The space shuttle Discovery landed safely and soundly yesterday, in fact, so much so that space scientists believe that it will fly three more times this year. Our spaceflights are becoming so common that they are almost like everyday occurrences. While this is so the effect of these flights on these who ta...
Years ago someone gave me a little plaque that had written on it the words about one solitary life. You have become familiar with it, but let me read it again. It is one of the finest statements concerning Jesus that you will ever find anywhere. “He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He worked...
The desire to be first, to be number one, is deeply engrained in all of us. It can be seen in everyone from the beer-guzzling fan at a professional football game to the petite high school cheerleader punching holes in the sky with her index finger and shouting, “We’re number one! We’re number one!”
...In Mark 10:17, Jesus had finished a busy day of teaching. In fact he had concluded talking about little children saying to the disciples, “Allow the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Then he left and it says, “There came one running and kneeling to him...
There was a young man who was preparing to perform his first wedding ceremony. He was nervous. He was afraid that he would get to the middle of the ceremony and forget the rest of it and not know what to say. So he talked with an elderly minister about what to do. The older man said, “Well, son, if you forget the ceremo...
Somebody has said that when climbing the ladder of success you had better stop and check every once in a while just to make sure that when you get to the top you don’t discover that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible for a person to be so busy seeking success that they miss what real succe...
The great Presbyterian preacher Clarence McCartney was once riding across the city of Chicago with William Jennings Bryan and they passed the coliseum where Bryan had made perhaps his greatest speech in 1896. In that speech he had closed his message by saying, “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”<...
If you ever found it hard to keep going in life, if you have ever been in one of those dark and difficult and demanding situations where you simply wanted to quit, to give up, to throw in the towel, to turn tail and run, then you will understand how Jesus felt when he was on the road to Jerusalem.
“How many points should a sermon have?” Jeff Ray said, “At least one.” The point of my sermon today is this: that no person by human effort can earn his way into the kingdom of God.
Once we buried a young lady who was only 21 years old. She was killed in a head-on collision while on her way to church. The night before the funeral, my daughter asked why God allows things like this to happen.
I wish I knew. Things like this have puzzled saints, wise men, and philosophers since the world began.
There is simply no one easy answer as to why tragedies like this happen. The answer may lie in the fact that God made us free. He created us with the ability to make our own choices, and choices always involve consequences. If we are careless or foolish in our choices, or if others are, we may suffer because of them. If God did not allow us freedom, we’d be less than people. We’d be robots.
This may be the only explanation we will ever have for some suffering. However, we do not have to know why things happen in order to be victorious over them. On the cross Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) But the heavens were as brass. God was silent. He didn’t even answer his own Son. Jesus might have despaired and become bitter against God. But instead he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend [entrust, hand over] my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
This kind of faith is far more important than any answer we might receive. In our lives, as in the life of Jesus, it is faith that makes the difference between victory and defeat.
So keep believing in God no matter what. Commit your life to him and regardless of what happens, God will help you.