John Naisbitt in his book Megatrends said that we are living in the “information society.” There was a time when most people were involved in industry—in the manufacturing and the selling of goods. Today most people added to the laboring force are involved in either collecting, assimilatin...
Dr. Bill Hinson, the chaplain at Baylor University, told of a salesman friend of his who was driving through the back roads of Missouri some time ago when he came upon a little country gas station/grocery store. It had a gravel driveway and just one gas pump in the front. While the attendant filled his car, he turned and walk...
George Bernard Shaw said, “If you destroyed all of the churches tomorrow, people would the very day afterwards begin to build them up again.” Jesus spoke of the church when he said, “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). The Greek wo...
Buckner Fanning, pastor of the Trinity Baptist Church, San Antonio, said that early in his ministry that he was preaching a revival meeting at one of the churches in Bogalusa, Louisiana. In the last service of that revival they asked a young man who had not been a Christian for a long time to give his testimony. As he stepped...
This sermon grew out of several convictions. One is that stewardship is a deeply spiritual matter. We do not tithe or we are not stewards to raise money for a financial institution but rather to make a deep spiritual surrender of our lives to the Lord. Stewardship is not a matter of dollars and cents; it’s a matter of d...
I always use this occasion to restate the objective, the purpose, and the mission of our church. George Webber said, “Any church that does not recognize the basic purpose of its existence is in jeopardy of its life. The predicament of the church in America is precisely that it does not recognize that it’s a missio...
One of the most important statements in all the Bible, and certainly a key to understanding the gospels, was made by Jesus when he said, “This is my blood, which is shed for many.”
The occasion for that statement was the institution of the Lord’s Supper. He had met with his disciples in the Upper Roo...
Shortly after I became a Christian as a teenage boy, my home church had a special week of study of the book Every Christian’s Job by C. E. Matthews. The thesis of the study was that every Christian should be a witness, an evangelist, and a missionary for Jesus Christ. Being a new Christian, I believed...
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.