THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD, YOUR SANCTIFICATION
1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11
Sermon Aid
by John W. Rilling

Introduction. The English mystical poet William Blake was also a firstrate artist. Once, when asked to sketch a picture of man as he really is, Blake drew a picture of a child standing on the topmost rung of a ladder reaching for the moon and crying impatiently, "I want, I want!"

Blake felt that man is a creature of unfulfilled desires. He never is satisfied. "Man never is, but always to be blest." And so life is a series of rungs - infancy succeeded by youth and maturity or perhaps we should say adulthood: yesterday an infant dropping the toy in hand for the pretty bauble beyond his reach; today the adolescent wanting this and that; tomorrow the man reaching for the unattainable moon - or since it has been attained by a few, something beyond that.

A man does not cease to have wants when…

CSS Publishing Co., Inc., Word Pictures For Lenten Proclamation, by John W. Rilling