Hebrews 13:20 :The redemptive covenant before time began, between the Father and the Son. By this covenant we have eternal redemption, an eternal peace from the 'God of peace', through the death and resurrection of the Son.

Edenic covenant, Genesis 1:26-28: The creative covenant between the Triune God, as the first party (Genesis 1:26), and newly created man, as the second party, governing man's creation and life in Edenic innocence. It regulated man's dominion and subjugation of the earth, and presented a simple test of obedience. The penalty was death.

Adamic covenant, Genesis 3:14-19: The covenant conditioning fallen man's life on the earth. Satan's tool (the serpent) was cursed (Gen 3:14); the first promise of the Redee…

Are Christians an endangered species? This is really not the most pleasant question to consider. But at some time or another I would imagine we have all thought about it.

Faced with an uncomfortable question, we find comfort and assurance in God’s Word. Speaking of Jesus, in John 1:5 (GNB) it says, "His life is the light that shines through the darkness - and the darkness can never extinguish it." Never, it says. The power of God’s light can never be extinguished. The good news about Jesus will always be good news. Sin will have its triumphs, but it never will completely prevail.

Most of the danger to Christianity does not come from the outside but from within. I would like to consider with you three of the dangers from within referring to them as Christianity’s sin from within.

There i…

The following article is based on a sermon by missionary Del Tarr who served fourteen years in West Africa with another mission agency. His story points out the price some people pay to sow the seed of the gospel in hard soil:

I was always perplexed by Psalm 126 until I went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of savanna more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and…

There is praise here for the servant who is ready when the Lord returns, and He is going to return. We don't know when or how, but you can't read the New Testament faithfully and miss that message.

Do you remember that hilarious scene in one o…

John Milton was a failure. In writing Paradise Lost, his aim was to "justify the ways of God to men." Inevitably, he fell short and wrote only a monumental poem. Beethoven, whose music was conceived to transcend fate, was a failure, as was Socrates, whose ambition was to make people happy by making th…

It is fascinating to me that in our Protestant religious culture, such a strong emphases is placed upon literal interpretation. Interestingly, Jesus so often did not speak literally, but figuratively. He spoke in allegories and images. He painted word pictures. Instead of literally coming out and saying what he meant, he so often would tell a story and let people draw their own conclusion. Indeed, these hidden messages of Jesus frequently frustrated his disciples. They wished that he would speak literally and not be quite so subtle.

This morning we take a look at one of the "I Am" sayings of Jesus. Jesus said: I am the true vine. Now, even the most ardent fundamentalist has to agree that when Jesus spoke these words he was not speaking literally. Obviously, if we are to understand what Je…

The glory of a good person is the testimony of a good conscience. A good conscience is able to bear very much and is very cheerful in adversities. An evil conscience is always fearful and unquiet. Never rejoice except when you have done well. You shall rest sweetly if your heart does not accuse you. Sinners never have true joy or feel inward peace, because 'there is no peace for the wicked,' says the Lord (Isaiah 57:21). The glory of the good is in their consciences, and not in the tongues of others, The gladness of the just is of God, and in God; and their joy is of the truth.

A person will easily be content and pacified whose consc…

To worship God is to recognize his worth or worthiness; to look God-ward, and to acknowledge in all appropriate ways the value of what we see. The Bible calls this activity "glorifying God" or "giving glory to God," and views it as the ultimate end, and from one point of view, the whole duty of man (Ps. 29:2; 96:6; 1 Cor. 10:31).

Scripture views the glorifying of God as a sixfold activity: praising God for all that he is and all his achievements; thanking…

A little girl had misbehaved and her father spoke with her about it. He suggested she, also, talk to God about it. W…

Visions have great clarity. One of the oldest members of his church, Al was at the retirement center, the Good Samaritan, with his wife Cora, demented through Alzheimer's. Old Man Lunde, as he was affectionately called, would go to the retirement center every day with a bowl of ice cream to give to his wife of many decad…

The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the fail…

I do not come because my soul
is free from sin and pure and whole
and worthy of Thy grace;
I do not speak to Thee because
I've ever justly kept Thy laws
and dare to meet Thy face.

I know that sin and guilt combine
to reign o'er every thought of mine
and turn from good to ill;
I know that when I try to…

Unity isn't easy. Most of us have never learned how to disagree in love, or how to love those with whom we disagree. We're like the poet who wrote:

To dwell above with saints we love,
That will be grace and glory.
To live below with saints we know;
Well, that's another story!

Unity isn't easy. But Jesus not only prayed fo…

Young Danny was praying at Mother’s knee. “If I should die before I wake … If I should die.…”

“Go on, go on, Danny,” said his mother. “You know the rest of the prayer.”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted the small boy. Scrambling to his feet, he hurried downstairs. In a short time, he was back. Dropping to his knees once again, he took up the petition where h…

A man dies and goes to heaven. Of course, St. Peter meets him at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter say's, "Here's how it works. You need 100 points to make it into heaven. You tell me all the good things you've done, and I give you a certain number of points for each item, depending on how good it was. When you reach 100 points, you get in…

Emerson Colaw tells about doing some work with his church's nonresident membership list. He wrote a letter to one family that had been very active in his church. A letter came back saying, "Mr. Colaw, we now live near a university campus and we go every Sunday to the chap…

William Barclay wrote in his book The Mind of St. Paul:

"The great value of the doctrine of the Second Coming is that it guarantees that history is going somewhere. We cannot tell how it will h…

We cannot come to God in honest prayer when we have not forgiven one another transgressions: A young boy saw a pack of cigarettes on the ground and decided to try them. He went to a field near his home and, after several fumbling attempts, got one to light …

The disciples, despite the presence of the Holy Spirit, were misunderstood. They were perceived, because of their exuberant behavior, as being loaded. Sauced. Drunk. How rare it is to experience real communication. The kind of communication where every word is clearly and completely understood.

Years ago a conscientious homeowner wrote to a manufacturer of cast iron pipes, telling them that he had found that by pouring pure hydrochloric acid down his drain, he immediately opened his grease clogged pipes. He asked if there was any way in…

There's a trend on social media to cancel peoples livelihood for even the slightest offenses that the person attacking them doesn't like. It's been billed the "cancel culture." It's an evil behavior often by anonymous sources. But it's not new. More prevalent but not new. And it certainly has been in the church for a long time. Let's use the acrostic CCC: Christian Cancel Culture.  

A religious weight loss program called Weigh Down created in 1992 by a woman named Gwen Shamblin grew from a small business conducted out of a home garage to a multimillion-dollar Nashville corporation with over 30,000 churches and organizations participating. But last year the whole movement was threatened and her business placed in jeopardy when Shamblin, on August 10th made comments regarding her beliefs in…

Charles Spurgeon preached to thousands in London each Lord's Day, yet he started his ministry by passing out tracts and teaching a Sunday school class as a teenager. When he began to give short addresses to the Sunday school, God blessed his ministry of the Word. He was invited…

Thinking of the fullness and duration of this wonderful life, W. B. Hinson, a great preacher of a past generation, spoke from his own experience just before he died. He said, "I remember a year ago when a doctor told me, 'You have an illness from which you won't recover.' I walked out to wh…

Imagine what the game of bowling would be like if you couldn't see the pins you were trying to hit. Bill Knox did just that and bowled a perfect game. In Philadelphia's Olney Alleys, Bill had a screen placed just above the foul line to obscure his view of the lane. His purpose was to demonstrate the technique of spot bowling, which involves throwing the ball at a selected floor mark on the near end of the lane. L…

I gave you life,
but I cannot live it for you.
I can teach you things
but I cannot make you learn.

I can give you directions
but I cannot always be there to lead you.
I can allow you freedom
but I cannot account for it.

I can take you to church
but I cannot make you believe.
I can teach you right from wrong
but I can't always decide for you.

I can buy you beautiful clothes
but I cannot make you lovely inside.
I can offer you advice
but I cannot accept it for you.

I can give you love
but I cannot force it upon you.
I can t…

Three monkeys sat in a coconut tree
Discussing the things that are said to be
Said one to another: "Now listen you two
There's a certain rumor, but it can't be true'
That man descended from our noble race-
Why, the very idea; it's a disgrace.

No monkey ever deserted his wife,
Starved her babies and ruined her life…

On March 16, 2007, for the first time in its 23 year history, there was a three way tie on the game show, Jeopardy.  Mathematicians calculate the odds of this occurrence to be one in 25 million.   What a mathematical calculation can not take into account is the graciousness and generosity of someone like Scott Weiss.  In the ‘Final Jeopardy' round, the second place player and the third place player both had $8,000.  Scott had a little over $12,000 going into this last question.  The players made their…

I was just as naive as I was sincere when I wrote a letter to a missionary in Papua, New Guinea. I was a 19-year-old college student trying to make sense out of the Bible. I was reading the gospels with an ardent desire to believe what I was reading but I kept getting hung up on these stories about demon exorcisms. If the gospels were true then there were real demons in the world and yet I didn't see anyone but quacks and nut cases doing demon exorcisms on TV.

Someone in my college campus ministry suggested to me that we no longer saw demons in the civilized world but that missionaries in remote parts of the world did. I knew the name of a missionary in the terri…

Just before the beginning of the Sunday service at Saint Bartholomew's on Fifth Avenue, New York City, a man wearing a large hat was discovered sitting in the front row. An usher moved to his pew, leaned in, and discreetly asked him to remove his hat. The man replied that he would not. The head usher was then summoned, made the same request, and received the same answer. About that time the president of the women of the parish arrived and was asked to assist. She had th…

Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), from the Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humble entreat Him, by His grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will, for Christ's sake. [I will] remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

• Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind…

William J. O'Malley, in his book, Meeting the Living God, gives us some modern descriptions of God, descriptions which he terms "false gods." See if you find your understanding of God among any of these:

• God is there when I'm in need. Otherwise, when things are going ok…

There's a woman who received eyes to see. A few years ago, with the help of Presbyterian mission money, she helped to establish a halfway house for women who are recovering drug addicts. She schedules twelve-step groups, arranges for child care, and generally tries to get the women back on their feet. In a lot of ways, you would never expect her to be involved with such work. She is even-tempered, gentle, and articulate. But something happened a few years ago that caused her to see anew.

She was a graduate school student in Pittsburgh, looking for a part-time job. A newspaper listed an administrative position with a soup kitchen. That looked interesting, so she clipped it and prepared for the interview. On the day of her interview, she put on a dark blue business suit, put together a mani…

Corrie ten Boom in The Hiding Place relates an incident that taught her always to be thankful. She and her sister, Betsy, had just been transferred to the worst German prison camp they had seen yet, Ravensbruck. On entering the barracks, they found them extremely overcrowded and flea-infested.

That morning, their S…