Sermon Illustrations Click on the title to open an illustration |  A Christian�s Reward - George Champion |
W. D. | | When box-cars of a freight train have been used up, never to ride on a rail again, they are turned over on their sides and painted. In big letters �WD� is painted on the cars meaning withdrawn. One day when God is through using us down here on this earth, he will call us into heaven and write in large letters on our tombstones �W. D.,� meaning �well done.� | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and Speaking.
Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 97 | | | A Life of Faith - Jason Turner |
After An Execution | | In the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, Italy, there is a portrait rendered by Giovanni Battista Moroni that depicts the martyrdom of Peter of Verona, better known as Peter Martyr. In this portrait, Peter Martyr is on his knees already bearing a bloody wound atop his shaven monk�s pate from the first blow dealt him by the executioner who now stands over him ready to deliver the fatal blow that will send him into eternity. Hovering above Peter are two angels, one with a lily and the other with a crown. As dramatic as that is, the focal point of this painting is not Peter�s bloody head, the executioner, the angels, the lily, or the crown. The focal point is Peter�s hand because there he uses his index finger that has been dipped in his blood to write in block letters �C-R-E-D-O,� which simply declares �I believe.� Here we are some 450 years after the painting of this portrait and the life of Peter lives on because his faith continues to speak even after death has silenced him. What will happen after you die? | | Jason Turner, New Haven, Connecticut | | | The All-Seeing Eye of God - Ralph D. West |
Losing My Son | | When my son, Ralph, was a boy, I took him to Toys-R-Us, and he got detached from me. Ralph being my first child, my fatherly instincts caused me to panic. Yet, because I could see the doors, I knew that he had not exited them. Up one corridor, I paced, and down another� around a corridor� around another aisle� peeping� looking to find him amid a crowd of people in the Christmas rush � but I could not find my son. I found a security guard and I asked him, �Do you have surveillance in the store?� He said, �Yes.� I then asked, �Do you have a monitor?� �Yes.� �Can I look at the monitor?� �Yes.� Can you scan the floor?� �Yes.� The guard began to scan up and down the aisles, and there I saw my son playing with toys, but he was clearly in a state of panic. My son was all by himself among people he did not know. Our first child was feeling lost and alone, and I did not know what to do. I asked the guard, �Do you have an intercom?� He said, �Yes.� I said, �Keep the camera on him.� Then I got on the intercom and said, �Ralph.� My son looked around because he recognized my voice. I continued, �Stay where you are.� He started looking around. �It�s Daddy,� I said. �Don�t move. I see you although you can�t see me. Stay where you are. I�m coming.� In those moments, when you think that God cannot see you or that you cannot see God, always remember that God sees you. The invisible hand of God is active and is looking after your life. | From the sermon �Finding the Hand of God.�
Outstanding Black Sermons Volume 4.
Ed. Walter Thomas. pp. 135-136 | | | Always Focus on the Savior - Ralph D. West |
Sea Sick | | One summer, my wife Sureta, Joe Ratliff, his wife Doris, and I went sailing in the French Polynesian Islands. While we were sailing, Joe Ratliff got sick. Doris tried to help him, but she got sick, too. I laughed because I knew something about sailing that a lot of folks on the boat did not know. There are two things you do when sailing in salt water: first, you drink a little of it; and second, you wash your face and hair in it. Some folks, who know sailing, know what I am talking about. But there is something more important to consider. When you are sailing, and the waves are up twelve to fourteen feet, rocking up and down, you have to find something that is steady and keep your eyes on it. In your times of storm, you have to keep your eye on Jesus, who is steady, so that when everything else is up and down and bouncing, you can maintain your footing. | From the sermon �Finding the Hand of God.�
Outstanding Black Sermons Volume 4.
West, Ralph D. p. 140 | | | Always Rejoice - Charles Adams |
A Disturbing Dance | | CNN recently featured a story about how a poor, black woman saved enough money to purchase herself a home in Silicon Valley. She loved her new home. She kept the inside clean and the lawn mowed. In an effort to get unwanted people out the neighborhood, the neighborhood association got together with the local bank and established a law that allowed a home to be foreclosed if the owner did not pay their association dues. For some reason or another, the black lady did not pay her $200 dues. As a result the bank foreclosed on her house and sold her house which was worth over $100,000 for $10,000 to two white lawyers. The new owners threw her stuff out the doors and windows into the yard. She became homeless and had no place to go. Though she was homeless, CNN showed the woman in church that Sunday praising God. She danced up a storm. She danced so until her dancing disturbed the minds of nine brilliant lawyers. The lawyers took her cause to court and they got her property restored. Whatever the situation, when you can�t do anything else, you praise the Lord. Heaven can decipher what you need and take it from there. | From the sermon Why Praise the Lord.
Delivered in Detroit, Michigan, by Charles Adams. | | | Applying the Scriptures - Anonymous |
T. P. | | There was a woman who religiously read her bible daily and sought to walk by biblical principles. One day her son came home, and after a meal he picked up her bible which was worn from much use. As he looked through it, he saw penciled above certain bible verses the letters T. P. T. P. was printed above �The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.� T.P. was printed above �The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear� .� T. P. was printed above �All things work together for good, for they who love the Lord.� Throughout her bible �T.P� appeared above certain verses. Her son said, �Mom, I can tell you�re a bible student, but I noticed above certain verses, you wrote the letters T. P. What do these letters mean?� His mother responded, �Son, I don�t just read the bible, I believe and obey God�s word. �T. P.� stands for tried and proven. Son, God�s Word works!� | Anonymous. Versions of this illustration have
been used by many. | | | Avoiding Moral Failures - Maurice Watson |
The Northbridge Earthquake | | It was 4:31 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, on Monday, January 17, 1999, when suddenly and without warning, a moderate but very damaging earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 struck the densely populated San Fernando Valley in northern Los Angeles. The death toll was fifty-seven, and more than fifteen hundred people were seriously injured. A few days after the earthquake, nine thousand homes and business were still without electricity; twenty thousand were without gas, and more than forty-eight thousand had little or no water. About twelve thousand structures were damaged, leaving thousands temporarily homeless. The Northbridge Earthquake, as it was called, was the most damaging earthquake to strike the United States since the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. As with most earthquakes, the Northbridge Earthquake happened along a fault. Faults are cracks in the earth�s crust where rocks on either side of the crack have moved. Most earthquakes are caused by a sudden jolt along geologic faults. The faults are jolted because of the movement of the earth�s tectonic plates. The tremendous energy that is released creates shock waves, which result in violent shaking. Most faults are hard to detect because they are buried deep beneath the surface. While earthquakes appear to happen suddenly, the conditions that cause them typically take hundreds of years to develop. Earthquakes are geological phenomena that cannot be predicted, controlled, or stopped. However, there is another kind of earthquake that can be predicted, and, most importantly, it can be prevented. I�m talking about a moral earthquake. Like natural earthquakes, moral earthquakes happen along fault lines. Faults are proclivities and propensities within the heart that, given the right stimulus and the right conditions, can cause an eruption of moral failure. | Watson, Maurice. �Shaking Secret Faults.�
The African American Pulpit (Spring 2003): pp. 93-94 | | | Avoiding Satan - Eddie Long |
The Gatekeeper | | The Great Wall of China took hundreds of years to build by many generations of Manchurians and other Chinese. It was built to keep the enemy and other tribes from invading them. It is 2600 miles long and it is the only man-made object on earth that can be seen from the moon. It�s humongous. However, when the enemy came to invade China they did not have to deal with that long multilayered wall. The enemy simply paid off the gatekeeper and the gatekeeper opened the gate and let in the enemy. Most of us spend our lives building walls to keep the enemy out, to keep from being influenced in the wrong way or to keep from dealing with this and that. But there are certain people you give your heart to who are in actuality your gatekeepers. Be careful who you let into your inner circle because the grand and great walls around your life are ineffective if the one you trusts works for the enemy. | From the sermon One Point about Grace.
Delivered in Atlanta, Georgia, by Eddie Long. | | | Battling in the Faith - Portia Lee |
Battling in the Faith | | On 9/11, my sister-in-law had a meeting in the Pentagon at 8:30 that was scheduled to be over at 9:30. At 9:30, her meeting still was not over, and she looked down at her watch at 9:40. But before she could lift her head again, all hell broke loose. The Pentagon was hit and she was buried underneath debris. She laid there because she assumed that she was dead, wiped-out. When she realized that she was not dead, she began to climb out from underneath the debris. She said that it was dark underneath the debris; but it was even darker when she climbed out. Marilyn knew that there had to be a light that would show her the way out. She began to crawl. As she crawled, she bumped into people who were trying to escape too. She told them to get behind her and follow her. They continued to crawl, and it seemed they would never get out. Just about when they were ready to give up all hope, she saw a pin-sized speck of light, which indicated that there was a window ahead. Initially, they shouted for joy! Then, they realized that the window was a bulletproof window. They threw a computer at it, a fax machine, and they beat on it, but they could not break it. Marilyn thought to herself, �God I cannot believe that you brought me this close to freedom to let me die.� The very next moment the window did not break, but the window frame did. They were able to pull out the pane and escape. All I�m trying to say is even if you feel buried; be daring. Can�t see any light? Be daring; keep crawling. No way out? Throw everything you have at the problem; be daring. Is the world trying to hijack your life? Be daring; escape! | Lee, Portia. "When You�re Facing Being Wiped Out."
�The African American Pulpit (Fall 2007): p. 68 | | | Being a Representative of Christ - Selwyn Bachus |
Whose Name Is on the Line | | When I was younger my father used to tell me about his father and the pride he had in his name. My grandfather only owned one brown suit, one white shirt, one brown tie, one pair of brown socks, one pair of brown shoes, and one brown hat all of which he wore to church every Sunday. From time to time he would sit all of his children down and tell them to be careful about what they do in the streets of Hernando, Mississippi. He would say, �My name, Bachus, is on the line. I don�t own much. I have a few acres, a small house, and a little education. The biggest thing I have is my good name. So always remember there is a certain amount of responsibility that goes along with the Bachus name.� The same is true with being a Christian. Remember whose name is on the line wherever you go. | | Selwyn Bachus, Omaha, Nebraska | | | Being Led By God - Maurice Watson |
Choose a Door | | Some of us treat life like the old game show Let�s Make a Deal. Monte Hall would say to the contestant, �Do you want what�s behind door #1, door #2, or door #3?� I�ve discovered life is too serious and the consequences are too costly for me to guess which door I need to go through. I only want to go through the door I�m sure God has opened for me. | From the sermon Opportunity and Opposition.
By Maurice Watson, Macon, Georgia. | | | Betrayal - Alando Davis |
Outside and Inside Attacks | | I recently had a very interesting conversation with one of my coworkers about the 9/11 attacks. He said that in his opinion that was the worst attack of our age. He noted how horrible it was when the planes hit the building. It was even worse when both buildings crashed and thousands of people died. He went further to note how after the attack our economy suffered, our national security suffered and how all of our individual lives have changed as a result. When he finished making his claim I told him that I didn�t think 9/11 was the worst attack. I said I think the Oklahoma City bombing was worse than 9/11. He responded, �The ramifications of that attack were not nearly as detrimental to the nation.� I told him the reason I think the Oklahoma City bombing was worse than 9/11 is because 9/11 was done by outsiders, the Oklahoma City bombing was done by an American, an insider. Attacks from the inside always hurt more. They are the most unpredictable; you never see them coming! | | Alando Davis, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Bible Study - Selwyn Bachus |
Read the Rules Book | | Once when I was home my two boys asked me to play children�s charades with them. They pulled out the game, set it up, and I was ready to play. Because both of them are momma�s boys they told me we can�t start the game until mom arrives. When my wife arrived the first thing she did was take the rule book out the box and begin to read it. My younger son looked at her and said, �What are you doing?� She said, �I�m reading the rule book.� He said, �We don�t need to do that. We already know how to play the game. Sometimes, we think we have mastered life and don�t need to read the rules book. | From the sermon Walking His Way, Psalm 37:23-25.
Delivered Sunday, March 6, 2008 at Beulahland Bible Church, by Selwyn Bachus. | | | Blessings - George Miller, Jr. |
More Peach Cobbler | | I was recently eating peach cobbler and my baby boy kept staring at me and the cobbler as if to suggest he wanted some. When my wife wasn�t looking, I put a little cobbler on my finger and gave it to my son. I could tell from the way he responded that he liked the way the peach cobbler tasted. That then motivated him to lift his little hand and start reaching for more, so I gave him a little more. Because he liked the second dose, he lifted his little hand and reached for more. A pattern developed. The more I gave him, the more he reached for more. What I didn�t know is that my mother had been watching us the whole time. Because he kept reaching, my mother told me I shouldn�t have given him a taste, because now he wants the whole thing. I don�t know about you, but like my son, I�ve gotten a taste of God�s blessings. I don�t want to settle for a little, I want more, and more and more. | | George Miller, Jr., Atlanta, Georgia | | | Blessings - Walter Carter |
I Will Get Candy Too | | One evening around 9:30 p.m. my son Walter came down stairs and told me that he loved me and gave me a big hug. Realizing that he wanted something I asked, �What do you want?� He said, �May I have a piece of candy?� Because he was smart enough to tell me that he loved me before he asked for the candy, I agreed to give it to him. As soon as I gave him the candy he slipped upstairs where his little brother was and I could tell the very moment he showed his little brother the candy. I could tell because I heard celebrating upstairs. Cameron celebrated with his big brother Walter because he knew that since his their father loved them both equally, if he gave some candy to his brother, he had some candy coming too! | | Walter Carter, Chicago, Illinois | | | Blessings - George Miller, Jr. |
God Exceeding our Expectations | | I will never forget, I was a little boy, and one year around Christmas my daddy had recently started a new business. He wasn�t sure if he would have enough money to buy my siblings and me everything we wanted. He told us that that year we might not get everything on our lists. For weeks he prepped us by fully explaining how tight money was; I honestly didn�t expect to find much under the tree that year. On Christmas morning, I wasn�t too excited about getting out of bed and I took my time going down stairs. However, to my surprise, I not only saw the stuff that was on my list, I also saw more than I had asked for. I don�t know how he did it, but somehow my daddy exceeded all of our expectations. And that�s how your Heavenly Father is. Sometimes life�s circumstances will cause us to minimize our expectations, but God will always show us that he�s capable of exceeding all of our expectations, regardless of the circumstances. | | George Miller, Jr., Atlanta, Georgia | | | Blessings - Eric J. Freeman |
The Dog That Chased Its Tail | | I will never forget the first time I observed a dog chasing its own tail; it was the oddest thing. My father, who was with me, must have noticed the puzzled look on my face because he commented, �Interesting, huh!� We sat there and watched that dog chase his tail for what seemed like hours. The more he chased it the more frustrated and exhausted he became. I soon realized this was not a matter of entertainment but serious business for the dog. When I couldn�t take it any longer I asked my dad why the dog kept running in a circle chasing his own tail. My dad said, �Son, he�s chasing what he already has. His problem is he just doesn�t know it yet! How many times have we believers chased something Jesus has already promised us in the Word? We already have what we need, we just don't know it. | | Eric J. Freeman, Columbia, South Carolina | | | Blessings - Derrick Hughes |
A Special Order | | I shouldn�t but I love McDonalds. I recently went to McDonalds to order my favorite sandwich�a double cheeseburger with no onions, extra pickles, and extra ketchup. I stood in line, waited my turn, placed my order, and paid my money. After waiting a few minutes, the cashier asked me to stand to the side. As I stood on the sideline I watched others arrive, place their orders, receive their food, and leave. After waiting several minutes I finally asked, �Is there a problem with my order?� The manager overheard my conversation with the cashier and came over. I then explained to him that though I placed my order a while ago, I had not received anything. I even told him how other people who ordered after me had gotten their orders filled and left already. I was a bit upset. He then asked what I ordered. I told him a double cheeseburger with no onions, extra pickles, and extra ketchup. He said, �Oh! Your order is a special order and special orders always take longer.� Somebody who has been waiting on God needs to know that may be your blessing hasn�t come because it�s a special order and special orders always take longer. Tell your neighbor, �Delay doesn�t mean denial!� | | Derrick Hughes, Memphis, Tennessee | | | The Blood of Jesus - Derrick Hughes |
A Dry Socket | | Some time ago I suffered from a bad tooth. I had to have it pulled. I went to the dentist and she pulled it. She had me watch a video giving instructions on what to do and what not to do after leaving her office. I went home with a sore mouth. After three days of continued pain I called the dentist back to complain about the extremely uncomfortable pain. She told me to come back in immediately, so I did. She asked if I had been drinking liquids out of a straw. I said, �Yes.� She quickly informed me that I had a �dry socket.� I said, �What is a dry socket?� She asked, �Didn�t you watch the instructions on the video?� I really had not paid much attention to the video. So I asked, �What do we need to do to stop the pain?� She said, �I will make an incision so that the blood can flow again. Without the blood flowing you will not heal.� I thought someone needed to know that today. Somebody has a dry situation going on in their life and what you need is to let the blood of Jesus flow. Without that blood you will not be healed. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make us whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. O precious is the flow� No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. | | Derrick Hughes, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Bosco - Michael Hych |
Seeking the Presence of God | | When I get home from a long day of work, I usually rest on the couch. The minute I hit the couch my dog, Bosco, runs over and forces his head under my right hand to let me know he knows I�m present and that he wants my attention. Every now and then we all should do something to let God know we know he�s present and that we want his attention. | | Michael Hych, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Brokenness - Matthew Whatley |
Ringo the Villain in the Movie �Tombstone� | | My favorite movie is Tombstone. It�s basically the Wyatt Earp story. Earp is the hero in the movie and his best friend is a guy named Doc Holiday. They are dealing with a villain named Ringo. The basic point of the story is given when Earp goes to Doc Holiday and says, �Why does Ringo do the stuff he does?� Holiday looks at him and says, �Well, you have to understand a person like Ringo has a big hole in the middle of his heart. He can never kill enough or steal enough to fill it.� Earp replies, �But what does he want?� Doc says, �Really it�s because he�s trying to get revenge.� Earp then says, �Doc, why is he trying to get revenge?� Doc said, �He is trying to get revenge for being born.� The meanness we experience is actually carry-over from what we�ve been through. Hurting people end up hurting people. | From the sermon I Want it to Cost Me.
Delivered in Glen Dale, Maryland, by Matthew Whatley. | | | Callings - Gardner C. Taylor |
God�s Lawyer | | An automobile accident that occurred in my senior year at college greatly sobered my thinking about the ministry and, more than anything else, constituted a summons to the ministry as my life�s work. I was headed to law school at the University of Michigan before I made a conscious decision to attend Oberlin Graduate School of Theology. In my day, one did not have a �double calling.� One rarely trained for two professions. I felt an inward pull to pursue exclusively theological training. Although it was not an �irrevocable certainty,� it was compelling and everything else became secondary. It was a troubling experience for me, and it has been only in the last three or four years that I have come to some understanding of it. I was headed for the law. I do not think that the accident to which I referred occurred so that I would be called. But through the tragedy of that automobile accident, I believe the Lord was calling me to another advocacy, and I turned toward it. I do not know what my life would have been like if I had rejected the call, but I do know that I was miserable until I committed myself to this work. More recently, I have discerned in this train of events a summons to be the Lord�s lawyer and to argue the Lord�s case. I take pride in being that, since the Lord is an excellent client. | Proctor, Samuel D., and Gardner C. Taylor.
We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor�s Vocation.
Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1996. pp. 2, 6 | | | The Certainty of Death - Samuel D. Proctor |
Fleeing from Death | My wife and I years ago saw the play Night in Samarkand, starring Louis Jourdan, the French actor. One particularly gripping scene stands out in my memory. The servant of an estate goes into the city to buy some provisions. In the play, death is portrayed as a blonde woman in a trench coat. The servant, startled and frightened by death�s appearance in the city, goes back and tells the master of the estate, �I must have the freshest and fastest horse we have.�
�Why?� �Because I must flee.� �Where will you flee to?� �Samarkand.�
Later that day, the master of the estate goes into the village, sees the same woman, and says to her, �Why did you startle my servant?� She replies, �I didn�t mean to startle him. I was startled to see him here in the village because I have a date with him tonight in Samarkand.� (Proctor) | Proctor, Samuel D., and Gardner C. Taylor.
We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor's Vocation.
Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1996. pp. 7-9 | | | The Child Who Finished Strong - Eugene Gibson |
Steadfastness | | My wife and I moved our daughter from public to private school, and in doing so we discovered that public school ran about two grades behind private. As a result, she who normally got straight A�s was now struggling just to fit in academically. She was also the only African American in her class. She knew that it was a blessing to be in private school, but it just seemed to be so hard. My wife and I invested in Sylvan Learning to bring her up to grade level and on the last day of the year when she was promoted to junior high I asked her how her year went and she looked at me and said, �Daddy, I�m convinced I finished stronger than I started!� The same child who cried because her GPA slipped and she didn�t have the grades to run for student government realized that, though her year started out rough it all worked together to make her better. It doesn�t matter how you start, it only matters how you finished. Is there anybody here that knows because Jesus finished strong we can finish strong? | | Eugene Gibson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Christ Shed Blood - Samuel Proctor |
Christ Shed Blood | | I have a scar�two inches wide and about six inches long�on my right knee. I�ve had it for more than seventy years. I got the scar when I was a boy in a dusty ghetto in Tidewater. Some of my friends and I decided to raid a man�s yard to steal peaches from his tree. We went into his yard as quiet as mice with sneakers on. But he had a premonition of our coming, and somehow our intentions had been radared into him. And out of the darkness and the stillness, there he emerged wielding an ax handle, and he came after us one by one. I escaped him when I made a move like O.J. Simpson and darted for the fence, and I scaled the fence. I didn�t know that I had caught the head of a rusty nail in my knee, and it ripped my knee open right down to the bone. That nail left the biggest, ugliest scar on my knee for all of these years. My knee was ripped open for stealing peaches. Every since then I have read about the cross with deeper understanding. I had one nail in my knee for something as useless as stealing peaches. One nail for an act of no consequence whatsoever; I bore the pain and the suffering literally for nothing�for a peach. But Jesus! I had one nail caught in my knee. They drove nails into his feet, nails into his hand, and a sword into his side. I had one nail caught in my knee. I bled for a peach. But he bled so that we could have peace with God. | Proctor, Samuel. �Jesus Went Farther.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2008-2009): pp. 77-78 | | | Christian Effectiveness - William Robinson |
Christian Effectiveness | | �[I]f you ever watch bowling on ESPN�you will notice that these bowling contests have really gotten sophisticated. They now have bowling pants, bowling shirts, bowling gloves, fancy bowling balls, bowling bags�just bowling everything. I also noticed their bowling stances. I�ve seen a bowler put his finger in the ball and put his hand on the other side, and make his way down the alley, and then flick his wrist to get the spin he wants and then kick out his leg. Some of the styles are sweet. However, help me understand this: What good is it to have new bowling pants, a new bowling shirt, new bowling gloves, a new bowling ball, and a new bowling bag, if you�re rolling the ball down the gutter? I�ve discovered a lot of us are looking good rolling gutter balls. The test of a bowler is not in his style, or in his look, but it�s in his impact. How many pins have you knocked down? If you�re not knocking down any pins, don�t tell me how good you look. | Robinson, William. �Living a Purposeful Life.�
The African American Pulpit (Fall 2007): p. 85 | | | Christian Foundation - Mark Jefferson |
One House Left Standing | | When Hurricane Ike crashed ashore in Texas with 110 mph winds, it left almost nothing behind in the small, coastal town of Gilchrist. Aerial photographs taken after the storm revealed that the neighborhood that stretched for miles along the narrow peninsula had been swept away with just one exception: a single home was left standing, seemingly untouched. It was surreal. As the only house still standing amid the wasteland that surrounded it, many wondered if the house in the photos was fake. The house�s ability to stand was revealed when the home owner said that after they lost their first house to a previous storm, they built their current house to weather a category 5 storm. The secret to the strength was in the fortified and raised foundation that the house was on. I said that to say this, �Build your hopes on things eternal and make sure your anchor holds and grips the solid rock, because the storms will come.� | From the sermon David Don�t Fly Away.
Delivered in 2008, by Mark Jefferson. | | | Christian Growth - Ralph D. West |
Big Fruit | | I noticed they have a thing some botanist came up with called Jack Fruit. Well, these botanists have come up with a way to produce the largest vegetation on the planet. They have taken the best soil�brought it together, and they have created soil that when you put seed in it, grows vegetation and fruits larger than in average soil. They�re producing huge clusters of grapes, oversized watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes—all of this grown right in this soil. All because the soil has been textured and tailored to give the proper growth. You need to plant your life in some soil that is good so that you can increase in knowledge. You ought to keep on growing. If you are today where you were last year, then you need to check your soil. | West, Ralph. �A Prayer for Informed Behavior.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer 2007): p. 93 | | | Christian Growth/Patience - Gardner C. Taylor |
Don�t Be Too Hasty | | Years ago I preached at Florida A&M University, in Tallahassee. That uniquely gifted preacher, Howard Thurman, had preceded me there as preacher for some occasion. Students still remembered his comment about young people not reaching conclusions that are too hasty and premature. He said, �It is hard to describe the sunset when you have only seen the sunrise.� | Gardner C Taylor., from the sermon �A Cry for Guidance.�
The Words of Gardner Taylor Volume 2.
Ed. Edward Taylor. Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2000. p. 22. | | | Christian Identity - Timothy Jackson |
The Breathalyzer Test | | COPS was once a favorite reality television show of mine. Once an officer stopped a guy on a routine traffic stop. After speaking to the man, he smelled alcohol on his breath. The officer suspected that the man was under the influence simply because of the smell that was coming from his mouth. The officer asked the man if he would be willing to take a breathalyzer test. The officer explained that the man had to blow into a tube and a computer would provide a reading using the man�s breath to determine the amount of alcohol in the man�s system. In short, the breathalyzer test reads what comes out of the mouth to determine what�s on the inside. I have one question. Does the stuff that comes out of your mouth reflect who lives on the inside? | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Christian Living - James Jackson |
Walking Backwards on a Treadmill | | I was at the YMCA recently and I saw a brother walking on a treadmill. As he walked and noticed people watching him he became a little cocky. He started going a little faster. Next, he manually forced the treadmill to a very steep incline. After a while he started walking sideways on the treadmill. Finally, he became extremely confident and started walking backwards on it. Ultimately he fell. The reason he fell is because he was walking backwards on something that required him to go forward. A lot of us fall because we are walking the wrong way. | From the sermon You Can�t Make Me Go Back.
Delivered in Indianapolis, Indiana, 2008, by James Jackson. | | | Christian Maturity - Howard-John Wesley |
Skillets | | I was learning how to fry chicken in my mother's kitchen one day. After we bought the chicken, washed the chicken, seasoned the chicken, and put the flour in the brown paper bag I went to get a skillet. I grabbed her new, Teflon coated, shiny gray skillet. It was pristine - no scratches, no burn marks, no signs of wear or tear. My mother laughed when she saw it in my hand and said, "Son, you can't fry chicken in that skillet. It's never been burned, never been used, never been proven." She grabbed an old black cast iron skillet, full of scratches and all the signs of wear and tear, all evidence of it having been in the fire and come through, and she said, "this skillet I can use!" | | Howard-John Wesley, East Longmeadow, Massachusetts | | | Christian Maturity - Tamika Bell |
The Faucet that Would Not Work | | I know this illustration will sound trite to many of you, but I believe it�s a simple truth about life. I recently moved into a new house and the other day I went outside to use my outside faucet, but had a very difficult time turning it on. For some reason, I could not loosen it. I kept twisting and twisting and twisting to the left, but it would not loosen and release the water. After a few minutes of it not budging, I tried turning it the other way, to the right. To my surprise, it loosened and water began to flow. I thought for a moment and realized that�s how life is. Though many of us are doing the wrong thing, we keep expecting to get different and better results. But it is not until we change direction, then, and only then, can we expect to get better results. | | Tamika Bell, Birmingham, Alabama | | | Christian Maturity - Eugene Gibson |
No More Crayons | | There are some things and some people you can't take with you to the next level. I have never been more upset than when I entered the 7th grade. Don't get me wrong, I was excited to be in Junior High and excited to be at a new school. However, the horror came when I looked at the supply list for class. To my dismay crayons were missing from the list. I mean I had been through kindergarten and grades 1-6, and every year crayons were on my list. But this time, this year, and in this grade, crayons were not needed. I asked the teacher why were crayons not included she said, �There are some things you need to leave down there (meaning the other school) if you want to make up it here.� | | Eugene Gibson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Christian Potential - Romell Williams |
Keeping the Camera on Michael Jordan | | I grew up in Chicago, and like most kids I was a huge Chicago Bulls fans. Once I saw an interview of a man who used to run what came to be known as the �Jordan Cam.� This person�s sole purpose was to keep his camera on Michael Jordan for each game. During the interview, he was asked how he could keep his camera on Jordan even when it was a tight game and other interesting things were happening on the court. The cameraman responded, �I watch Jordan for two reasons. First, it�s my job to watch him and no one else. Regardless of what anyone else does, it�s my job to only watch Jordan. Second, I watch him because I may not know what he�s going to do or when he�s going to do something, but I do know eventually he�s going to do something spectacular.� | | Romell Williams, Chicago, Illinois | | | Christian Tools - Michael Oyedokun |
Bad Gas | | One weekend my wife and I decided to take a trip to Houston for a wedding. I decided I would fill up my truck with cheap gas. The trip started well, but as we reached the half way point the truck started to jerk and sputter. I didn�t know what was going on, so I decided to pull over and call my uncle who is a mechanic. He said that I probably got some bad gas and that I needed to put in some fluid that would treat the problem. I thought about going back, but I decided to put in the fuel treatment solution and stay on course. I still jerked and sputtered all the way to Houston, but on the way back, after the fuel treatment began to work and I put in better gas, the truck stopped jerking and sputtering and we made it home. Often in life we fill our spiritual tank with bad gas�lies, gossip, and secular fads. We may start the journey okay, but after a while things stops running smoothly. When you hit this point you need to add a fuel treatment, which is the Word of God and you need to fill your tank with good gas such as fellowship, prayer, and godly deeds. You may continue to jerk and sputter for a while, but you will be able to finish the trip and make it home. | | Michael Oyedokun, Round Rock, Texas | | | Christian Unity - Tamika Bell |
A Team Touchdown | | The other day I was watching a football game and I noticed that the quarterback was about to run the ball until he noticed several guys from the other team running towards him. Because he noticed the pressure that was coming his way, he looked around for a moment, and when he found the right person he threw the ball to him. That man then went on to score a touchdown for the team. As I reflected on that interaction, I realized ministry and those who do ministry should function that way. So often, many of us have possession of a ministry and we think it�s our job to run every play. Unfortunately, people who hog the ball and never pass it often get tackled before making any progress. But if we do like that quarterback and realize that God has other people on the team who are just as capable of running the ball, then our ministry teams will gain more victories. Touchdowns are not scored by individuals; they�re scored when everyone on the team works together. Somebody ought to look at your neighbor and say, �Neighbor, pass the ball.� | | Tamika Bell, Birmingham, Alabama | | | Christian Unity - Myisha Cherry |
Teamwork | | It takes a team to do the great things that God has called us to do. Rome wasn�t built in a day. But when built, it was built by a team. Even sport lovers hate a ball hog. During Michael Jordan�s freshman year at UNC, Coach Dean Smith told him, �If you can�t pass, you can�t play.� | Cherry, Myisha. �It�s Time We Do a Collabo.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2006-2007): p. 39 | | | Churchill Was Kicked Out of Boarding School - George Champion |
Steadfastness | | Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, received an invitation to speak to the student body of a boarding school of his youth that kicked him out and told him he would never amount to anything. Mr. Churchill accepted the invitation. After he was properly introduced and presented, the prime minister stood up with his glass frames on his nose, looked around at the faces in the audience, and after feeling he had their undivided attention, said, �Never give up! Never give up! I say, never give up!� And he sat down. Had Mr. Churchill given up after the school officials kicked him out in his youth he would not have become Prime Minister of Great Britain. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching
and Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 85 | | | The Cleansing Blood of Jesus - Caesar Clark |
Wash Day | | When my mother did the laundry it was my job to make the fire. After I made the fire my mother would wash our clothes. After she washed them she would then wring them out and hang them on a clothes line outside. For hours they would be blowing in the breeze. When our neighbors saw the clothes hanging on the line they automatically knew it was wash day at our house. I said that to say this, ever since Jesus hung out on Calvary, everyday has been wash day! | | Caesar Clark, Dallas, Texas | | | Cleansing From Sin - Linda Guy |
Cleansing From Sin | | Carpet cleaning businesses sometimes offer a special service for removing pet urine odors. To show potential customers their need for the service, they darken the room and then turn on a powerful black light. The black light causes urine crystals to glow brightly. To the horror of the homeowner every drop and dribble can be seen, not only on the carpet, but usually on walls, drapes, furniture, and even on lamp shades. One salesman tells the story of a homeowner who begged him to shut off the light: "I can�t look at it anymore. I don�t care what it costs. Please clean it up!" Another woman said, "I�ll never be comfortable in my home again." The stains were there all the time but invisible until the right light exposed them. It would have been cruel to show customers the extent of their problem and then say, "Too bad for you" and walk away. The carpet cleaner brought the light so that they would desperately want the cleaning services. In the same way, God shines the light of His holiness on the blackness of our heart. Not just to make us feel guilty and then leave us that way, He also offers a cleaning solution. | | Linda Guy, Memphis, Tennessee | | | A Closed Mind Equals a Famished Soul - Sandy F. Ray |
The Lesson of a Blocked Intestine | | Some years ago, I was working in a hospital. The head nurse became desperately ill. I was informed by the surgeon that she was suffering from what he diagnosed as "intestinal cohesion." Some of the intestines had flattened and no nourishment could pass through her system. She was losing weight and becoming extremely weak. The surgeon had to correct the "cohesion" of the intestines so that food could pass through. The Corinthians were sickly and feeble because they suffered from spiritual cohesion. They rejected the life-giving truth. They were attempting to survive on a limited, local, traditional diet, but their souls were famished because their minds were closed. (II Corinthians 3:14) | From the sermon �The Tragedy of a Closed Mind.�
Journeying Through a Jungle.
Ray, Sandy F. p. 68 | | | Co-Laboring with God - Youtha Hardman-Cromwell |
Canoeing With God | | Several summers ago, my husband Oliver and I went to visit our friends who have a summer home on Newfound Lake in New Hampshire. When we arrived, they announced that they had scheduled the four of us for an early morning nature exploration on Newfound Lake � in canoes. Now understand that neither my husband nor I had ever been in a canoe, but�hey� how hard could it be? Now, in case you know nothing about canoeing, it is a strictly two person operation. We managed to get into our canoe without falling into the lake. We pushed off from the dock, only to be told by the nature trip guide that we were in the canoe backwards and needed to go back to the dock to get ourselves turned around in the right direction. We managed this also, without falling into the lake. Our next learning experience was our roles as partners in this adventure and how to use the paddles. Now the person in front has the responsibility to determine the direction of the canoe, and the person in the back provides the power. In your relationship with God, you are in a two person canoe. God provides the direction and power, you just need to follow instructions. | | Youtha Hardman-Cromwell, Washington, DC | | | The Comforter - Larry Trotter |
Leave the Light on | | As a boy I would have occasional nightmares and I would cry out in my sleep. Without fail, my mother, who was not sleeping, would hear my cry and come in and comfort me. She would comfort me by reminding me that she was there, but when she walked out, she would always do something that would comfort me even more. She would turn on the light and leave the light on for me. No, this is not a hotel commercial, but I do know One who will leave the light on for you. | Trotter, Larry. �While We Slept.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2005-2006): p. 76 | | | Conquerors - George Champion |
Add One Thing | | The Communist Party in the USSR during the 1950s put out a heavy assault upon the underground Christian church with large billboard signs reading, �The Reign of Christ is Over.� The underground church met to counteract this damaging propaganda. After much thought and consultation, they decided not to take the signs down or to change any of the lettering. Rather, they decided to just add one word to each of the signs, �ALL.� The signs would then read, �The Reign of Christ is Over ALL!� Those people showed us that we can always make the best out of any situation if we just know what to add. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 45 | | | Consistent Integrity - Dennis V. Proctor |
The Tradeoff | | A young man was being considered for the position of executive vice president by the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company. The issue of his compensation was complicated, and the deliberations went long into the morning. The board decided to adjourn for lunch and vote on his selection immediately upon their return. While in the company cafeteria, a member of the board was standing behind the candidate as he went through the food line. He observed the candidate lift his plate and slide a pat of butter under it in an effort to avoid detection by the cashier. When the meeting reconvened, the board member stood, shared what he had just observed, and queried, �If we can�t trust him with a three-cent pat of butter, how can we place the company in his hands?� The candidate missed a golden opportunity because of an unguarded moment. He traded a three-million dollar compensation package for a three-cent pat of butter. What a tradeoff! Have you stopped to calculate some of your losses lately? | From the sermon �The Danger of an Unguarded Moment.�
Outstanding Black Sermons Volume 4.
Proctor, Dennis V. pp. 114-115 | | | Constant Christian Behavior - Samuel D. Proctor |
Tricks Played on an Indiscreet Pastor | | In my early youth we played in the streets because our community had no playground or community centers. We were familiar with all of the cars that regularly traveled through our streets, interrupting our games. We knew who lived where and which cars were parked where and for how long. When one car parked in the same place frequently, for long periods, our curiosity was pricked. When we found that it was the car of the pastor of a large church, we indulged in all sorts of jokes, gossip, and unkind speculation. This distinguished gentlemen never had the faintest clue that his error and indiscretion seriously diminished our esteem for the clergy, at an early stage in life. The role of intercessor demands rigorous discipline. | Samuel Proctor in Proctor, Samuel D., and Gardner C. Taylor.
We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor�s Vocation.
Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1996. pp. 38-39 | | | Consulting God - Selwyn Bachus |
Asking the Boss | | I used to pastor a church in Richmond, Virginia, called First Union Baptist Church. The Lord was really blessing me there and the church was growing by leaps and bounds. In the midst of the Lord blessing I entered a D.Min program. Shortly after starting the program I was asked to preach at a vacant church in Dayton called Shiloh Baptist Church. I preached there and the Lord blessed. When I returned to Richmond one of my friends asked how I did at Shiloh. I told him, �The Lord really, really blessed!� He asked, �Well are you going to apply?� I said, �No, my life is great in Richmond.� He said, �Have you prayed about it?� I said, �I have no interest in what the Lord has to say because things are great in Richmond.� He said, �Well I have one more comment.� I said, �What is it?� He replied, �And you say you work for the Lord.� | From the sermon Walking His Way.
Delivered Sunday, March 6, 2008 at Beulahland Bible Church, by Selwyn Bachus. | | | Continuing Reservations - Sandy F. Ray |
The Wrong Flight But. . . | | Some years ago, I boarded a plane in Columbus, Ohio, scheduled for New York. I was tired and rushed, and consequently took the wrong plane. I fell asleep thinking of terminating in New York. I was awakened by a stewardess who informed me that my flight terminated in Washington, D.C. It was distressing to me, for it was midnight, and I was scheduled to eulogize a minister in New York at 11 o�clock in the morning. I rushed to the nearest counter with my ticket in hand and a tone of panic in my voice. The agent was calm as I explained my predicament. He said, "You are all right. The flight does terminate here, but you have continuing reservations. There is a plane at gate two bound for New York." All human beings are on an earth-terminating flight, but followers of the Lord Jesus Christ have continuing reservations. Like the apostle Paul, they can shout: "If [or when] the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Corinthians 5:1) | From the sermon "Spiritual Security."
Journeying Through a Jungle.
Ray, Sandy F. p. 111 | | | The Cost of Discipleship - Jerry Black |
The Wolf Country | | One evening, while I was at home watching television with all four of my children, we saw an episode of the television show, �Grizzly Adams.� In this episode, a young woman was trying to find her lost brother. Her brother had gone off into the wilderness and had not been seen or heard from since. The young woman sought help from Grizzly Adams because of his familiarity with the wilderness, and because of his knowledge of that region. She said, �I�m looking for my brother, and I�ve been told that you could direct me to a trail that would take me into the depths of the wilderness where my brother was last seen.� Grizzly Adams attempted to discourage this young woman and told her, �I admire that you are looking for your lost brother, but I want to tell you that wolves inhabit the part of the wilderness that you are talking about, and you don�t need to go into the wolf country! There are ravenous, blood-thirsty wolves there that have been known to tear people apart.� So he told her, �Please stay out of the wolf country.� When I reread Matthew 10:16, I had to title a sermon, �The Wolf Country.� | Black, Jerry. �The Wolf Country.�
The African American Pulpit (Fall 2005): p. 37 | | | Creation - Denny Davis |
The Tale of Two Pictures | | I like to buy black art. I love going to art galleries to look for pictures. One day I went into a gallery and they had a large poster size picture that I liked. I asked the price and was told $75.00. I then came upon a 5x7 of the same picture and inquired about the price. I was told it is $750.00. I said, �You must be crazy! The 5x7 is $750 and the poster size is $75. How is that possible? You must have the prices reversed.� The owner said, �What you don�t understand is that the poster is just a reproduction. The 5x7 is an original and an original is always worth more than a reproduction.� All I�m trying to say is never try to be a cheap copy when God has made you a designer original. | From the sermon Grumbling Over Grace.
Delivered in 2007, by Denny Davis. | | | The Danger of Stealing - Martha Simmons |
The Great Illustrator | | This is a true story. A well-known preacher wrote a book of sermons that contained numerous great illustrations. A preacher purchased the book and preached using many of the illustrations. Not once did he give credit to the source or even say, "I heard someone say.� He reveled in the applause that was heaped upon him by his congregation for his being a great illustrator. The church congregation was invited to attend a worship service at a guest church. At the last moment, the guest host pastor had been able to secure the well-known sermon illustrator, since the original preacher had been unable to preach that day. After the service and over a meal, a deacon said to the guest preacher, �You are really a good illustrator, but you should have given our pastor credit for some of those illustrations you used.� The guest preacher said, "Is that right?" To which the deacon responded, "Oh yes! I'll go out to my car and get a couple of his tapes so that you can hear him do some of those illustrations and you will hear how great of an illustrator he is.� | | Martha Simmons, Atlanta, Georgia | | | Destiny - Janae Pitts |
Lessons from the Highway | | If you've ever done highway driving, then you know what it means to have a road partner. I was on the road one day and along came another vehicle. We had instant road synergy. We were ruling I-75. He'd cut between a truck, I'd cut between a truck. He'd speed up. I'd speed up. He'd slow down. I'd slow down. We were ruling I-75. But then I saw my exit. I changed lanes, but he didn't change lanes. I began to slow down but he didn't slow down. My exit grew closer. The longer I stayed on the road, the bigger my signs became. I wondered, "Does he see the signs that I'm seeing?" Next exit 2 miles. Next exit 1 mile. Next exit 1/2 mile. Your exit HERE! So I had to make a choice. Do I stay on this road and head to someone else's destination, or do I take my exit and go where I'm supposed to be? I wonder how many people have missed their exits trying to follow someone else? | | Janae Pitts, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Discerning God�s Will - Ralph D. West |
Time on a Clock As a Sign from God? | | I read of a woman—a true story of a lady who was seeking the will of God on whether she should take a trip to the Holy Land. And she got a brochure/pamphlet and she read it and reread it and read it again. But she came to no conclusion as she was praying for the will of God to be revealed on whether she should take the trip to the Holy Land. Well, several weeks before the trip would actually be taken, on the night before she had to send in her money that she had saved, she read a notice on the brochure that they—the tourist—would be taking a Boeing 747 to Tel Aviv from New York. And she went to sleep asking for sign. She woke up and her digital clock read 747. She said, �Well, that�s the will of God.� | West, Ralph. �A Prayer for Informed Behavior.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer 2007): p. 91 | | | Disciples of Christ - Napoleon Harris |
Bolt Barks | | I recently saw the Disney movie Bolt. It's a heartwarming movie about a dog that is led to believe he has super powers, but in time discovers he does not. Despite his powerlessness and ordinariness, Bolt becomes a hero and saves the day, and does it in a manner that is spectacularly simplistic. When his owner Penny, was trapped in a perilous predicament, Bolt utilized the characteristics inherent in every dog. His love for his owner led him to simply bark loudly. The simple fact that he opened his mouth and barked led to Penny�s rescue. By doing the thing all dogs could do, Bolt saved the day. Bolt gives us a major lesson; if we simply love God, our owner, and lift our voices loudly, we too can save lives and be heroes. Not extraordinary heroes but like Bolt, just ordinary heroes. | | Napoleon Harris, Norwalk, Connecticut | | | Discipline - Martha Simmons |
The Talking Shoes | | I was in a mall one day. Had not planned to spend a dime. Went to use a gift certificate. Was being conscientious. I was walking past a shoe store, minding my own business. Then I heard the words, psssssst, we�re on sale.� I didn�t see anyone, but I heard it again. I looked in the store window and realized that a pair of red leather Stuart Weitzman pumps were talking to me. �Come on in the store,� they said. I said, �Leave me alone, I have shoes.� They said, �We�re on sale.� I said, �Stuart Weitzman's are not on sale even when they�re on sale.� The shoes said, �But you know you have been complaining about wanting some red shoes.� I knew I couldn�t win the argument, but I could run and that�s what I did. I ran. Sometimes it�s best to just run. It takes discipline to run. | Simmons, Martha. �The Three R�s of Financial Responsibility.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer 2006): p. 58 | | | Divine Assistance - Timothy Jackson |
A Booster Seat Is Needed | | A father and child went to a restaurant and were shown to their table by the hostess. When the child sat in the chair at the table he discovered that the table was too high and that the chair was too low. Realizing that something needed to be done, the boy looked at his father and said, "Daddy, I need a booster seat." The father smiled and politely asked the hostess to bring a booster seat for his son. While they waited the son sat in the father's lap. When the hostess returned, the father placed the booster seat in the chair and then strapped in his son. The booster seat gave the boy the boost he needed to reach what he needed. When things are out of your reach ask God for a booster seat. | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Divine Purpose - Reginald Bell, Jr. |
Scratched and Dented | | In Birmingham, there is a store that sells scratched and dented merchandise. The stuff at this store is there because somewhere between the time the stuff left the warehouse and before it reached its destination, it received a scratch or a dent of some sort. Since the items have scratches or dents, most people don�t want them, but the owner of the scratch and dent store takes the merchandise. The reason he takes it is because he understands that, although the merchandise may have a few scratches or dents, it can still serve the purpose for which it was created. A stove with a slight dent in the side will still cook food, and a recliner with a scratch in it will still recline. Like the store owner, God recognizes that although we�ve been scratched and dented, we can still serve our purpose. | | Reginald Bell, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee | | | Don�t Make God Sorry That� - Rameh Wright |
Letting Your Dad Down | | When I started college there came those parties that you get invited to and I was going to drive my car to go pick up my girlfriends and go off to the party. Now, before I left, my father told me that I had to be back home at a certain hour. And I said, �What time, Daddy?� He said, �Two o�clock at the latest.� Now, two o�clock back then was a long time, but it wasn�t enough time for me. And so, I said "OK", but deep down inside I really wasn�t happy because after all I�m driving. I�ve got to pick everybody up, and you know after the party, we�ve got to go to White Castle to get something to eat� I don�t remember exactly what time it was when I rolled up in front of the house, but all I can tell you is that the birds were tweeting... Everybody was asleep. So, I tiptoed to my room in the dark, took off my clothes, found my pajamas in my drawer, put them on and ran over to my bed to pull back the covers. But, in the process I felt this piece of paper on my bed. So, I turned on the light and I read what it said. It said, �Mop��that�s what my daddy called me. That was my nickname. �Mop, you let me down.� Well, those words, �You let me down,� ring loudly in my ear even today. And, they touched my spirit like the words in 1 Sam 15:10-31, when Samuel told Saul that the Lord was sorry that he made him king. Can you imagine that? That the Lord would put you in a position and later say, �I�m sorry that I made you ______,� and you fill in the blank. | Wright, Rameh. �God�s Word and Our Salvation.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer, 2006): p. 79 | | | Ducks in a Row - Takisha Strong |
Jesus Watches Over His Own | | It is never easy to get your ducks in a row. Not long ago I watched a mother duck and her ducklings swim across a pond. As they swam, the mother was always in the lead and the little ducklings followed. As they moved across the pond, the baby ducklings began to get out of line and go in their own direction. Instead of letting them continue, the mother duck turned around and put them back in line. This is how life is. There are times when things will be flowing smoothly in our lives, and then things will get out of line. But the good news is that Jesus, our mother duck, will put all of our ducks back into a row. | | Takisha Strong, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Elevation - Todd Davidson |
To The Rear March | | I never have served in the military, but I have a great respect and admiration for folks who do. One of the military commands that always intrigued me is when a commanding officer gives the order, �To the Rear, MARCH!� That is when the soldiers marching in one direction stop, turn, and then start marching in the opposite direction. The neat thing about, �To the Rear, MARCH� is that the one in the back of the line becomes the one in the front of the line! The one in the back starts leading the pack in the other direction. God showed me that we need to start teaching the world some �To the Rear, MARCH Theology!� Tell somebody that God will take those who are often the least among us, the most obscure among us, and the last amongst us from the back of the line to the front of the line. He will move you from last into leadership. To the Rear, MARCH! | | Todd Davidson, Virginia Beach, Virginia | | | Endurance - Frederick Sampson |
Life-long Struggle | | I�ve been struggling all my life. When God got ready for me to come out of his will into my mother�s womb he said, �Now this is the time for little Freddie.� When he dropped those protoplasmic substances and they went up my mother�s fallopian tube, there were over 700 possibilities of finding that egg. Again, I�m not worried about struggling cause I came here struggling. My name was on one sperm and all those other sperms had to get out the way. The sperm with my name on it started swimming upstream and it said, �Get out the way it�s not your time! I�m on God�s calendar.� When my daddy�s sperm locked into that egg and penetrated that womb, God made me who I am. I may have a flat nose and I may not look right but you ought to see my history. I�ve been struggling all my life. | From the sermon The Moment in This Dawn.
Delivered May 28, 2000 by Frederick Sampson. | | | Enemies as Footstools - John Guns |
The Anchor and LeBron | | Every morning I look at First Take on ESPN. The staple of the show is Skip Bayless. Skip Bayless is a white journalist who can�t jump. He�s the harshest critic of LeBron James. �James can�t shoot!� �James can�t jump!� �James can�t do this or that!� But the other day when James pulled the ball back from his toes and slammed over the whole Boston Celtics� team, even Bayless had to admit that was a major move and not everybody can do that. God will use you in a way in which even your enemies will have to say, �I may not like you but there�s something great about you.� | From the sermon I Will Go and Fight Him.
Delivered in 2008, by John Guns. | | | An Eternal Home - Howard-John Wesley |
A Bumper Sticker | | I was driving down the street behind a raggedy, dirty car the other day. The muffler was dragging with plenty of smoke coming out, the side-view mirror was held on with duct tape, and the doors were a different color and dented all over. The driver had the audacity to have a bumper sticker that read, "My other car is a Mercedes." The driver was telling me not to judge him by what he was driving today, because he had something else I didn't know about. When this old earthly tabernacle shall be destroyed, we have another home, not made by hands, eternal with God. | | Howard-John Wesley, East Longmeadow, Massachusetts | | | Eternal Life - Charles Turner |
Accumulated Enough Points | | While watching the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, I saw American Olympic decathlete Bryan Clay finish last in the final event of the ten events that made up the decathlon. During the awards ceremony, I was surprised to see Clay take his place on the gold medal stand. Immediately, the pain and agony on his face from the 1500 meter race turned to a triumphant smile as he received the gold medal. It then dawned on me that I only saw the last event of the race which he lost. I failed to realize he had already accumulated enough points in the other events to win the gold. All he had to do in the final event was cross the finish line to win. When death arrives, it makes it seem as if we have lost the race of life. But if you accept Christ before death knocks, you have accumulated enough points to win. When you come to the end of the race, just cross the finish line and receive your reward. | | Charles Turner, New Haven, Connecticut | | | Eternal Life - Ramona Joseph |
To Be Continued | | Sometimes, while watching a television movie we can become so engrossed in the story line, we lose all track of the time. At a crucial point in the presentation three words appear on the screen, �To be continued.� The initial reaction of the viewer may be anger; it seems so unfair that in the midst of enjoying the movie, with scenes that make one laugh--scenes that make one cry--and scenes that are so intense you can feel the pain, tension, and anxiety of the actors, that the words, �To be continued� appear. The second reaction upon seeing those three words, �To be continued,� is acceptance. You will be able to view the conclusion of the television movie on the next evening or whenever it is scheduled. Life is similar to watching a movie. We become so engrossed in living until we lose all track of time. We have laughed, cried and endured the pains, tensions, anxieties and frustration of all that comes through the years of one�s existence. Then suddenly our beloved is taken away from us. The good news is that there are three invisible words on the screen of life for all believers, �To be continued.� | | Ramona Joseph, Charlotte, North Carolina | | | Eternal Salvation - Anthony T. Evans |
A Long Hangover | | What Jesus did 2000 years ago hasn�t ended. His blood keeps on cleansing us from our sins. Jesus� blood is like an eternal hangover. When a person has a hangover they are not drinking. They are just still feeling the effects of the drink. Jesus is not still hanging on a cross. But the blood that he shed is so powerful that the hangover has lasted for over 2000 years. | From the sermon The Basis of Fellowship.
Delivered in Dallas, Texas, by Anthony T. Evans. | | | Eternity - Charles Turner |
The Clock Ran Out | | Week two of the 2008 Monday Night Football schedule featured the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Philadelphia Eagles in what would turn out to be one of the greatest games in NFL history. The Eagles had Donovan McNabb, and the Cowboys had Terrell �T.O.� Owens and Tony Romo. The game went back and forth all night in an offensive masterpiece, where neither team could stop the other. The game finally ended with the Cowboys winning 41-37. One commentator stated that the Eagles didn�t actually lose the game, time simply ran out. The same is true for the children of God. Life will take us back and forth. Then, when death comes, it looks like we have lost, but in death the child of God doesn�t lose; he or she is simply out of time and is now ready for eternity. | | Charles Turner, New Haven, Connecticut | | | Evangelism - Brandon Porter |
Play to Win not to Impress | | My son is the starting point guard for his basketball team. After one of his games his was down because of his performance. He said, �Dad I had twelve assists but I scored no points because I didn�t expect so many people to be there. I was scared and couldn�t get my game together.� When he finished I told him, �Son, don�t ever worry about the crowd. You don�t play to impress, you play to win.� The very next game he went out and scored seventeen points. In a similar way, when it comes to preaching our goal is not to impress, our goal is to win�more souls and the crown of life. | | Brandon Porter, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Exalting God - Cameron Cooley |
Exalting God | | My son does the exact same thing every time I come home from work. First, he shouts, "He's here! He�s here!" Then he says, "You're Home!" He then grabs my leg, and I cannot continue to walk until I pick him up and give him a bear hug. After the hug, I put him down and he asks, "Can I take you back to Mama?" I always acquiesce. He takes hold of my index finger and leads me to my wife. Upon arrival he says, "Here's the SUPER, SUPER DADDY!" While saying this he�s waving his hand to present me, as he almost bows. I recently thought to myself this is what we should do during church: praise, worship and present. When we come together in church we should always praise God, first. Next we should worship him (the hug/kiss). Finally, we should use our knowledge of how great he is to present him to others. | | Cameron Cooley, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Faith - John McKinney |
It Looks Like Cornbread, but it�s Cabbage | | There was once a father and a son working in a field. Like most people who worked in the field they rose at the crack of dawn to get started before the sun got real hot. They would work all morning until about ten and then stop for lunch. One day the son left the father in field and went to the house to get his lunch. When he got to the house his mother was cooking cabbage. He begged his mother for a plate of cabbage. She refused and said, �Boy you know I cook cabbage all day before I let someone eat them.� He then asked for a piece of cornbread. His mom gave him permission to get the cornbread. He took the cornbread and held it over the cabbage pot and allowed the steam from the cabbage to get the cornbread good and wet. His mother then told him to go and get his father for lunch. As he walked to his father nibbling on the cornbread his father asked what he was eating. The boy said he was eating cabbage. The father said, �I know you�re not eating cabbage because since we didn�t have any last night I know there aren�t leftovers and if your mother is cooking some today I know she didn�t give you any because it takes her all day to cook them. So what are you eating?� The boy showed his father the corn bread and said, �It�s cabbage.� The father said, �That�s cornbread.� The boy said �No sir. This cornbread is the substance of cabbage hoped for and the evidence of cabbage not seen.� | From the sermon Let�s Go to the Other Side.
Delivered in 2001, by John McKinney. | | | Faith - Claude Alexander |
Act Before You See It | | When the meteorologist predicts the weather, we act on that prediction, basing our choices on what we have heard. We act like it is going to rain before the rain comes, until it comes. If the weather forecaster say there�s a hurricane coming, you start acting like it is coming before you see it. You go to the store and start buying bread, water, and all that stuff. You act like you�ve seen it before you�ve seen it, until you see it. All that is based—not on what you�ve seen—but it�s based on what you�ve heard. That�s what faith is. Faith is acting like you�ve seen it before you�ve seen it, until you see it. | Alexander, Claude. �Faith.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2006-2007): p. 59 | | | Faith - Timothy Jackson |
Page Intentionally Left Blank | | One day while printing a report for work I noticed a blank page. I initially thought that the printer was malfunctioning. I thought this until I looked near the bottom of the black page and saw this note, �Page intentionally left blank.� After a sigh of relief, a different section of the report began to spout from the printer. When that section finished another blank page followed with the same note, �Page intentionally left blank.� A few seconds later a new section began to print. As I thought about it I realized that the blank page that came at the end of each section served two purposes. First, it informed me that the previous section had ended. Second, it informed me that a new section was about to begin. Sometimes, God will seem silent. You will wonder what�s going on, or where is God. But it�s possible that the current page in your life may have been intentionally left blank by God to let you know that a new chapter is coming. | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Faith - A. Louis Patterson |
The Dark Tunnels in Life | | My first trip out of Texas was to St. Louis, Missouri. My daddy was a railroad man, and he told me that the journey was 908 miles. Somewhere along the journey was a tunnel. My sister, a little older than I, had gone the year before, and she came back and gathered us on the front porch and told us in detail about the dark tunnel. The tunnel was less than a quarter of a mile long. The thought of going through that dark tunnel scarred me so until I considered not taking the journey. I almost missed 908 miles and much beyond by focusing on the tunnel. A whole lot of times we miss out on all that life has to offer because we can�t get past the thought of dark tunnels. But we must remember that most of the journey is tunnel-free. | Patterson, A. Louis. �A Valley Experience.� The African
American Pulpit (Fall 2000): p. 80 | | | Faith in God - Anonymous |
When Your Dad Is the Pilot� | | A large jetliner was taking passengers to their destination when they went through some terrible turbulence. The plane went up and down, shaking and losing altitude. Everyone on the plane was hollering and screaming, except a little girl who sat directly behind the cockpit. When everything returned to normal a lady sitting next to the little girl leaned over and said, �I�m impressed by your calmness. Everybody else on the plane was really upset, but you sat there as if everything was alright. Why were you so calm?� The little girl replied, �I wasn�t afraid because my daddy is flying the plane and he promised me we would make it home safely. | Anonymous. Versions of this illustration have
been used by many. | | | Fallow Ground - Tim Rainey |
Fallow Ground | | I don�t know about you, but as a child I hated getting shots. There were times when my doctor�s visits would be an all out war between me and the nurses. In the early winter of 1990 when I was seven years old, I walked pitifully into my pediatrician�s office with bronchitis and a penicillin shot was inevitable. I went crazy. After three nurses failed to restrain me Dr. Waters came back and calmly explained why I needed a shot. She said �Ingestion treatments, pills, don�t work fast enough. What you need is an injection with a needle, because it�s sharp enough to break through the layers of your skin and then it puts the medicine right where it needs to be.� She told my mother, �A shot can get through the dead layer of skin in the epidermis, which is a thick layer of skin and make it to a place called the dermis where your blood and nerves are. That�s the place where you feel. That�s where the medicine needs to go. There are times in life when the Word and tests of God may be painful, they may prick and pierce us but that�s just God trying to get through the dead places of our lives, trying to maneuver through the thick layers of our heart so the Word can ultimately get to the place where we begin to feel, the place where we are affected, where the soul is. And when Christ is in us, his medicine can begin its healing work. | | Tim Rainey, Huntsville, Alabama | | | Fallow Hearts - George Champion |
The Hollering Dog! | | A man had a dog that hollered so loud that he awakened the whole neighborhood. The dog was not barking as most dogs do, but hollering! People came out to see what was making the dog holler. When they got to the dog, his master was standing over him. They asked, �Mister, why in the world is your dog hollering so loud?� His master responded, �This dog is hollering for two reasons. First, he is sitting on a nail. Second, he ain�t hurting bad enough to get up off it, so he just sits there and hollers.� Many of us are sitting on the nails of heartbreak, troubles, frustrations, worry, sickness, and misery. Jesus stands next to us and says, �Come unto me all you who are heavy laden and burdened down, and I�ll give you rest�� But we tune Jesus out and keep complaining, hollering and crying in our misery. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 26 | | | Fathoming God - Preston Taylor |
Putting All of God in Your Head | | Augustine was born in 354 A.D. After a wild �rebellious" earlier life, Augustine became a convert to Christ. Later in life the writer, theologian, and teacher was walking beside the Mediterranean Sea in Italy one day. He was thinking about the greatness of God, trying to understand more of God. A young boy was playing on the seashore where Augustine was walking and meditating. He watched the boy as he dug a hole in the sand with a seashell. The young fellow proceeded to dip water from the sea with the seashell and pour the water into the hole that he had dug. Augustine asked the boy what he was doing. He answered, "I�m trying to put the ocean in the hole that I have dug." Augustine said to himself, "Ah, that's what I have been trying to do...I have tried to put all of God in my head. Just as a small hole in the ground is not big enough for all the water in the oceans, so my head is not big enough to get all of God in it." It�s impossible for any mind to contain all of God. We can�t fathom the mystery of God. We must simply accept the reality that God is. | | Preston Taylor, Zapata, Texas | | | Fear Not - William D. Rosser |
God Is Driving | | One evening my seven year old son and I were returning home after car shopping. I decided to turn down a side road that was not traveled as much in the evening in hopes of avoiding traffic. As we rounded each bend, I noticed he was very quiet. I thought maybe he was a little fearful, after all it was almost completely dark and we were in a wooded area. Midway to the main street, I asked him was he afraid. He responded, �No.� I asked, �Do you know where we are?� He said, �No.� Pushing him to say he was afraid, I probed further. �You are usually afraid when you don�t know where you are. Why not now?� He said, �Well, as long as you know where we are, I don�t have to be afraid.� He spoke volumes about how we should trust our �Heavenly Father� when we don�t know where we are on our spiritual journey. There is no need for us to be afraid because God knows where we are. After all, God is driving. | | William D. Rosser, Bartlett, Tennessee | | | Fellowship with God - Anthony (Tony) Evans |
Who Rides in Your Vehicle with You? | | Here in Dallas, the city has tried to find ways to cut down on the traffic entering and exiting the city. One solution was the creation of High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. That lane is for vehicles with more than one person in them. They hope to stop so many drivers from driving alone. So, if you are not alone in your car you can travel in the HOV lane and that will get you to your destination faster, because you will not be slowed by the cars with just one individual in them and there are always more of those. On the highway to heaven God wants you to travel in a high occupancy vehicle, and he wants to be the other passenger. On the highway to heaven he wants there to be an intimate fellowship between you and him. | | Anthony (Tony) Evans, Dallas, Texas | | | Few Laborers - George Champion |
Sheep Country | | A young man boarded a plane headed for San Francisco, California. He was excited that the route of the plane would take him over Montana which was called sheep country, because they allegedly had thousands of sheep. As the airplane flew over Montana�s plains and wide fields, he looked out of the window and for miles he saw no sheep. When the plane landed in Montana for a stop-over, the young man asked an employee at the airport, �Isn�t this sheep country? For hundreds of miles as I was looking from the airplane, I saw no sheep.� The man replied, �This is sheep country, but we ran out of shepherds. When we get more shepherds, the sheep will be back.� | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and Speaking.
Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. pp. 66-67 | | | Finishing the Course - Marvin McMickle |
Finishing the Course | | There is a status in academic circles known as �ABD.� Those letters stand for all but dissertation. That means that a person has taken all the classes, passed all the exams, and entered into candidacy for a Ph.D. degree. However, at some point and for a variety of reasons, they could not finish their dissertation�their extended paper that was both proof of their mastery of the material in their field of study and their own contribution to that field. They had done a lot of work but they did not finish; ABD. There are all kinds of ABDs in this world�close but not complete. There are career goals that are ABD. There are financial plans that are ABD. There are relationships that are ABD. Will you ever finish what you started? | McMickle, Marvin. �Having the Faith to Endure.�
The African American Pulpit (Fall 2009): pp. 60-61 | | | Following God - Anonymous |
Following the Stars or your Father | | A father and his son went camping. During the trip, the father tried to teach his son how to use the North Star to find his way through the woods. But the son didn�t seem to be interested in the lesson. Out of frustration, the father said, �Son, pay attention to what I am telling you so you won�t get lost.� The son looked up at his father and said, �Dad, I don�t need to watch the stars, I need only to follow you and I�ll never be lost.� That son was wrong. His father wouldn�t always be around for him to follow. Thanks be to God that�s not our testimony. Our father will never leave or forsake us. | Anonymous. Versions of this illustration have
been used by many. | | | Forgiveness - George Champion |
Sheets Tied to Trees | | There was a widowed mother with five children. Her oldest boy was very rebellious and constantly disobeyed her rules. The two eventually had a terrible argument and the mother told him he could either abide by her rules or leave her house. The boy grabbed his clothes and left. For a while he enjoyed being away from home. He had a well-paying job that enabled him to have money, friends, nice clothes, and a decent place to live. But a few months later a recession hit and he lost his job and everything else. Out of desperation, he sent an email to his mother that explained his situation. He told her he had no job, money, or food. He also said he was sorry and that he would jump on a train tomorrow that was headed towards home; the tracks ran behind the backyard of their house. If his mom forgave him and would allow him to come back home, he asked that she tie a white rag on the oak tree as a sign that she had forgiven him. The next morning the young man jumped on a train. He was in a car with some other guys who snuck on. As the train approached his backyard he told the guy next to him his story and asked him to look out and see if a white rag was tied to a tree. As the train moved around the curve the man said, �I don�t see a rag on a tree, but I do see sheets, white sheets all over the yard.� Does that not sound like God? We�ve messed up in a big way; we sinned. But God showed us he forgave us when he tied all of God to a tree. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. pp. 52-53 | | | Forgiveness - Anonymous |
Forgiveness | | In the book entitled, A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World, a true story is told of a priest in the Philippines, a much-loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years before. He had repented, but still had no peace, no sense of God�s forgiveness. In his parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ and He with her. The priest, however, was skeptical. To test her he said, "The next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask Him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary." The woman agreed. A few days later the priest asked, "Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?" "Yes, he did," she replied. "And did you ask him what sin I committed in seminary?" "Yes." "Well, what did he say?" "He said, �I don�t remember.�" | | Anonymous | | | Freedom - John Guns |
My Dog and a Chain | | My family has a golden retriever named angel. We used to let her run free until we discovered we can�t trust angel outside the house because she likes to run in the streets. So we keep her tied up. When we first put the chain around her neck she took off running from my hands and I had to pull the chain and snatch her back. One day I was outside and God told me to watch her. She was playing with a ball, moving it back and forth until it went about three feet away from her. She started reaching and reaching and reaching for it but couldn�t get it because of the chain. The Lord then told me, �That�s y�all!� I said, �What do you mean?� He said, John notice how the chain is wrapped around the pole. Angel has at least eight more feet of chain that�s wrapped around the pole. She hasn�t figured out that if she would just go back around the pole and free herself up she can reach what she couldn�t before. Most of us are not bound like we think. We just aren�t exercising all the freedom we�ve been granted. | From the sermon I Will Go and Fight Him.
Delivered in 2008, by John Guns. | | | Fruit of the Spirit - George Champion |
Are you God? | | A woman from an affluent neighborhood was driving through the inner city and spotted a young, undernourished boy standing on the corner in shabby clothes. She stopped her car and asked the boy his name and where he lived. The boy told her that he lived in a car under a bridge with his mother; they were homeless. The woman told him to get in and she took him to her home. When she fed him he ate two large portions. As he ate she noticed he was about the size of her grandson, so she gave him some of his clothes. Afterwards, the boy looked at her and asked, �Lady, is you God? You act how they say God act.� She replied, �No, but I am one of his children.� The boy responded, �I thought you were some kin to Him.� | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 53 | | | Frustrated in the Dark - Eustacia Moffett Marshall |
The Illumination of God | | One Friday evening, a friend and I were leaving the house for dinner. Talking, laughing, and reminiscing, we were so excited about our night that I prematurely turned off the light which suddenly blurred the path between the room we were leaving and the door framing the entrance into the other room. All of a sudden, what was once a clear path became an ambiguous avenue. As my friend and I tried to make our way to the other side of the room, I noticed that she had no problem walking in the dark. This was her house and she knew the way! But after hearing me bump the couch and almost trip over a misplaced item on the floor, my friend said, �Stop! Let me turn on the light.� I then ceased my frustrated efforts to walk in the dark while she made her way to the light-switch on the other side of the room. After this experience, I thought to myself: Every now and then, we need to stop frustrating ourselves in the dark and let God turn on the light. God can show us the path we should take. Let God turn on the light! God knows the path between the room we are leaving behind and the next one we want to enter. Let God turn on the light! God is a lamp unto our feet and light unto our path. | | Eustacia Moffett Marshall, Charlotte, North Carolina | | | The Fullness of God - Otis Moss, III |
Teacake Residue | | When my grandmother was living she used to make something called teacakes. I loved my grandmother�s teacakes. When she made them, she would allow me to stand next to her in the kitchen. She would mix up the batter, and she would pour it out into a pan. And then, after she poured it out, she would let me lick the residue, but she would always tell me, �Don�t eat too much of the residue. You�ll OD on the residue. Your real blessing is in the oven. | Moss, Otis, III. �That Was Then, This Is Now.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2006-2007): p.11 | | | Funerals/Periods of Grief - Christopher Davis |
When the Dust Settles | | My grandfather, James Chambers, tells the story of growing up down on Snowden. Snowden was the name of the man who owned the land on which my grandfather was raised. He tells that the fields had been freshly burned off in order to get them ready to for the next planting. The burning left the fields dry and dusty. During this time a great dust storm kicked up and everybody ran for cover. His mother grabbed him by the hand and they too began to run. Well, somehow, some way, they were separated during the storm. When the winds died down, he looked frantically in search of his mother. There were three little stores in the area. He ran to the first store and asked if anyone had seen his mother, and a storekeeper said, "James, I've not seen her." From there, he ran to the second store, asking if anyone had seen his mother. And again, he was told that no one had seen her. Starting to panic, fearing the worse, he moved slowly in tears to the last store, all the while thinking that he might not see his mother again. When he walked into the store, he noticed a woman, covered from head to toe in dust, sitting on some Coca-Cola crates in the rear of the store. As he got closer to her, he realized that it was his mother. He ran to her, hugged her, and began to cry. She said, "James, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" He responded, "Mama, I thought I wasn't gonna see you again." His mother wiped his face and said, "Oh sugar, mama wasn't worried. I knew once the dust settled we would see one another again." | | Christopher Davis, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Getting to Know Jesus - Frank Thomas |
Truth Is a Person | | I�ve been searching a long time for truth. I was a philosophy major in college�Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche�but truth was not to be found in philosophy. I left there and thought I could find truth in black identity. So, I did a program in African Caribbean studies� learned my black history and how we raised the pyramids over the Nile. I discovered that I could not find truth there. I went to seminary�I thought that in the tracks of theology and the original languages of the Bible, I could find truth. There was some truth there, but my soul was not at rest. I began to pastor, and I thought that in the fellowship of the saints I could find truth. I found some, but my soul was still not at rest. I went into counseling and therapy; I went back and got more degrees. Finally, I discovered what my Sunday school teacher had told me: Truth was a person. I did not have to ascend to heaven; I did not have to cross the sea. The truth was nigh unto me; it was in my mouth and in my heart. Truth was a person, and truth�s name is Jesus. | Thomas, Frank. �The Return.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2004-2005): p. 73. | | | Give God Your All - Dexter Nutall |
How Fast Will a Car Go? | | If you are anything like me, when you get in the driver�s seat of a car you have never driven, one of the first things you do is observe the speedometer. You do this because in doing so you are able to discover exactly how fast the car is capable of going. But just because the speedometer says that the car can go 100 mph does not mean the car will ever reach 100 mph. It means that the manufacturer designed the car so that it is capable of reaching 100 mph. It means that 100 mph is the car�s potential. Whether the car actually reaches 100 mph will be determined by who is driving the car. If some of us are driving, that car will come a lot closer to its potential than if others of us are driving. But the potential of the car is the same no matter who is driving. | Nutall, Dexter. �A Glimpse of Glory.�
The African American Pulpit (Fall 2006): p. 65 | | | God Answers Prayer - D.E. King |
Praying in a Basement | | I went to LeMoyne College. After being there six months I was called into the treasurer�s office and she said, �Duran, if you don�t pay the rest of your tuition for the year President Sweeney has told me to tell you that they will dismiss you from class on Monday.� That Monday I went down to the school�s basement to pray. I had never prayed before. There was nothing in that basement but a furnace and a pile of boxes around it and I hid myself over behind those boxes. And I got on my knees and raised my hands, and I said, �Lord you know.� I didn�t ask for a thing. I just said, �Lord you know,� and the Lord heard me and sent the Spirit down and picked me up, and I ran upstairs turning over every box in that basement. And as I was passing the treasurer�s office she called me, and I went up to her window, and she handed me my registration card. She said, I just handed your card to President Sweeney, and he told me to tell you to go on to your class.� I said, �I was on my way, but you stopped me.� They kept me there for four years. Nobody bothered me from then on. | King, D.E. �How to Pray.�
The African American Pulpit (Spring 2003): pp. 60-61 | | | God as our Guide - Eustacia Moffett Marshall |
Rerouting, Rerouting | | Now, you don�t have to go to a gas station to ask what is the quickest way to get from point A to point B. All you need to do is pull out your handy Global Positioning System (GPS). Plug in the address and simply follow the directions. One day as I was driving with a friend, we decided to use my GPS to get where we were going. The GPS said turn right and we turned right. The GPS said enter I-85 and we entered I-85. However, when the GPS said make a right, I was running my mouth so I did not hear the GPS correctly. Instead of making a right, I told my friend to make a left. Because we were listening to my voice and not the voice of the GPS, when we turned left, the GPS said �You are now off track.� But I�m so glad the GPS did not stop there. A second later, it said, �Rerouting, rerouting, rerouting.� Isn�t that like the GPS? I�m not referring to the Global Positioning System. I�m talking about God�s Positioning System. When we get off track God starts rerouting. | | Eustacia Moffett Marshall, Charlotte, North Carolina | | | God Empowers - Walter Carter |
Helping My Son Dunk | | One day my son Cameron was outside playing basketball in the driveway with one of the kids from the block. Cameron, being the competitor that he is, was showing off his skills on his home court. The girl from next door was watching and she said, �You�re not that good Cameron.� Cameron replied, �Yes I am. I can even dunk the basketball.� Cameron then backed up as if he were Michael Jordon preparing to take off from the free through line with the ball tucked under his arm. He kept backing up until he reached the steps of the front door. Then he turned around and rang the bell and asked me to come outside for a minute. I came out because I wanted to see what all the fuss was. That�s when he said, �Daddy pick me up so I can dunk the basketball.� When we realize life�s hoops are too high we need to call on our Heavenly Father to pick us up so we can dunk. | | Walter Carter, Chicago, Illinois | | | God Enables Us - Reginald Bell Jr. |
The Baby Clydesdale | | I love the Super Bowl commercials. One of my favorite 2007 Super Bowl commercials was from Budweiser. In this commercial a baby Clydesdale horse is on the outside of a barn admiring a picture of two older Clydesdale horses pulling a large stage coach. He then imagines himself pulling one. In the next scene we see that the baby Clydesdale has entered the barn, and is trying to put himself in a harness so he can pull the stage coach inside the barn. He pulls and he pulls but nothing happens. While he is pulling the camera flips to the back of the coach and we notice two older Clydesdale horses watching the baby horse unproductively pull. The camera shifts back to the baby Clydesdale and all of a sudden he begins to move forward with the coach. I was shocked! I thought to myself, �He did it! He is pulling the coach.� I thought this until the camera shot switched to the back of the coach and showed the two older horse pushing from behind. Guess why we are able to do what we do. | | Reginald Bell, Jr., Macon, Georgia | | | God Focused - Nicole Massie |
Blocking Pop-Ups! | | Computer users can�t stand pop-ups! Pop-ups are unsolicited advertisements or random information that comes up in the middle of your work, seeking to distract you and entice you to go in another direction. In the same way that pop-ups creep into your computer system, the enemy sends us spiritual pop-ups to keep us from focusing on God�s plan for our lives. They come in the form of relationships or people. They come in the form of mental and emotional distractions that lure your mind down the road of negativity. We must install the anti-virus system of God�s Word to protect our hearts, guard our tongues, and keep our eyes stayed on God. When we meditate on God�s Word, the Holy Spirit automatically installs protection from the enemy so that we can stay focused on God�s path. | | Nicole Massie, Charlotte, North Carolina | | | God Is Always Present - D.E. King |
Deaths in the King Family | | I remember when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated I went to Atlanta to console his father and his mother. And then, later, two years later A. D. Williams, his brother, drowned. I went back to Atlanta to console his father. Then after that, his mother was shot to death in service, and I flew down to Atlanta. I didn�t know what to say, and I went to Daddy King�s home, and I went to his bedroom, and he met me halfway and said, �I�m glad to be here.� He said, �Yes, yes I thank God for what I have left.� And I didn�t know what he was talking about. I said, �What do you have left?� He said, �God!� | King, D.E. �How to Pray.�
The African American Pulpit (Spring 2003): p. 62 | | | God Is Ever Present - Derrick Rice |
The Track Meet | | I've learned valuable lessons from my daughters who run track. One lesson was six years ago when Jaelyn, my oldest, used to run the 1600-meter race. The 1600-meter consists of four laps around the track. At practice, her coach would have her run eight laps. While sitting in the stands, watching my first child's first track practice, I was bothered. I was bothered because I was watching my 6-year-old daughter, who had never run track before, cry her way around the track. I went to practice the next day, sat in the stands, and heard the coach tell my daughter to run eight laps again. And after the second lap, she just stopped and cried. I made a "B line" out of the stands to see about my child. I calmed her down and asked her if I ran with her, would she at least try to finish the race? Much to the chagrin of my knees, she said "Yes." As both of us struggled through the laps together, I didn't do anything special except to remind her of what she already knew. I told her how to breathe as I ran with her. That day, I learned two lessons. First, I learned that my daughter is a phenomenal actress. Second, I learned that my presence was precisely what my child needed to finish her race. We've all got a daddy sitting in the stands ready to make a "B line" to our situations, to calm us and remind us of what we already know. | | Derrick Rice, Atlanta, Georgia | | | God Is in Control - Sir Walter Lee Mack, Jr. |
From Last Class to First Class | | Sometime ago while I was boarding a flight, I had to pass through first class on my way to sit in coach. While boarding the plane, under my breath I was singing, "Jesus...You Are the Center of My Joy." While singing this song, an elderly woman sitting in first class, stopped me and said, "Sir, I hear you singing that song, and I�m not feeling that well, do you mind praying for me?" And right there while everybody was putting up their bags, I whispered a quick prayer of healing. After I prayed, this elderly woman thanked me, and I went to my seat in the coach section. I had been assigned the last seat on the plane across from the lavatory. After I buckled in, the flight attendant said to me, "Sir...I�m not supposed to do this but I saw you praying for the lady in first class, and I just thought, if anybody is on this plane praying, they don�t need to be in the back of the plane, they need to be in front of the plane. Sir... would you like to sit in first class?" and I said, "Yes, thank you." In a matter of minutes, God moved me from last class to first class. Sometimes one feels as if they are in the last seat of life, last to be recognized, last to be considered, but in a moment God can change your seat. The Great Flight Attendant can move you no matter where you were booked to be. | | Sir Walter Lee Mack, Jr., Winston Salem, North Carolina | | | God Knows When We�ve Had Enough - Errol Domingue |
The Toddler in the Mall | | I am a people watcher. There is a lot to learn from watching the activities of people as they go about their daily routines. On a visit to a shopping mall, I watched as a toddler took his hand from his mother�s hand and began to walk disconnected from her. He walked aimlessly among the people and played with different objects that caught his attention along the way. That is, until he gained the uneasy feeling of being left alone in an environment to which he was unaccustomed. Finally, his uneasiness turned to frantic crying. And I have to admit that while my attention was on the boy I thought, �That�s a shame that child�s parents allowed him to wander around unnoticed and unprotected.� However, I soon noticed his mother, who was not too far away watching his every move. He couldn�t see her, but she could see him. And when it appeared that he had enough of his independence, she came to his rescue. I suppose it�s that way for many of us from time to time. We think we�re ready for independence in the marketplace of life, only to experience the unsettling feeling of being left alone in a mean, cruel world of strangers who could care less about us or our wellbeing. But isn�t it good to know that there is one watching over us, and just when it becomes too much to bear, he shows to up to rescue us. | | Errol Domingue, Baton Rouge, Louisiana | | | God Owns Creation - Reginald Bell Jr. |
Who Owns the Red Mustang? | | When I was in the twelfth grade my father bought me a brand new 2000 candy apple red Mustang. It was sharp! To let everybody know it was mine I had a custom plate made that said Reg Jr. This car without a doubt made me the big man on campus. Once there was a school function that I wanted to attend. As always, I asked my father if I could go. For some reason or another he said no. Me being the big man on campus who everyone knew because I drove the hottest car, I just had to be there. So, I took it upon myself and snuck out the house. Upon my return, my father and mother were waiting. They were mad! The first thing my dad said was, �Give me the keys to my car!� I said, �Your car! That�s my car! You bought that car for me. It has my name on the tag!� He replied, �Your name may be on the tag, but my name is on the title. I own it, not you.� | | Reginald Bell, Jr., Macon Georgia | | | God Prepares Us - Carolyn Ann Knight |
Ford: Built for the Road Ahead | | My favorite [car commercial] tag is from Ford. Ford says that their cars are: Built for the Road Ahead! Ford believes that they have designed an automobile that can handle the road—any road that is out there. Whatever the circumstances, the situation, or the condition, Ford claims they have built a car that can handle it—the expected, the unexpected, the planned, the unplanned, the wanted and the unwanted, the seen and the unseen. Ford says bring it on. In making such a claim Ford is saying that what we put in our cars, the material we use, the aerodynamic configuration of our models are engineered in such a way to take the pressure of today�s driving conditions. Ford believes that no matter where their cars are—dirt road or four-lane high-way—they expect their cars to be able to perform on the journey. God is making the same claim about each and every one of us that Ford makes about their cars. We are �Built for the Road Ahead.� We are uniquely created, shaped, and designed to handle anything that we will face in this life and in ministry. | Knight, Carolyn. �Built for the Road Ahead.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer 2007): p. 85 | | | God Sees Value in All - Mark Anthony Clifton Sr. |
The Dropped and Still Eaten Ice Cream Cone | | One day I saw a kid in a very nice part of town get upset because his ice cream cone tipped over. He started crying and his mother went back in the store and bought him another one. Observing this incident immediately triggered my mind to my childhood in Oakland, California. When I was a kid, we would go to the ice cream parlor and get a nice summer treat. Being excited, it wasn't unusual for us to get careless while skipping home with our double or triple scoop ice cream. Our hearts would break if the ice cream tipped over. But one thing separated the kid I observed from us. When ours tipped over, because our resources were not sufficient to go back in and re-purchase, we had to pick the ice cream up and kiss up it to the sky. Somewhere between earth and heaven, we believed God would cleanse it or at least remove its potential to harm us, and yes we would continue to eat our ice cream, or candy, or whatever had fallen accidentally. Many of us are like that ice cream. We have fallen, often accidentally, and sometimes carelessly. Jesus, our redeemer and restorer, comes along and picks us up because he sees value in us. At Calvary, he was lifted up, and by his atoning sacrifice, picked us up and "kissed" us up to God. | | Mark Anthony Clifton, Sr., East Oakland Church of God in Christ | | | God Was Taking My Picture - Vivian Brown |
Unmovable | | I grew up in a small Baptist church in the backwoods of Mississippi. My pastor often used illustrations. I remember him telling a story about a little boy who was outside playing in a storm. While he was outside, his parents became upset that he didn�t come inside because he was taught not to play outside when it was raining. Before the mom called the boy inside she noticed the boy smiled every time lightening struck. Once inside, the parents began to ask the little boy what he was doing outside all that time and why was he smiling. The boy said he stayed in the storm and kept smiling because he believed God was taking his picture. The parents asked why God would take his picture. The boy told his parents God wanted to know how he looked while going through a storm. | | Vivian Brown, Memphis, Tennessee | | | God Will Take Care of You - Ralph D. West |
Beware of Certain Church Members | | I remember when I was a young preacher and I was on my way to pastor a particular church. There was a gentleman who was telling me all of the people that I needed to keep my eye open for and watch out for. And he was just poisoning me with toxin. And there I was a young pastor having my conscience crippled, wondering who I needed to look out for. But then a wise pastor who had never been to seminary, college, and barely finished high school, said to me, �Young man, let me give you this piece of advice. If you have to look out for everybody, then you don�t leave room for God to take care of you.� | West, Ralph. �A Prayer for Informed Behavior.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer 2007): pp. 91-92 | | | In God�s Care - Eugene L. Gibson, Jr. |
Taking the Heat out | | When my daughter Trinity was a baby my wife Nicole just knew what to do. I figured things out a bit later. One day Nicole left the baby food in the microwave too long and the food was too hot. Again she knew what to do. She took the food, blew on it, and gave it to Trinity. She did what she needed to do to take the heat out of it so that a child could handle it. | | Eugene L. Gibson, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee | | | God�s Covering - Sir Walter Lee Mack, Jr. |
Run Over by a Train | | In January of 2007, CNN reported a story about a man who was standing in a New York Subway waiting for the train to arrive. He had an epileptic seizure. His seizure was so severe, that he fell right into the middle of the tracks. A train on the tracks was headed his way. A bystander saw the man about to be hit by the train, and he jumped down onto the tracks and covered the man. He kept him still and the train went over both their heads and both of them survived. Every now and then, the locomotive of life comes our way and we lose our grip, seized by problems we cannot control. But the God we serve has got us covered when the train comes. | | Sir Walter Lee Mack, Jr., Winston Salem, North Carolina | | | God�s Creation Is Priceless - Reginald Bell Jr. |
Safeguarding the Mona Lisa | | I was in Paris, France, a few years ago. One of the places I visited was the Louvre. Inside of the Louvre was the priceless painting The Mona Lisa. Prior to entering the gallery, I was given instructions concerning what I could and could not do. Upon entering the room, I noticed that everyone inside stood in awe and astonishment. Furthermore, I noticed that not only was the painting behind several inches of thick glass there was a barricade around it. No one could get within five feet of it, and there were police officers all over the room. Now, if Leonardo Divinci can create a painting that demands awe and respect, then surely anything made by the One who created Leonardo deserves nothing less! God created you, so you are fearfully and wonderfully made � you are priceless. | Bell, Reginald, Jr., Macon, Georgia
The African American Pulpit (Fall 2006): p. 38 | | | God�s Faithfulness - Janae Pitts |
Sparkle and Her Master | | I grew up with a dog named Sparkle. All of her needs were met every day: food, water, shelter, and TLC. Sparkle even got her hair and paws done. Sparkle had it made. She had one problem, however. She liked to go outside the gate. The gate was there for her protection. It marked her boundaries and her limits. She was only allowed outside the gate when my mother, her master, took her on supervised excursions. But something inside of Sparkle refused to honor the boundaries. One cold and stormy evening, Sparkle got outside the gate. I told my mom to let her find her way home; but my mother, being a caring and compassionate master, went looking for Sparkle. Into the cold and stormy night, Sparkle�s master searched for her. When my mom returned home with Sparkle I asked, �How did you find her? It�s dark and storming outside!� My mom replied, �I searched the paths that Sparkle and I travel together. I thought I would find her somewhere close to the paths we�ve walked so many times before.� Yes, she got outside the gate, but she stayed close to the path. And so it is with God and us. No matter the circumstances, our Master will come looking for us hoping we have not strayed too far from the path we've traveled with him so many times before. Our Master will not rest until he brings us safely home. | | Janae Pitts, Memphis, Tennessee | | | God�s Increase - Tim Rainey |
God�s Increase | | When my pastor journeyed to the Holy Land of Israel he returned bearing gifts for his staff. The first gift he gave us was a singular mustard seed grown in Galilean soil. Then, he gave each of us a small vessel of holy water drawn from the Jordan River. I valued these gifts from the land of our Lord. But there was a problem, I couldn�t figure out what to do with that tiny mustard seed. I didn�t want to misplace it, so, I very casually took that little, minute mustard seed and placed it in my gift of holy water. What happened next blew me away. A few days later when I opened my desk drawer where the holy water was, I noticed something. As I looked in the vessel, I realized that the mustard seed had begun to absorb some of the holy water. And as the seed had began to swell and enlarge, just at the top of it a tiny stem had started to grow. I listened to God as I never have before. I could hear the Spirit of God saying, �I know what I gave you doesn�t seem like much but if you just take a little bit of faith, cover yourself with the gift of my holiness, what I gave you will grow and multiply. When you stir up the gifts God has given you, your faith will always produce a breakthrough that will surprise you. | | Tim Rainey, Huntsville, Alabama | | | God�s Intentions - Maurice Watson |
Roses that Make You Bleed | | Many have wondered how something as beautiful as God�s grace could be so painful. How can something as effervescent as the grace of God cause me to hurt so badly? It is like a husband who wants to show his wife how much he loves her. So, he buys his wife a box of freshly cut roses in a box wrapped with a beautiful bow. He gives her the box and her eyes start beaming and her heart starts palpitating. She can�t wait to open the box. She can hardly untie the bow fast enough, she opens the box and she sees the beautiful roses. She smells the lovely fragrance from the roses. In her excitement she reaches in the box and grabs the roses and, unfortunately, she grabs them by the stem. Immediately, pain shoots up her arm, blood runs out her hand. Something so beautiful yet so painful! Now she has a choice. She can throw the roses to the ground and say, �Rose I reject you because you caused me to hurt.� Moreover, she could be angry with her husband and say, �Joker if you really loved me you would have taken the time to shave the thorns off the stems.� But she does neither. Instead, she continues to hold the roses by the stem despite the pain, because she know that the intent of the giver was not to hurt her but to show her how much he loved her. My question for you today is can God hold you by the stem? | From the sermon Grace for Grown-ups.
Delivered in Macon, Georgia, by Maurice Watson. | | | God�s Order - Derrick Hughes |
About Face | | My dad who served in the military was fond of telling me how it was when he served our country. He loved to share stories of his commanding officer giving orders as they marched and patrolled various areas. One of the commands that intrigued me was when the commanding officer would say, �About face!� That is when the soldiers marching in one direction would stop, turn, and start marching in the opposite direction. The neat thing about �About face!� is that the one in the back of the line became the one in the front of the line. God has helped me to understand �About Face Theology.� God takes those who are oftentimes least among us and moves them from the back of the line to the front of the line. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. | | Derrick Hughes, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Godly Aims - Charles Turner |
Practicing with a Water Meter | | When I was growing up, my parents would not allow my older brother and me to leave the house to go play basketball. To make the best of a bad situation, we would often go on the sidewalk in front of the house and dribble the ball up and down the sidewalk, using the top of the water meter as our make believe basketball goal. While this practice helped our dribbling and defense, we encountered trouble on a real basketball court, because our practice goal was low to the ground and the real goals in school were 10 feet high. We were unsuccessful when we played in a real game with a real goal because we had trained ourselves to aim low. In life, we oftentimes fail to succeed simply because we have allowed our circumstances to train us to aim low. | | Charles Turner, New Haven, Connecticut | | | God's Plan - Timothy Jackson |
Sequestered | | All U.S. citizens are required to do jury duty if called upon. Most employees do not mind jury duty for the required week. If a person is chosen she may be sequestered for a trial. When a person is sequestered, she is completely isolated from the outside world�family, friends, co-workers, etc. The benefit of being sequestered is that the jury is not influenced in any way by anyone or anything. Although sequestering is dreaded, it is necessary to keep those chosen focused. Every now and then God will sequester us so that he can have our undivided attention. | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | A Good Spouse is a Jewel - Jeremiah Wright, Jr. |
The Boxing Match Called Life | | I heard Rev. A. Lewis Patterson of Houston, Texas, put it this way fifteen years ago. Dr. Patterson said that being married or being in a relationship is like being in a boxing match. As a black man, you are still the primary target in an oppressive society that sees black men as a dangerous threat. So every day that you are out there in the ring, and while you are in the ring, you are in the crosshairs of the rifle of oppression. You are in the crosshairs of the rifle of racial profiling. You are in the crosshairs of the rifle of needing more education to get less pay than somebody you trained, who is now your boss, on the basis of skin color. You are getting whipped everyday every day from the time the bell rings in the morning until you can stumble back home into your corner at night–beat up, tired, scarred, bloody, exhausted, tired of folk fighting you and beating up on you–you expect to sit down on your stool and have those who are there in your corner to give you some water, refresh you, revive you, renew you, inspire you, and tell you that you can make it. Then, you can get on back up and go on back out into the ring the next day and face whatever it is that the next day has to being. | Wright, Jeremiah. �Fighting the Wrong Enemies.�
Sound the Trumpet! Messages to Empower African American Men. Ed. Darryl D. Sims.
Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2002. p. 19 | | | Grace - Tim Rainey |
Grace | | My freshman year in college I had a biology professor who prided herself in the fact that she had never given out an �A�. Though I worked extremely hard in that class, I failed to even earn a �B�. Faced with an impossible professor and an unacceptable C+ I did the only thing a Morehouse Man could do, I put on my best suit, shaved clean and headed to her office for negotiations. When I arrived there I hardly wasted any time before I uttered two words familiar to all struggling students, �extra credit.� Extra credit has been the saving grace of many and the reason some of us have graduated. While professors often offer it freely, a price has to be paid and its reward earned. I�m thankful because when God saw us struggling with the test of salvation, the Savior refused to let us fail. When all we had was low credit in the course of righteousness, God offered us extra credit through the work and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. | | Tim Rainey, Huntsville, Alabama | | | Grace - Eric E. Baldwin |
Rebounds and Second Chances | | When I was a teenager I was a big fan of the Chicago Bulls. They had the best player of all time, Michael Jordan. He was sure to score 30 points a game! He also had the best side kick in all of sports history, Scottie Pippen. Pippen was good for 20 points! If one of them couldn�t score, they would dish the ball out to the three point line to either Craig Hodges, B.J. Armstrong, or Steve Kerr. They were bad! I cheered for Mike, Scottie, Craig, B.J., and Steve because they made it look so easy winning six championships. But as I really began to understand the game of basketball, I learned that in several of their seasons, their success wasn't because of their potent offensive weapons. Mike missed some shots! Scottie missed some shots. Craig, B.J., and Steve all missed their fair share of shots! But they had another player; he didn�t look good according to our standards. He had piercings. His body was covered in tattoos. And he wasn't appreciated much by the media. His name was Dennis Rodman! And his job was to get rebounds. When Mike or somebody else missed, Dennis got the rebound and gave the Bulls a second chance! I realize the only reason I have any success in life is because of my Elder Brother who didn't look good to some according to their standards. They pierced him in the side, he didn't look good. When they covered his body with his own blood, he didn't look good! The public tried him on trumped up charges, he didn't look good to them. But Jesus still went to Calvary for us, claimed the ultimate championship, and through him God gave us a second chance so that we can now be victorious! | | Eric E. Baldwin, Greensboro, North Carolina | | | Grace - Jamison Hunter |
Grace | | I shall never forget last year, my wife and I went to our friend�s house to watch the Super Bowl. While hanging out, another friend and his wife showed up. During the game, I noticed my friend�s wife�a school teacher�was grading papers by putting checks at the top of them. As I looked closer, I noticed she put a check at the top of a paper that clearly had several wrong answers. When I brought this to her attention, she told me that she gave the student credit because she wasn�t grading the papers for accuracy; everyone who attempted the assignment got a check for attempting the assignment. And that�s how God treats us. God doesn�t give us credit for accuracy, we get credit for trying. | | Jamison Hunter, Dayton, Ohio | | | Gratitude - Nicole Massie |
Small Amounts of Small Morsels | | I decided to take my younger cousin to breakfast one day. I bought her whatever she wanted and she was happy. When the meal came, it was too much for her, so I cut her food into smaller pieces for her to eat. After she had tasted what was before her, I asked if I could have a taste. She happily agreed and proceeded to give me the smallest morsels off the edge of the knife that I used to cut the food that I purchased for her. We are often guilty of treating God the same way. God prepared a table of delight for us. When the cost of favor is too much to bear, God takes the burden of blessings upon himself or breaks it into smaller digestible pieces so that we are not overwhelmed. Yet, when God asks for a little of what he has given us, we scrape together the smallest gifts we have and offer that back to God. We forget �All things come of Thee, Oh Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee.� | | Nicole Massie, Charlotte, North Carolina | | | Guilt and Shame - Samuel D. Proctor |
The World Can See Your Real Clothing | | Occasionally, one of Harlem�s major drug merchants would slip into our church and leave burdened with guilt. He had been reared in the south by a loving and believing mother, as well as a praying and shouting grandmother. The sermon, the hymns, the stained glass windows, and the atmosphere of expectancy and hope that pervaded the sanctuary made him sweat and tremble. The war going on within him called for a surrender, a victory, or some kind of truce. He sent large contributions to the church anonymously in the form of postal money orders and cashier�s checks. We wondered where this big money came from, and we held it in an escrow account until we could find the source. After a few months, he showed up in person wearing fine jewelry, designer boots, and expensive jeans and driving a luxury European sedan. He made it clear that he was the one who had sent the money and described his visits to our services. Jewelry and boots to the contrary, he was clothed in guilt and shame. | Samuel D. Proctor in Proctor, Samuel D., and Gardner C. Taylor.
We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor's Vocation.
Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1996. p. 77 | | | Healing - George Champion |
The Life-Support Machine | | A caring family was gathered around their very ill mother who was hooked up to a life-support machine. The attending doctor met with the family and told them that she was not responding positively to the machine. He therefore recommended that they unplug her from the machine. After much consideration, the family agreed to take their mother off life-support. The next morning the doctor checked her condition and, to his surprise, the mother was sitting up, talking, and asking for food. The doctor asked, �What happened? You are functioning so well without the life-support machine.� The mother responded, �Doctor, when you unplugged the life-support machine down here, God plugged me into His life-support machine in heaven. His machine works better than yours.� | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 34 | | | Healing - Carmen Avery |
The Watkins Man | | As a child I was told that long ago a man used to travel throughout the streets of our neighborhood called The Watkins Man. I never saw him myself but they tell me he had a traveling partner, a large black bag that carried remedies for whatever ailed you. He had lotions, cleaning solutions, and medicines. The most famous item he had was called Watkins Salve. It came in a green tin with a white top on it. People used to rub it on places where they ached. Wherever you rubbed the Watkins Salve you thought healing was taking place because the spot felt warm. You may have never heard of The Watkins Man; that�s unimportant. I came to tell you about another man who also travels door-to-door. This man can fix whatever ails you but he doesn�t carry his cures in a bag. This man is Jesus and His traveling partner is the Holy Spirit. He came over 42 generations ago, with healing for all who were sick. His healing is still available. He is the cure for what ails America. | | Carmen Avery, Atlanta, Georgia | | | Hearing God - F. Bruce Williams |
My Father's Voice | | When I was a young boy playing with my neighborhood friends, our parents required that we come in from playing when the streetlights came on. Being typical children, even when the streetlights came on, if it wasn't too dark, we would still stay out and play. Inevitably, there would come a chorus of parental voices from the respective doorways of our homes calling us all to come in. When I heard that chorus of voices I would not immediately stop and run home. Instead, my reaction was to stop and listen. What I was listening for was my father's voice. No matter how many voices were calling out, I could always tell which one belonged to my father. We had such a close relationship. No matter how many voices I heard, I would not obey unless I heard his voice. After I heard it, no one could beat me running home. | | F. Bruce Williams, Louisville, Kentucky | | | Heaven - Eric Baldwin |
How Do You Say Overcoat in Spanish? | | The dry cleaners I visit is owned by a nice Puerto Rican family that always tries to teach me how to say things in Spanish. Once when I went to get my overcoat cleaned I asked, "Linda, how do you say overcoat in Espanol?" She said, "Pastor there is no Spanish word for overcoat." Of course I asked why! She said, "Because where most Spanish speaking nations are the climate is too hot for such a thing as an overcoat!� Her statement shouted at me, because I believe that is how it is in heaven! There is no word for pain, no word for sickness, no word for suffering, no word for tears! Because in glory God shall wipe all tears away! The Sabbath, the eternal rest, will have no end! | | Eric Baldwin, Durham, North Carolina | | | Heaven - Brian C. Ellis-Gibbs |
Are You Ready to Get on the Train? | | Have you ever ridden the subway in New York during rush hour? Well, if you are not ready to get on that train when the last person comes out of the train, you may not make it on the train. You have to be in position to get on the train. If in your mind you are not ready to board when those on the train exit and others are preparing to board, and you are not trying to be first on that train, then you may not make that train. You may have a briefcase on your shoulder, you may have shopping bags in your hand, but no matter what you have when the train comes you'd better be ready to go. There is another train coming. You may be carrying heavy burdens, but you do not have to force your way on to this train. No matter how many others are getting on, there�s still room for you. Jesus has purchased your ticket. Take your ticket and step on board. | | Brian C. Ellis-Gibbs, Queens Village, New York | | | Heaven - Leo Daniels |
Building An Astro-City | | I remember an article that came out in the local newspaper. It was an article about a Texas billionaire. It was written after he went to Houston to see the huge Astrodome. He said he was going to build himself an Astro-city. He would only invite select people to live there. Some people would never be allowed to live there. No one would worry about night time because he would have a twenty-four hour lighting systems. No one would worry about thieves and robbers because security guards would patrol twenty-four hours a day. Finally no one would worry about summer or winter because it would be seventy-two degrees year-round. Reverend A. Lewis Patterson and some other preachers responded to the man�s article. They called him into question. They said that they read about his special dome city and understood that there are certain things that will not go on in his city. But as ministers of God they had to inform him that there are some things that will go on whether he approved or not. They pointed out that death would still walk into his city. They said several diseases will find a way into his city; cancer, whooping cough and common colds will all walk down every street. They pointed out that old age will walk around in his city. They also said someone could press a button and destroy his whole city. When they finished noting all the shortcomings of his city they concluded by detailing a better city not made by the hands of man. | From the sermon What in Hell Do You Want.
Delivered by Leo Daniels. | | | Heaven - Napoleon Harris |
Changing Clothing | | As a child I enjoyed playing with my friends after church on Sundays. Before we could play our parents required that we change our clothes. When my friends came to my house they put on my clothes. Likewise, when I went to their homes I put on their play clothes. Praise be to God, we have a friend in Jesus. We have a friend who doesn�t mind borrowing clothes and giving clothes. In His Incarnation, our friend Jesus came to our house (earth) and put on our clothes of humanity. When we die and go to His house we will put on His clothes of righteousness and holiness. | | Napoleon Harris, Norwalk, Connecticut | | | Heaven Banquet Table - Linda Guy |
Heavenly Banquet Table | | My pastor recently became a bishop, and a banquet was scheduled to celebrate his new Episcopal appointment. You had to buy a ticket to attend. My thirteen year old son called me on the day of the banquet and asked if he could attend the banquet. I asked, �Do you have a ticket?� He said, �No!� I asked, �Do you have money?� He replied, �No!� I said, �Then, you�re not going to the banquet.� He hung up the phone. He called me back a few minutes later and said he had talked to the bishop�s son, and he said my son could sit at his table for no charge. He said his daddy gave him his own table and that he could invite anyone he chose to invite. I said, �I don�t believe you.� He said, �Okay� and then hung up the phone. A few minutes later, the Bishop�s son called and confirmed that his father had given him his own special table and that anyone he invited to sit at his table could get into the banquet free of charge. That night, my son strutted to the front and sat at a V.I.P. table, not because he paid for a V.I.P. ticket, but because he had a relationship with the host�s son. The situation made me think about Jesus and how all of us will one day get into the Great Banquet, because his father also gave him a table. Everyone with Jesus will get in free. | | Linda Guy, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Help When Bogged Down - Sandy F. Ray |
Wagons Stalled in a Creek | | When I was a boy in Texas, we lived nine or ten miles from a small town. We traveled by buggies and wagons to and from the town. There was a creek, which we had to cross. During the rainy seasons, the mud was heavy and there were deep ruts along the road. It happened frequently that wagons were stalled in the creek bottom. There was a farmer who lived near the creek, and he had a strong team of mules harnessed to pull bogged-down wagons out of the mud. He didn�t charge a fee; it was a neighborly act. This life has many soggy, marshy, muddy roads. Individuals get bogged down in many circumstances of life, but if we have faith in God, there will be help in the valley of despair. | From the sermon �When Faith Bogs Down.�
Journeying Through a Jungle.
Ray, Sandy F. pp. 91-92 | | | Helping Others Has Its Rewards - Sean McMillian |
The Tuition Bill That Disappeared | | When I was going into my junior year of college, I didn�t have enough money to pay the bill to go back to school. The financial aid woman said to me, �Mr. McMillan, you owe $6,000 and I need a check right now for the full amount. We�ve had these agreements and you haven�t paid one dime. We need the money right now. Give us the money or you�re leaving.� I said, �Well, I�m leaving then.� She said, �Well, you have to go upstairs and talk to the vice-president of finance, and he�ll interview you and give you an exit interview and sign you out.� I went upstairs and talked to the man. His name was Sebastian Persica. He said, �Young man, tell me your name.� I told him my name. He said, �How long have you been here?� I told him how long I�d been there. He said, �Where did you stay?� I said, �I stayed in Harvard, room 212.� He said, �You�ve been staying in Harvard, room 212. For how long?� I said, �Since the first day I got here.� �You�ve been in Harvard, room 212, for two years?� I said, �Yes, sir.� He said, �OK,� and he scribbled something on a paper that I couldn�t read and gave me a little card. I took the card back downstairs and gave it to the financial aid lady. She looked at it and put some things in the computer. She said, �Give me your social.� She looked at the screen and said, �Mary, come look at this.� Mary came and looked at it. She looked at me, and she said, �Son, I�m not supposed to say this to you, but I need to ask you a question. I said, �Yes, ma�am.� She said, �Who do you know?� I said, �What do you mean, who do I know?� She said, �Who do you know? When you went upstairs, you owed us $6,000. You came downstairs�we owe you $200. Who do you know?� Can I hook this up together now? I didn�t know my freshman year that my freshman roommate tried to kill himself. My friends and I came back home one night, found him on the floor, took him to the hospital. His parents were out of the country. His maternal grandparents came, and we left him there and never saw him again. And, I didn�t know that for two years Sebastian Persica had been looking for the four young men who had saved the life of his stepson. | McMillian, Sean. �The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.�
The African American Pulpit (summer, 2006): p. 94 | | | The High Price Paid on Calvary - Sheron Patterson |
Fluffy the Car Chaser | | My family has a pet, a dog named Fluffy. We love her. She�s black and she�s fuzzy. We rescued her from the pound. Fluffy is a sweet dog, what I call a companion dog. Whatever room we�re in, she�s there. At night she�ll go from bedroom to bedroom just to check on us and make sure we�re all right. But, Fluffy has issues. Fluffy likes to chase cars. She�ll be out there chasing cars and we�ll say, �Fluffy, don�t do it!� but she still chases cars. So, we said we were going to try some training on Fluffy. We tried doggy time-outs and even sent her to obedience school. Paid good money to a canine academy, and she came home with a degree. But as soon as she got outside, she was chasing cars. She refused to stop. One New Year�s Eve morning, my family was up and the house was quiet, and all of a sudden we heard the sound of screeching tires and a crying dog, and the family ran to the front door and looked out. There was Fluffy. She had been hit by a car, and she was dragging her broken, bloody, bruised leg down the driveway coming back into the house. We scooped her up and took her to the veterinarian. The vet examined her and said, �Your dog has been seriously injured and to repair her would require surgery. You have two choices. Pay us $5,000.00 and we can save her. Or, pay us $5.00 and we can put her to sleep. My husband looked at me and I looked at him. He said, �Five thousand dollars, baby?� And I said, �Or five.� Church that was a tough decision, but you know we prayed right there in the vet�s office, and as we prayed, the Lord reminded us that a long time ago we, too, were like Fluffy. A long time ago we were doing some things that we know we ought not to have done, and we got caught up in sin and sin beat us up. And we found ourselves bloody and bruised, and we dragged our broken self back to God�s house. And God said, �I�ve a choice. I can give my Son on Calvary, or let you go.� I�m so glad that God paid the high price on Calvary. | Patterson, Sheron. �God Want You to Grow Up.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2004-2005): p. 52 | | | The Holy Ghost - George Champion |
The Church Caught on Fire | | A young man who lived across from a church used to receive a personal invite from the pastor every Sunday morning, but he always had an excuse. One day the church caught on fire due to faulty electric wires. The man across from the church called the fire department and then tried to put the fire out. When the pastor arrived, he was surprised to see the young man standing in the church yard. The pastor asked, �Brother, what are you doing here? I�ve been trying to get you to come across the street to church for years.� The brother responded, �Rev., I finally came over here because the church was on fire.� Is there anybody here that knows more people will come to church when they see the Holy Ghost fire? | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and Speaking.
Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. pp. 37-38 | | | The Holy Spirit - Anonymous |
The Out of Sight Kite | | One day a little boy was flying his kite high, out of sight, in the sky. A man passing by asked the boy, �Son, are you flying your kite?� The boy responded, �Yes Sir!� The man replied, �I don�t see a kite. Are you sure it�s up there?� The boy replied, �Sir, I know it�s up there because every now and then I feel it pulling on the string.� Although we cannot explain the presence of the Holy Ghost in our lives, every now and then we can feel Him pulling and moving in our hearts and hear Him speaking to our lives. | Anonymous. Several versions
of this illustration exist. | | | The Holy Spirit - George Champion |
The Man Who Lit a Match in Church | | An evangelist conducted a revival in a church in a small town. After he preached a powerful message, he called for those who wanted prayer to come down. Several came, received prayer, and shared their testimonies. One young man came forth and stood before the evangelist speechless. The evangelist asked, �Are you ready to give your testimony about God�s power in your life?� The young man didn�t respond. The evangelist said, �Son, can you hear me?� The young man said nothing, but he took a match and struck it, and put it close to his chest. Just then a deacon said, �Rev., this man is deaf and dumb, but he is trying to tell us with the match that his heart is on fire. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 37 | | | The Holy Spirit - George Champion |
On A Leash | | A man was walking his dog when he passed two stray dogs that were barking, jumping all over the place, and eating out of garbage cans. The man�s dog wanted to join these stray dogs, but he had a leash around his neck and kept pulling him back in line. As children of God, we too sometimes want to break from God and join the ungodly in their mischief and wayward lifestyles. But God has a �divine leash� on our hearts and consciousness that keeps on pulling us back in line. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and Speaking.
Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 67 | | | The Holy Spirit - Emery Lindsey |
Burned Trying to Recreate the Burning | | It is said that Leonardo da Vinci tried to reproduce Pentecost. He got a group of actors to be his disciples. He had the wind blowing, and fire falling from the roof. Things went haywire. The drapes caught fire, several actors were burned, and the building nearly burned down. You can�t manufacture the power of the Holy Ghost. | Lindsey, Emery. �Go Out in the Power of the Spirit.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2005-2006): p. 35 | | | The Holy Spirit - Reginald Bell, Jr. |
A Bad Decision Blocker | | CNN reported that T-Mobile just produced a new phone with a special feature called a Bad Decision Blocker. The bad decision blocker is a new feature which, after you program particular numbers into your phone, prohibits you from making the bad decision of calling someone you do not want to call. It will block your calls for up to a month. As I thought about that feature I wished life had a bad decision blocker. I wished we had something to stop us from making decisions we will regret later. But, after thinking for a few minutes more, I realized Christians do have a bad decision blocker. It�s called the Holy Spirit. | | Reginald Bell, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee | | | Hope Brought Me Back - Terrence Houston |
Hope | | For some reason I used to love to watch Days of Our Lives every day at 12:30 p.m. with my sisters. My favorite couple on the show was Bo Brady and Hope Williams. I remember an episode in which Bo was severely injured and ended up in a coma. As Bo lay in the hospital, Hope sat by his side praying and telling him how she couldn�t live without him and how he could pull through this just as he had in the past, with her by his side. As Hope spoke about the many things they made it through together, surprisingly, Bo could hear her and he began to recount some of the stories Hope mentioned. Miraculously, Bo woke up before the end of the show. It shocked everyone because the doctors said he wouldn�t make it. As everyone celebrated, Bo was asked what brought him back. Bo said he wanted to give up and throw in the towel, but he couldn�t because Hope wouldn�t let him go. | | Terrence Houston, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Housing the Soul - Robert Charles Scott |
What�s in the Box | | A father had two sons, one was named Life and the other was named Death. Life and Death were fraternal twins. The father favored Life more than he did Death. One day, the father gave Life a special gift, an heirloom box. Life placed the box under the bed to hide it from his jealous brother, Death. One day jealousy overwhelmed Death. He had been watching Life for a long time. He waited for the opportunity to steal the box. He went into Life's room and took the box. When Life looked under the bed one day, to his surprise and shock, he discovered that the box was missing. He hollered, "Father, father, my box is gone. It's missing. The precious gift you gave me is gone. I know my brother Death took my gift. He has been watching me." The father said, "Aw son, don't worry. While Death was watching you, I was watching Death. And I switched the boxes. So, Death has nothing but an empty box." | | Robert Charles Scott, St. Louis, Missouri | | | How God Designed Humanity - Carolyn Ann Knight |
How a Ford Vehicle is Designed | | I wanted to know how Ford knows their cars are built for the road ahead. So I went to the Ford website, and the website helped me out. The website told me about the design of the car. The website told me how the car is actually made. Even before the car is a car it is designed to handle the road ahead. They do not wait until the car is finished and then declare that it can handle wind, rain, snow, and ice. Before the car gets to the drawing board, before it hits the assembly line, and before it comes to the factory, it is designed to handle tough conditions. When it is in the designer�s mind, he is getting it ready to handle the road ahead. Before you got here, God was getting you ready to handle the road ahead. | Knight, Carolyn. �Built for the Road Ahead.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer 2007): pp. 87-88 | | | How We Reach Our Destinies - Claudette Copeland |
How We Reach Our Destinies | | I was a senior in high school, and we could not graduate without passing swimming class. And I would go to the end of the diving board and say, �Now wait a minute,� next week we�ll try it again, because you can�t graduate if you don�t pass swimming class. And I�d go to the end of the diving board again, and my head would get light, and I would say, �Never mind, I�ll do it again next week.� Then there was a precious girlfriend of mine by the name of Beth Block, who one day came along behind me at the diving board and became tired of my reticence. When I was getting ready to back up off the diving board, Beth just decided to push me in headfirst into the water. I found out that even though I kept going down, after a while, somethin� kicked in and said, "Just relax. You�ll come up again.� Wasn�t no need of me getting mad at Beth; she was just my escort into my destiny, because I couldn�t graduate if I couldn�t swim, and I couldn�t swim if I couldn�t get off the board. Sometimes God has to give you escorts into destiny. | Copeland, Claudette. �Live on What�s Left.�
The African American Pulpit (Spring 2003): p. 42 | | | Hypocrisy - Sheron Patterson |
Blending In | | Some church folk are like me at my son Robbie�s football games. I don�t know a thing about football, but I go and I blend in with the crowd. And I�m quite good at blending in with the crowd. When the crowd goes, �Yeah!� I go, �Yeah!� When the crowd goes, �Touch down!� I go, �That�s a touch down!� I�ve become quite good at faking it. Some church folk are good at faking, too. When somebody says �Hallelujah,� you go, �Hallelujah!� When somebody shouts, you shout�but you don�t know Jesus for yourself. | Patterson, Sheron. "God Wants You to Grow Up."
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2004-2005): p. 51 | | | Identity - Reginald Bell, Jr. |
Forest Gump and Lt. Dan | | In the movie Forest Gump, Forest was celebrated because he rescued several of his comrades, including his superior Lt. Dan, as they fought in the Korean War. As Forest tried to rescue Lt. Dan he belligerently begged to be left for dead, but Forest saved him anyway. After everyone was rescued off the island the survivors were taken to a hospital. For days Lt. Dan laid on his bed in silence. Because his legs were gone, and because he wasn�t able to die an honorable death in a battle like his father and grandfather, he was bitter and angry. One night he pulled Forest out his bed onto the floor and said, �You cheated me! I should have died on the field with honor. Now look at me. I�m a cripple. I can�t use my legs. I used to be Lt. Dan!� Forest replied, �You�re still Lt. Dan.� Lt. Dan went on to get prostheses and to get married. In other words, don�t let your current limitations determine your identity. | | Reginald Bell, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee | | | In the Will of God - Timothy Jackson |
Throwing Back a Homerun Ball | | I had the opportunity to attend a major league baseball game, Milwaukee Brewers vs. the New York Mets. The Brewers were the home team. Many people sat in the stands hoping to catch a homerun ball. Actually, most baseball fans desire to go home with a homerun ball. At this particular game, a New York Met hit a homerun into the stands. One of the Brewer fans caught the ball and then threw it back on the field. At first I was shocked. I wondered why anyone would throw a homerun ball back to the field. I even asked a friend about it. He then told me that although the fan desired a home run ball, she threw it back because she only wanted one that was hit to her by the home team. In life things are always thrown at us. But, if you get anything that doesn�t come from God, throw it back! | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | It Ain�t Over until It�s Over - Eustacia Moffett Marshall |
Endurance | | Something spectacular happened during the playoffs this year [2009]. The Cleveland Cavaliers opened their second play-off game with the Orlando Magic with a 23-point lead in the first half. The Cavaliers were seemingly on their way to an easy victory until Orlando picked up the pace and made a stunning comeback. By the last quarter of the game, Orlando was in the lead with the score, 95 to 93. The Cleveland Quicken Loans Arena was a sad picture of disappointed fans and devastated friends. The game was almost over and Orlando was preparing their victory shout when the concluding countdown began. 5� 4� 3� 2� Just in the nick of time, Lebron James broke away from Hido Turkoglu of the Orlando Magic. Lebron took an open space just beyond the 3-point line, lifted up in a leap of faith, and swish! The ball went through the hoop. It was pandemonium in the arena. Lebron had just led the Cleveland Cavaliers in a stunning 96-95 playoff victory. Confetti speckled the air. People were shouting. Lights were flashing. The commentators spoke of having chills. What a game to remember, but even more, what a lesson to be learned. The game ain�t over until it�s over! | | Eustacia Moffett Marshall, Charlotte, North Carolina | | | Jesus - George Miller, Jr. |
A Stable Investment | | I watched Jim Cramer on CNBC the other night as he gave financial advice to people who called in to his show. Someone called in because they were afraid about investing their money in the unstable market. I will never forget what Jim Cramer said in response to that caller. Cramer said, �In this economy you don�t want to put your money in a risky investment. You want to put your money in a stable investment.� He then spent the next ten minutes trying to come up with a list of stable investments. Well, I don�t need ten minutes to come up with a stable investment. In these unstable times, Jesus is the only stable investment. Throughout eternity, Jesus has always been the only stable investment. | | George Miller, Jr., Atlanta, Georgia | | | Jesus, Our Propitiation - Carolyn Ann Knight |
Crash Test Dummies | | Periodically, Ford will take a car, truck, or van and crash it into a wall at speeds of up to one hundred miles per hour to see how much damage it can take. The difference between the road test and the crash test is: in the road test they use real drivers; in the crash test they use human-like models. When they do crash tests, they know no matter how skilled the driver, somebody can get hurt. So in the crash test they do not use a trained driver; they use a human-like prototype. They use a model in the shape of a human being who can handle the crash. | Knight, Carolyn. �Built for the Road Ahead.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer 2007): p. 88 | | | Just the Form of Godliness - Michael W. Waters |
Westminster Abbey | | The summer before my senior year of college, I attended a conference in Brighton, England. Afterwards, I spent several days touring the city of London. I remember my excitement while touring many of London�s celebrated sites: Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, and The Parliament. Most of all, I remember my tour of Westminster Abbey. I was overwhelmed by the outer beauty of this Gothic cathedral, with its pointed arches, grand columns, and imposing sculptures of 19th century martyrs. I could not wait to get inside! But for all of its outer magnificence and grandeur, I was dismayed by what awaited me within: rows and rows of entombed monarchs! I was surrounded by the presence of death! Too many lives are constructed like Westminster Abbey having all the trappings of magnificence and grandeur without, but containing death and decay within! | | Michael W. Waters, Dallas, Texas | | | Know When to Look to God - Samuel D. Proctor |
The Lesson of the Lodestone | | The Chinese discovered the lodestone twenty-five hundred years ago, a mineral composed of iron oxide called magnetite. Tiny shavings of this mineral are fashioned into the needle of the compass. It is mounted in the compass, free to move into alignment with the magnetic field of the earth. This magnetic field, so real and so powerful, is nevertheless unseen and unfelt by humans. Yet this tiny shaving from a lodestone knows to point north whenever it is free to pivot. | Samuel Proctor in Proctor, Samuel D., and Gardner C. Taylor.
We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor�s Vocation.
Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1996. p. 47 | | | Kononia - Robert Smith |
The Common Bowl | | One of my students at Southern Baptist Seminary, a very fine and promising white woman, went to Africa as a missionary to try to minister to the people and to forge rapport. They got ready to eat and she thought that they would give her an individual plate but not so. There was a large bowl on the table that they called a community bowl. Everyone put their hand in the same bowl. She was afraid to eat from it because she was cultured and refined. People had not washed their hands, and she really didn�t know what was in the bowl. But she realized that if she were going to be able to preach to these people she would have to put her hand in the common bowl. When Jesus came to earth that was God�s way of putting his hands in the common bowl. | From the lecture Cross-Cultural Preaching.
Delivered in 1999 at the EK Bailey Conference, by Robert Smith. | | | Learning From Mistakes - John R. Bryant |
Burned Repeatedly | | The story is told of a man who goes to another friend�s house for a Sunday morning visit. When the friend opens the door, he sees that there are fresh wounds on the visiting man�s face. When the friend inquires about the wounds, the man confesses that the he drank too much the night before. While intoxicated, the phone rang. He reached for what he thought was the phone to hold to his ear. But instead, he had picked up a hot iron and burned his ear with it. The friend said how sorry he was that it had happened; but then he inquired, �Well, that explains how one side was burned, but what happened to the other side?� �Well,� the man answered, �the fool called me back. ...So many of us have been burned more than once by something we said we would not repeat. | From the sermon �Let�s Celebrate.�
Outstanding Black Sermons Volume 4.
Ed. Walter Thomas. p. 22 | | | Live in Expectancy - Marcus Cosby |
The Ball Player Who Rarely Played | | I used to play second base on a little league baseball team. I was the third string second basemen (obviously, I didn�t play baseball very well). I didn�t play in the games very much, as you can probably imagine. But I did play a lot in practice. And in practice my coach said, �Cosby, even if the ball is not coming your way, get in position and act like it is.� �Even if the ball is not coming down the second base line, expect it to come your way.� Church, the best way to prepare for a blessing is to get in position. Get in position for God to bless you. Stop having pity parties and get in position. Stop walking around with your head down and get in position. Stop worrying about what has not happened and get in position. | From the sermon Good News in Bad Times.
Delivered August 2007, in Houston, Texas, by Marc Cosby. | | | Live in Unison - Jeremiah Wright, Jr. |
Not a Way to Win a Football Game | | You�ve got eleven men on the same team�eleven men, team effort, all allies. The ball is snapped. The quarterback turns to his left. The linebackers commit. The quarterback turns to his left, spins and pitches it to the right of his tailback. The guard is pulling. The fullback is leading the blocking. Even the defensive end bought the fake to the left and he is too far out of place to stop and come back. They have a straight sweep right into the end zone. It is an automatic first down. Easy touchdown coming up when, suddenly, the fullback turn around and tackles his own teammate in the backfield and starts doing a victory shout in the backfield. When you are fighting the wrong enemy, it puts you at odds with your own allies. The very folk who are in your corner are the very folk you will find yourself in conflict with. | Wright, Jeremiah. �Fighting the Wrong Enemies.�
Sound the Trumpet! Messages to Empower African American Men. Ed. Darryl D. Sims.
Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2002. pp. 15-16 | | | Living and Dying - Kirk Byron Jones |
Dying is Easy | | In Toni Morrison�s Beloved, Paul D. asks Sethe about the death of Baby Suggs: �Was it hard? I hope she didn�t die hard.� Sethe responds, shaking her head, �Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part.� | Jones, Kirk Byron. �I Have.�
TheAfrican American Pulpit (Summer�1999): p. 29 | | | Making People Cry While hearing the 23rd Psalm - Anonymous |
Knowing God | | Once after a great orator had made his masterful presentation, someone asked him to recite his version of the 23rd Psalm. After he finished, the crowd stood to their feet and gave him a tremendous applause. Soon after, there was a country preacher in the audience who asked if he would be allowed to recite the same 23rd Psalm. He was granted his wish and then proceeded to recite this special psalm. After he finished, there was no applause, but most of the audience had their eyes filled with tears. Someone asked the great orator how is it that when the country preacher recited the 23rd Psalm, people broke down and cried. The orator responded, �Sir, I know the 23rd Psalm, but that preacher knows the Shepherd.� | Anonymous, several versions of this illustration
have been used by many. | | | Maneuvering Through Life - Christopher M. Jones |
Controlled Air Space | | That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, 'Let us go to the other side.' Leaving the other crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that they were nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. (Mark 4:35-38a NIV) NASA will tell you the best way to navigate around air turbulence is by radar. Pilots who know how to navigate around storms in the atmosphere do so by using airborne radar to detect where violent air pockets may dwell. Pilots with good radar have figured out the value of what scientists call low-radar reflectivity. Reflectivity refers to the amount of radar signal bounced back by turbulent winds, raindrops, ice-crystals, or snow. The greater the rate of reflectivity, the greater the potential for air turbulence. The more one's radar signal bounces back, the more one can assume a storm awaits them. The radar of wisdom tells us that the storms of life are unavoidable. However, if you have the right radar device at your disposal, you can calmly see your way around any turbulent winds that await you. | | Christopher M. Jones, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Manhood - Victor Alfred |
The Sight of a Man | | One year we had a bad snowstorm. As my wife looked around the house, she saw that there was hardly any food left. Although I am blind, as the man of the house, I felt it was my responsibility to get something for my wife and children to eat. So I put on my boots, layered myself with clothes, and went out to look for an open store. After walking for what seemed like hours, I finally found a store and purchased some groceries. I must have been gone too long for my wife�s comfort because she sent my young son to look for me. By the time he met up with me, I was almost home. Worry was in his voice followed by relief. I assured him that everything was okay and we made it home. I was cold and warm at the same time, because I had provided for my family. Even though I had lost my vision, I hadn�t lost site of what makes a man, a man. | | Victor Alfred, Fairmont, North Carolina | | | Mature Disciples - Oscar Brown |
Mature Disciples | | In Baltimore we have a mass transit system. When you�re on the bus and you want to get off, there is a cord (or string) you can pull to inform the driver that you want to get off. In a real sense, many of us are just like that in church. As soon as the leader makes a turn we don�t like, we�re pulling the cord because we are ready to get off. | Brown, Oscar. �The Valley of Decision.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2008-2009): p. 33 | | | Maturing as a Christian - Eric Baldwin |
What an Eagle Does as It Ages | | My daughter asked me to help her research the eagle for her fourth grade science paper. I was intrigued to discover that the eagle has a life span of about seventy years. However, around age thirty-five the eagle�s beak gets softer, his wings are weighted down with dark brown feathers that make flying a challenge, and his talons (or claws) become brittle and break. Some scientists say that this causes the eagle to go through a self-evaluation process in which it hides in the cleft of a mountain for 150 days. While there, the eagle breaks her soft beak by pecking it on rocks; but it grows back in ninety days. It then breaks off its talons by sticking them into the crevices of the rocks, but they grow back within forty-five days. Then it takes those new talons and begins to pull off the feathers that weighed her down. As a result, she is able to finish the second half of his life stronger than she was before. That�s how we should approach life. Too often we focus on what slows us down and weakens our life. But we should go to the �Rock� and ask him to strengthen our mouths so we can speak those things that are not as though they were. We should ask for strength to take off some bad habits, people, and circumstances that weigh us down. Rock of ages, cleft for me, please let me hide myself in thee! Why? Because I get tired, I get weak, and I get worn! | | Eric Baldwin, Durham, North Carolina | | | Maybe, Maybe Not - Reginald Bell, Jr. |
Faith in God | | In the movie Ripple Effect, Forest Whitaker plays a wheelchair bound paralytic. During a conversation someone asked him if he had pain, to which he responded, �No.� He was then asked how he could live his life and not have pain, especially in his condition. Whitaker responded with the following story: �There is a man who lives in a village and he only has one stallion�one horse. This horse does all the work for him and then one day the horse escapes; just runs away. Everyone in the village comes to him and they say, �Oh, we are so sorry for you. Now you are so poor.� And the man says, �Maybe, maybe not.� On the next day, the horse returns and it brings twenty mares with it and all the people in the village come and say, �Oh praise God! You�re the richest man in the village. You must be so happy.� And he says, �Maybe, maybe not.� The next day, his son rides this stallion and he falls while riding it and he�s paralyzed. All the villagers come and say, �We�re so sorry. You�re the poorest of us all because you have lost the help of your son.� He says, �Maybe, maybe not.� The next day a war breaks out and all the boys from the village are drafted for the war. His son stays behind because he�s paralyzed and the villagers come to him later and say, �Oh, you must be so happy. You got to keep your son because all our sons have perished in the war.� And he says, �Maybe, maybe not.� The true test of a child of God is not whether they suffer but whether they learn to keep the right perspective about whatever happens in life. Life is filled with many maybe and maybe not moments. However, of this one thing we can be certain, �He who has begun a good work in us will complete it.� | | Reginald Bell, Jr. Memphis, Tennessee | | | Mercy - Paul Booth |
Mercy | | I once read a story about a mother who approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded his death. �But I don�t ask for justice,� the mother explained. �I plead for mercy.� �But your son does not deserve mercy,� Napoleon replied. �Sir,� the woman cried, �it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for.� �Well, then� the emperor said, �I will have mercy.� And he spared the woman�s son. How many know that God chose [you] not because of the jays on your feet�the ice on your wrist, or the paper behind your name. You�re chosen because of God�s mercy. | Booth, Paul. �Chosen� The African American Pulpit
(Summer 2009): p. 57 | | | Mercy - Timothy Jackson |
A Clean Blackboard | | In grade school, my teacher used to write on what was called a blackboard. All day long she would use different colors of chalk to write different things on the blackboard. By the end of the day the board would be a mess. To address this problem my teacher had someone do two things. First, everything would be removed with an eraser. However, because the eraser didn't provide a deep cleaning, a lot of stuff was just smeared and you could often still see what used to be there. The second thing she had someone do is take a sponge, dip it in a bucket of clean water, and then wash the board. Regardless of what was on the blackboard the previous day, every morning I saw a fresh, clean blackboard. The Good News for us is that regardless of what we've done in the past, God's mercies are new each morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Miles, the Dog Who Loves Cookies - Eustacia Moffett Marshall |
Rewards | | Miles, our family dog, has a gift. Whenever he sees a cookie or hears the word �cookie,� Miles lifts up his two front paws and begins to walk on his two hind legs. Incredibly, he can sustain this two-legged walk for quite some time. After watching Miles one day, I asked Miles how he is able to sustain this two-legged walk whenever he sees a cookie or hears the word �cookie.� In my sanctified imagination, Miles, the dog, spoke back to me. He said, �I�m able to sustain my two-legged walk whenever I see a cookie or hear the word �cookie,� because I�ve learned that when I use the gifts God has given me there is something sweet in store for me!� | | Eustacia Moffett Marshall, Charlotte, North Carolina | | | The Ministry of a Person with MLS - Gardner C. Taylor |
Promise in Every Condition | | Recently one of my sons told me about visiting a high school friend who had been overtaken by Lou Gehrig�s disease. She was–and is–a beautiful young mother, lying still without any muscular control anywhere below the neck. Having the benefit of only a fraction of bodily control, she moves her head against a pad that signals an electronic device that posts a message. With only that slight movement of the head available to her, she nevertheless has access to other�s lives, other�s minds, other�s hearts, and she exercises it with a smile. Her eyebrow movements convey a catalog of emotion. Everyone who enters her room receives a cordial greeting. Many wonder how she can manage to use what little she has left with so much verve and vitality. Hardly is there any life without some redemptive qualities, and hardly is there any condition that does not have any promise present in it at all. | Gardner C. Taylor in Proctor, Samuel D., and Gardner C. Taylor.
We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor�s Vocation.
Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1996. pp. 80-81 | | | My Daddy Has the Key - Phillip Pointer |
God Is in Control | | When my daughter Gabbie was five, my wife and I decided to take her and her five year old cousin Hope to the movies. Since we did not have a newspaper, we decided to stop by the church to look up the show times on the internet. When we arrived at the church, Gabbie and Hope jumped out the car and darted to the church door. When they got to the door, Hope pulled on the handles to open the door but soon realized it was locked. Hope because very distraught and upset and then said to my daughter, �Gabbie, we can�t get inside because the door is locked.� I never will forget this. My five year old daughter put her hand on Hope�s shoulder and said, �Don�t worry Hope, my daddy has the key.� I know there are some people in some dark places right now, but we all need to put our hand on someone�s shoulder and tell them don�t worry because our daddy has the key. | | Phillip Pointer, Washington, DC | | | The Need for a Power Source - Carolyn Ann Knight |
A Simple Solution | | Several years ago the Atlanta University Center (AUC), of which the Interdenominational Theological Center is a part, received a generous gift from the president of Microsoft. The process of installing this equipment brought an air mixed with excitement and anxiety to the campus. After the computers were installed, I was walking down the hall one day and noticed that one of my colleagues was sitting in front of her computer, just staring at it. Her face was perplexed, and there was a look of frustration on her brow. She asked me if I could be of any assistance. When I entered the office, I saw that her situation was indeed serious. After many attempts, she had not been able to even turn her computer on. I pushed the green �on� button, and nothing happened. I suggested that perhaps it had not been installed correctly. So, we went about the business of undoing all of the cables and plugging them in where we thought they should be� nothing happened. So again, we undid all of the cables and put them back in their original position... still, nothing happened. By this time, my face looked exactly like that of my colleague–perplexed and frustrated. As we tried to figure out our next move, a passing student saw our despair and came to the rescue. He started where I had started, pushing the green �on� button. I thought to myself, �Here we go again.� But then he did something that neither my colleague nor I had done. He looked on the floor and saw that the computer was plugged into a power strip; however, the strip�s red indicator light was not turned on, so the computer could not get power. The student bent down, turned on the power strip, and the computer came on–a simple solution to a complex problem. | From the sermon �A Simple Solution to a Complex Problem.�
Outstanding Black Sermons Volume 4.
Knight, Carolyn Ann. pp. 43-44 | | | A New Creation - Matthew Watley |
The Six Million Dollar Man | | One of my favorite television shows as a child was The Six Million Dollar Man. The show was about an astronaut pilot named Steve Austin. Austin was once in a terrible accident that messed him up pretty badly. As a consequence, he was wheeled into a top secret operating room. The room was filled with surgeons and nurses who scurried to stabilize him. In the midst of all the chaos and drama a loud voice said, �We can rebuild him.� The doctors are then seen attaching limbs to his body that were not his original limbs. The limbs were specially constructed bionic limbs. At the end of the surgery Austin appears and he looks like an average person. But in reality he�s not average because his new body enables him to do stuff that others can�t do. I love that story because when Austin was at his lowest point in life, a group of doctors decided they not only could rebuild him but that they could make him better. That�s good news to me. Despite all that�s going on in my life, I�m glad to know that every time I enter the Holy Ghost operating room the Godhead�God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost�looks at me and say, We can rebuild him and make him better. | | Matthew Watley, Glen Dale, Maryland | | | New Creatures in Christ - Romel Williams |
A DVD with Special Features | | On a good DVD there is an option called �special features.� You can go into the special features and see something called deleted scenes. That�s the stuff they recorded but left on the cutting room floor. I wonder how many of us know we have some deleted scenes in our life, some stuff that God didn�t let get out. God edited your situation and left some stuff on the cutting room floor. But my all time favorite part of special features is the alternate endings. That means you can watch the whole movie, enjoy the whole story line and when it�s over you can go back and see how it could have ended. Understand, Jesus has the power to give all of us an alternate ending. He�s the author and finisher of our faith. | From the sermon The Real World.
Delivered in Chicago, Illinois, by Romel Williams. | | | Not Having Salvation - Ural H. Hill |
A Hole in the Sole | | I went to a shoe repair shop to get my favorite preaching shoes fixed. The heels were worn down on both sides. The shoe shop repaired the heels and shined the shoes well. When I picked my shoes up, they looked good. The next day I put them on and went out into a drenching storm. After awhile I noticed that my feet kept feeling soggy. Well, eventually I took the shoes off and looked at the soles; there was a hole in the sole of both shoes. They looked good. Some work had been done on them. But the most important thing, the soles, had a hole in them, and that rendered the shoes useless in a storm. | | Ural H. Hill, Houston, Texas | | | Obedience - Timothy Jackson |
No Audibles | | In the game of football, each team has an offensive coordinator who calls the plays that should be run on the field. However, occasionally the quarterback will call an "audible," meaning he has decided to override the call of the offensive coordinator and call a play of his own. Oftentimes, audibles result in interceptions or something else that turns the ball over to the other team. Needless to say, the offensive coordinator becomes upset, because the quarterback chose to change what he called and it failed. It is the desire of the offensive coordinator to run plays with no audibles. He knows what plays need to be run and when they should be run, because he has a better view of the field than the quarterback. Since God, our Offensive Coordinator, has a better view of the field of life than we do, we need to run the plays he calls with no audibles. | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Obedience - Carmen Avery |
The GPS Stops Speaking | | My husband recently purchased a GPS (a global positioning system) for our car. It is a nifty device that allows you to input your destination and then it gives you turn-by-turn directions to your destination. To get the full benefit of the GPS you have to listen and obey its instructions. It will continue to give instructions as long as you attempt to obey them. Now, if you miss your turn it will say, �Recalculating! Recalculating!� and then give you new instructions to get back on the right course. Interestingly, if you continue to do things your way and refuse to follow the instructions, it automatically stops speaking. I guess the GPS figures there is no reason for it to keep speaking because you obviously know where you�re going. May be some of us haven�t heard from God lately because our actions suggest we don�t need God�s advice to reach our destination. We think we know where we�re going. | | Carmen Avery, Atlanta, Georgia | | | Omnipotence - Timothy Jackson |
A King Keeps You in the Game | | In the game of checkers, the goal is to jump over your opponent's checkers until you have them all. One day I was playing checkers and it seemed as if my opponent had gotten the best of me. Such was the case until I managed to get a king. What I like about the king is that the king is able to make moves that ordinary checkers cannot make. After a while, I found myself depending on the king to stay in the game. I simply moved the king from corner to corner because I realized that a king in a corner cannot be jumped. My opponent began to get upset because I was so dependent on my king. He became so frustrated until he asked me to just give up. I simply looked him in the face and said, "As long as I have a king in my corner, I am still in the game." | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | The Omnipotence of God - Wendell Smith |
Dropped Calls | | Call waiting notifies a person, when you are on the phone, that someone else is calling. That person can choose to answer the phone or continue their current conversation. If the person answers the phone they have the option of having a private conversation with the caller or to conference them in with the existing caller. Sometimes in doing this the original caller is dropped and has to call again. God is omnipotent in his communication ability. While communicating with us if he hears another person calling, can answer that person�s call without dropping or losing any other callers. AT&T boasts of having the fewest dropped calls, but God has never dropped a call. | | Wendell Smith, Dalton, Georgia | | | The Omnipotence of God - Youtha Hardman-Cromwell |
Buck the Ox | | My grandmother�s father, Papa Charles, was a tobacco farmer in Appomattox, Virginia. When the tobacco was cut and cured, it had to be taken to the auction house in town. Most of that journey from Papa Charles� farm to the auction house was flat, but there was one very steep hill that had to be negotiated. So when the tobacco was loaded into the huge barrels called hogshead barrels, and loaded onto the wagon, Papa Charles would hitch Buck, the ox that he had borrowed from his cousin, to the back of the wagon. I can imagine that the team of horses wondered why they were being slowed down on their journey by the slow moving ox. At the bottom of the hill, Papa Charles would stop the wagon and hitch Buck in front of the horses. What an insult this must have been to the proud, prancing horses. Up the hill they would go, but about half way up, the horses� strength would begin to give out and the wagon and its load would begin to slip back down the hill. When Buck felt the pull on his harness, he would fall on his knees and hold the load. When the horses had had a chance to rest, they would begin again to pull the wagon up the hill. When the strength of the horses failed, when the load was about to slip back down the hill, losing the ground that had been gained, Buck held the load. Surely if Buck could hold the load then God who holds the world in his hand won�t have a problem holding your loads. | | Youtha Hardman-Cromwell, Washington, DC | | | The Omniscience of God - Derrick Rice |
The Flight Manager | | I remember one of the first times I was invited to fly to preach somewhere. I was told at the last minute I had to attend a mandatory meeting for my job on Friday morning. So, right away I called the airline I had purchased my ticket from, so I could find out what my options were, since I was clearly going to miss my 8:30 Friday morning flight. The sister on the phone said that usually I could fly standby on any flight leaving that day, but the problem was all of the flights had been oversold. I then went to the airport and asked for a manager. The manager asked me why I was going to Chicago and I told her I was going to preach. She then put me on a direct flight when all the direct flights were supposed to be oversold. In fact, she put me in first class! I asked her how she was able to get me on a flight, much less in first class, when the sister on the phone said it couldn�t be done. She looked me in the eye, paused and said, "Young man, what you don�t understand is, I�m the manager and I can see things in the system that other people can�t see." | | Derrick Rice, Atlanta, Georgia | | | The Omniscience of God - Leo Daniels |
God�s World Never Stops | | How old is the world? Geologist have said the world is 4 � billion years old. They got their information from the study of rocks. The truth is we really don�t know how old the earth is. What we do know for certain is that God made it. I know that. The geologist may not admit it but I know that. Well, if the world is 4 � billion years old then that means God is even greater than what we say he is. Because earth hasn�t stopped moving since he made it. If God wasn�t so great then the earth should have stopped long enough to be lubricated. But God must have some great insights. If the world is 4 � billions years old and has been turning this long then the engine should have gone out or needed an overhaul. I�ve known men to invent great things but nothing has ever run this long. A friend of mine has an oil well and it has been pumping for several years. But sooner or later he will have to stop it long enough to work on it. I�ve known restaurants and businesses that were open twenty-four hours a day. But sooner or later they have to stop something for repairs. That�s not true with God�s world. It�s been turning every since he spawned it billions of years ago. | From the sermon As the World Turns.
Delivered in Shreveport, Louisiana, by Leo Daniels. | | | The Only Route to Heaven - Sandy F. Ray |
A Dangerous Bus | | The jungle is the only route to the Promised Land. There is no alternate route. Some years ago, I spoke in a small Mississippi town. The word was around that there was trouble at the bus station. I inquired if there were other means of transportation in the town. I was told that there were no planes or trains out of the town. A friend took me near the bus station, and I fearfully asked for a ticket to New York. I was determined to get home, and that bus was my only means of getting home. The jungle is our only route to the Promised Land. There will be fears and frustrations, handicaps and horrors, but God speaks loud and clear as we journey through the jungle, "Be not afraid, I am with thee." | From the sermon �The Only Route to Heaven.�
Journeying Through a Jungle.
Ray, Sandy F. pp. 28-29 | | | Openness Before God - Eugene Gibson |
Hiding a Hurt Finger | | I was supposed to be watching Trinity and she was in her room and I was in front of the television. I heard a loud noise and said, �Pretty Lady!� She said, �Yesh?� I said, �What was that?� She said, �Nuffin.� I said, �Well bring nuffin here.� She sheepishly came over to me with her head hung low. I noticed her hand hidden behind her. I said, �Did you hurt yourself?� She said, �Yesh.� I said, �Let me see it.� She said, �No.� I said, �Girl let me see!� She said, �No daddy, please don't make me.� I said, �Why?� She said, �I can't show you cause it hurts.� As she stood before me I thought to myself, don�t you know I�m your daddy? Don�t you know I have a whole cabinet with aids that can fix hurt fingers? Don�t you know that I can make it feel better if you�ll just show me? How many of us are like my daughter? Week after week we come into the church hurting and we leave hurting because we try to hide what�s hurting. | | Eugene Gibson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Oppressing Your Own - Jeremiah Wright, Jr. |
Sheep Training | | I think a lot of this is related to what Dr. Asa Hilliard, an imminent black psychologist, said in one of his books entitled The Black Maroon. In that book, there is a two-page chapter on the making of a sheepdog. (Dr. Hilliard learned this while watching the Discovery Channel.) At birth, they take a sheepdog (a German Shepherd, a Collie, or whatever) away from the litter it was born into and put it in a sheep litter so that it will suck on the breast of a sheep. Here is the reasoning: Get the sheep�s milk into the dog�s system, get the sheep�s DNA into its system, let it grow up along with that litter, let the dog play with that sheep litter, let it become just like that litter, and, when it gets grown, if a dog from its own litter comes near the sheep, it will attack the dog. If the master comes near threateningly, that dog will kill its own master to protect the sheep. If you are missing the point, look at it this way. If you take (at birth) a Clarence Thomas or a J.C. Watts away from their own people, feed them at the breast of Harvard and Yale, and let them get that DNA inside them, when their own people try to tell them what time it is, they will attack their own people, defending the very ones who are keeping them oppressed. | Wright, Jeremiah. �Fighting the Wrong Enemies.�
Sound the Trumpet! Messages to Empower African American Men. Ed. Darryl D. Sims.
Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2002. p. 13 | | | Overcoming - Frederick Douglas Haynes, III |
Bad Bug, Big Break | | In 1915, Coffee County, Alabama was invaded by the dreaded boll weevil. This community was in the heart of the cotton belt, and the boll weevil stripped the cotton of its leaves and stole the entire community's livelihood. The whole community faced starvation. They got a bad break. But instead of caving in, the community invited African American scientist, George Washington Caver, to come to the county. He told them in so many words, don't be upset because you lost your cotton crop. Your soil is still good for harvesting peanuts. And do you know what happened? They were able to harvest a peanut crop and rescue their community from economic disaster. Eventually, they erected a statute in the middle of Coffee County, Alabama--to the boll weevil. Why? Because, even though the boll weevil had given them a bad break, that set the stage for their big break. | | Frederick Douglas Haynes, III, Dallas, Texas | | | Overcoming Tribulation - George Champion |
Climbing Mountains | | When I was younger, I was coming home from school one day and the superintendent of my Sunday School met me and said, �How are you doing young Champion?� I quickly responded, �Mr. Donaldson, it�s rough!� He replied, �Oh, young man, cheer up. Nobody can climb a smooth mountain. How many of us could make it to the top of our mountains if we didn�t expect the climb to be smooth? | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and Speaking.
Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 87 | | | Pastoring - Anonymous |
Abusing Sheep | | A traveler took a trip to Jerusalem, and among other strange sites he saw a large flock of sheep being driven by a man with a shepherd�s staff. He also noticed that the man occasionally poked some of the sheep and angrily urged them to move forward. The traveler asked one of the natives why the man abused the sheep like that. �I thought shepherds gently led sheep,� the man said. The native responded, �That man is not a shepherd, he�s the town butcher!� Many that attend to the sheep (the people of God) may have shepherd�s tools, but they don�t have a shepherd�s heart. | Anonymous. Versions of this illustration have
been used by many. | | | Perseverance - Freddie Haynes |
Keep Chewing | | My friend Norman Williams recently told me his daughter let him taste some kind of new candy she had. He said when he put it in his mouth his initial response was, �Oh, this is bitter!� His daughter said, �Wait daddy! Don�t spit it out. You have to keep chewing it to get to the sweet part.� Somebody here may be in a bitter situation. But I�m here to tell you that if you keep chewing you can make it to the sweet future God has for you. | From the sermon Madea Makes a Comeback.
Delivered in 2008, by Freddie Haynes. | | | Persistence Prevails - D.E. King |
The Mother Who Pleaded for Four Years | | LeMoyne College invited me to come to my class reunion in 1978 and I went. That gymnasium was packed with academic snobs. Nobody was thinking about Jesus but one little lady. She was sitting to the left of the platform.... And the dean got up and said to President Walker of LeMoyne, �President Walker, all these students are here for degrees, and here are the degrees to be conferred upon them, and I want you to stand and confer these degrees as I call the names.� And he began to call the name, and the people began to applaud. And finally he said, �Juanita Farley.� She stood up, and her mother, who was seated to her left, stood up. She had sent this girl to LeMoyne, and she didn�t have enough money to keep her there. So she prayed and asked God to keep her girl there, and when she stood up, this woman who wasn�t called to stand up, she stood up and said, �Nobody but you, Jesus!� Everybody looked at her, and President Walker pulled his hanky and began to wipe the tears from his eyes, and he said, �I want you to understand that this lady used to call me every month and ask me to let her daughter stay in school until she finished. | � King, D.E. �How to Pray.�
The African American Pulpit (Spring 2003): p. 63 | | | Pleasing God - Anonymous |
How to Fail as a Pastor | | A young man was excited about pastoring his first church. He went to a seasoned pastor of many years of service and asked him how he could become a successful pastor. The old pastor responded, �Young man, I can�t tell you how to become a successful pastor. I don�t have much to say about how to become a megachurch pastor, but what I can tell you is how to fail as a pastor. If you want to fail as a pastor try to please everybody.� | Anonymous. Versions of this illustration have
been used by many. | | | Potential - Romel Williams |
The $100 Million Dollar High School Athlete | | Nike signed LeBron James to a $100 million dollar endorsement contract. They signed him to this contract before he ever stepped foot on an NBA professional court. They signed a high school player to this contract before he ever played in the NBA. At that time, when Nike looked at LeBron they didn�t only see the high school athlete he was, they also saw the superstar that LeBron could be. Nike endorsed James because of his potential. When God looks at you he is not stuck on who you are now, God sees the superstar in you and he endorses you because of what he knows you can be. | | Romel Williams, Chicago, Illinois | | | The Power of Prayer - Carolyn Showell |
When Your Life Matters to God | | About five years ago we were at a national convention, and they sent word to Mother Boyd that her son had died in Atlanta. As we were making arrangements to go, and get her ready to go to Atlanta to claim the body of her son, she sent word down there by one of our bishops and said, �Tell them don�t touch him until I get down there.� And so we immediately tried to find the next flight for her to get down there and she said, �Nah, y�all, I�ve got a seminar to do.� She said, �Let me do my little seminar, and then I�ll jump on a plane.� She got on the plane and went down to Atlanta and went into the morgue, and saw they were ready to do the autopsy. And she told the attendant, �You step out a moment.� He stepped out of the room, and she had two other prayer warriors�two other mothers of the church�with her. They went into the morgue, pulled the sheet back, and she said to God, �Now, God, you made my boy and I know he�s not through living the will of God, so Satan, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. Son, �I�m speaking life back into your body!� She said she waited about five minutes and nothing happened, and then she turned to God and said, �God, if my life means anything to you, then I want you to bring my son back to life.� Because God valued her life, her son came back to life and he is living today. Is that not what Christ did on Calvary? On Calvary Christ essentially said, �God if my life means anything to you then bring humanity back to life.� | Showell, Carolyn. �Greater Is He.�
The African American Pulpit (Fall 2005): p. 83 | | | The Power of Salvation - Anonymous |
The Man who Changed Blue | | There was a man named Blue who controlled many of the street corners in Chicago. Whatever you needed�drugs, prostitutes, liquor, lotto tickets�Blue offered it. Blue was a mean man and everybody knew it. People who wrongfully crossed Blue were either stabbed, shot, or they disappeared. One day Blue told everybody he had to take a business trip for two weeks. After two weeks, Blue hadn�t returned. Three weeks passed and no Blue. Six weeks passed and no Blue. One of Blue�s girls got worried and went looking for him. �Where is Blue?� she asked everyone she saw. �Has anybody seen Blue?� Finally, a young brother said he had seen Blue walk down a nearby alley and turn the corner a few minutes earlier. The young woman decided to check out Blue�s trail. When she reached the end of the alley and turned the corner there was nothing but a church. She thought, �Surely Blue can�t be in there.� But she entered anyway. To her surprise, Blue was standing at the door as an usher with his hands behind his back, white gloves on, and a smile on his face. She sat down and listened to the choir sing, heard people testify, and heard the sermon. When the pastor opened the doors of the church she went to the front. The pastor responded by saying, �Sister, we�re glad you accepted the invitation. Please tell us why you came. Did you come because of the testimonies of the saints?� She said, �Rev., the testimonies were touching, but that�s not why I came.� The pastor asked, �Did you come because of the choir�s singing?� She responded, �No, and God knows they can sing.� Then the pastor stuck out his chest and said, �Maybe you came because my sermon motivated you.� The woman then responded, �Rev., God knows you can preach, but that�s not why I�m here.� She then turned, looked at Blue, and said, �I came because I wanted to meet the man who could change Blue!� | Anonymous. Several versions of this
illustration exist. | | | Praise - Cedrick Von Jackson |
Bats And Echoes | | Animals, such as bats, use a process called echo-location to find their way around in the dark. Bats send out a signal, a sound. The sound echoes off a solid object and returns to the bat�s ears. It is both the sound and the solid object that the sound bounces off of that helps the bat navigate its way around in the dark. There are obstacles in the way, but the bat navigates its way around the obstacles by sending out a sound that echoes back. And what we have found is that it�s the solid stuff, the hard stuff that actually helps the bat make its way through. In the times when life gets hard, I dare you to send out a praise sound, and watch it echo off of the hard stuff and help you navigate your way through! | | Cedrick Von Jackson, Sardis, Mississippi | | | Praise - Anonymous |
Hold My Bags | | A sweet old lady, Sister Brown, lived in the inner-city and went to church religiously. She would respond in worship openly and freely. One day Sister Brown moved to a new neighborhood and joined a new church. Her first Sunday there she sat in the front of the church and shouted, �Preach Rev.!� �Amen!� �Hallelujah!� �Thank you Jesus!� Sunday after Sunday she shouted, and clapped loudly. What she didn�t know was that this was a �high� church. The other members of the church were disturbed by her outbursts. Some members became so upset that they formed a special committee to meet with Sister Brown about her �out-burst� of praise in their quiet worship services. Two of the committee members were in a department store when they spotted Sister Brown shopping and decided to confront her there. As they approached her she began to shout, �Lord here comes two of my fellow church members.� They quickly responded, �Shush! Keep your voice down.� They then proceeded to tell her how they felt she was disruptive. Sister Brown responded, �Hold on! You don�t know me, nor do you know how far the Lord has brought me. A long time ago, my husband died and left me alone with four children to rear. I wanted them to have an opportunity to make something of their lives. Sometimes the nights got dark, and I prayed and the Lord brought me through. I sometimes worked two jobs to send my children through school�washing, ironing, and doing other jobs. Let me give you the report card of my children: I got a lawyer, a doctor, a trained minister and a nurse. And every time I think about how good the Lord has been to me, I can�t help it. In fact, hold my bags. I�m gone shout right here in this store!� | Anonymous. Several versions of this illustration
exist including those titled:
�Hold My Mule,� �Hold My Cane,�
and �Hold My Hat.� | | | Prayer - Timothy Jackson |
It�s in the Knees | | There was a young man who was determined to learn how to slam dunk a basketball. He went to the gym and attempted to dunk the basketball several times. After missing numerous times, he began to analyze the difference between what he did when he missed and what he did when he didn�t miss. He soon discovered that his ability to successfully dunk the ball could be attributed to his knees. Whether or not he bent his knees enough determined if he dunked the ball or not. All I�m trying to say is your ability to slam dunk in life is in your knees too�how often your bend them in prayer. | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Prayer - Napoleon Harris |
We Cry Together | Prayer is our means of communing with Jesus. However, there is a certain amount of vulnerability that is needed if communication is to be obtained. In one of the most emotionally gripping scenes in the movie Antoine Fisher, the main character, in a moment of total vulnerability, breaks down and cries while reciting an original poem to his counselor turned mentor. Hear Antoine's words: "Who will cry for the little boy, lost and all alone?
Who will cry for the little boy, abandoned without his own?
Who will cry for the little boy, who cried himself to sleep?
Who will cry for the little boy, he never had for keeps?
Who will cry for the little boy, who walked the burning sand?
Who will cry for the little boy, the boy inside the man?
Who will cry for the little boy, who knows well hurt and pain?
Who will cry for the little boy, he died and died again?
Who will cry for the little boy, a good boy he tried to be?
Who will cry for the little boy, who cries inside of me?" Sisters and brothers in Christ, if we are willing to be vulnerable and share our whole selves, our hopes, our hurts, and our hang-ups, we too have a mentor and counselor in Jesus. Moreover, in the movie Fisher testifies that he cries for himself; the counselor doesn�t cry, only Fisher. But our counselor Jesus is above Antoine's counselor. Jesus won't let us cry alone. He said He'd never leave us or forsake us. That means even in our crying and tears Jesus is there crying with us. | | Napoleon Harris, Norwalk, Connecticut | | | Prayer - Ronald Slaughter |
God�s Radar System | | A few weeks ago, I was surprised when I boarded a plane and noticed that the cockpit door was opened; they are usually closed. Since the door was open, I peaked in and saw the pilots preparing for the flight. I then spoke to the pilots and inquired about a dot I saw blinking on one of the screens. One pilot told me that the dot represented a tracking system and the system enabled the plane to show up on their radar system. At any given moment, they could look at the screen and know exactly where they were. In addition, he told me that the people in the radar towers also have a screen that enables them to know where the plane is at all times. God sent me a heavenly facsimile before the pilot finished his statement. God shared with me that prayer is like that. Prayer is like that tracking system; it keeps us on God�s radar and God on our radar. | | Ronald Slaughter, Macon, Georgia | | | Presence of God - Fulton Porter |
Swimming Lessons | | I remember well the panic I experienced when I, for the first time, took swimming lessons. My swimming lessons were not taught at the Wabash YMCA, but my lessons were taught to me by my buddy Stanley at the Community pool. Stanley�s curriculum was simple. You stood on the side of the pool, he pushed you in, and you�d swim or not. Stanley�s teaching philosophy is that the swimmer in us is already there; all we need do is invite it to come out. Those first few milliseconds, which seemed like hours, felt like being buried alive and I thought I was going to die. If I could just make it to the side of the pool, I knew I would be all right. The problem was that I was pushed in further than I had realized and what�s more, I was afraid to open my eyes. So there I was, struggling, groping at water and air praying that my inner swimmer would somehow come to my aid. I was kicking and flailing around in the water trying to get to the side of the pool, wanting so badly to breathe but I was almost out of breath. I guess Stanley figured out that my inner Mark Spitz had declined to make an appearance so he came to my rescue. When I got out of the pool, I realized two things. The first is that Stanley had thrown me into 4 feet of water and at the time I was easily 4 1/2 feet tall. So had I just been still and stood up, I could have walked to safety. The second thing I realized was that there was a rope with floats on it separating the deep from the shallow water. Had I just opened my eyes and looked up, my help was right there. Even as I speak, some of us are stuck in the deep waters of life, struggling to breathe and struggling to live. But the good news is that our help is right there if we just stand still and look up, God is there as our life-line. | | Fulton Porter, Chicago, Illinois | | | The Presence of God - James Whitehead |
A Father, Two Sons, and a Pit-bull | | When my daughter was ten years old and my son was seven years old they used to worry me about going to the store by themselves. Detroit was a rough city, so I would never allow them go anywhere by themselves. They would beg me, �Daddy please, please let us go. Other children go without their father.� I finally decided to let them go because I was tired of them worrying me. I told them they could go by themselves but only if they took a certain route. I gave them specific directions to take. They took off. They were so excited, because they thought they were going to the store by themselves. What they didn�t know was that when they went out the front door, I went out the back door. So they went strutting down the street and I started hiding behind bushes. It was easy for me to stay out of sight, because in Detroit there are alleys that parallel each street, so I was hiding in the alleys. And so they went to the store, got their candy, and were on their way back home. On the way home they came across a big, ugly pit-bull. He started barking and walking towards my children. Both of them stopped like a statue and started shaking. The dog sensed their fear and kept walking towards them. He was about to attack until he saw me walk up behind them. I had a stick in my hand. My children never saw me but the dog did. When the dog saw me and the stick in my hand he took off running. When my son saw the dog turn and run he got a little courage and shouted, �You better get out of here!� All I�m trying to say is you may not be able to see God coming to your rescue, but the devil sure can. | | James Whitehead, Van Buren, Michigan | | | The Presence of the Holy Spirit - Romel Williams |
Dehydrated Disciples | | I swam competitively during my high school days. One of my most dominant memories is of the first day of practice my freshman year. As we prepared to begin the warm up session, I noticed something strange. The team managers were placing multiple bottles of water near the starting blocks in every lane. I thought to myself, �Why would we need bottles of water and we are about to be submerged in a pool.� I soon found out that even while working out in the pool you are sweating and can easily become dehydrated. That day I realized that dehydration is determined by how much water is in you and not by the amount of water you are in. My brothers and sisters, unfortunately many Christians have become dehydrated in the pool of life. Because it doesn�t matter how much the Holy Spirit works around you, even as an active member of a local congregation, it�s your personal submission to his work within you that will keep you from spiritual dehydration | | Romel Williams, Chicago, Illinois | | | Propitiation - Derrick Hughes |
Saved On a Hill | | There is a fantastic testimony from Meulaboh. In that Indonesian town there are about 400 Christians. They wanted to celebrate Christmas on December 25, 2004 but were not allowed to do so by the Muslim led government. They were told that if they wanted to celebrate Christmas they needed to go outside the city of Meulaboh on a high hill and there they could celebrate Christmas. Because the Christians really wanted to celebrate Christmas the 400 believers left the city on December 25th, and after they celebrated Christmas they stayed overnight on the hill. As we all know on the morning of December 26, 2004, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake caused Tsunami waves to destroy most of the city of Meulaboh, and thousands were killed. In fact, 80% of the people died. However, the 400 believers who were all on the mountain were saved from destruction. Just like what happened to those Indonesians, there was another earthquake that caused a Tsunami. Don�t you remember? The earthquake of sin had us drowning in the sea of life. Had it not been for what happened upon a hill we would have been destroyed. Somebody knows that if it had not been for Jesus going up on a hill called Calvary we would all have been lost. We too were saved on a hill. | | Derrick Hughes, Memphis, Tennessee | | | The Protection of God - C.A.W. Clark |
Do Not Save Me From Hurt, Harm, and Danger | | I was preaching a revival in Kansas City and I heard somebody ask the Lord in his prayer to save us from all hurt, harm, and danger. When he said it I began to think about it. I wondered if God saves us from all hurt, harm and danger, of what use are we in the Kingdom enterprise? I thought if God saves us from all hurt, harm, and danger then how do we benefit the Kingdom? I concluded that living dangerously is a part of what it means to be a child of the King. Getting hurt is a part of what it means to follow Christ. I don�t pray Lord save me from hurt, harm and danger. I want the Lord to stay with me through hurt, harm and danger. | From the sermon Making the Journey by Boat.
Delivered in Dallas, Texas, by C.A.W. Clark | | | Providence - Jeffery Johnson |
Glad I Broke A Rib | | Elizabeth Edwards is John Edwards�s wife. John Edwards was one of the primary candidates for the president of the United States of America. When Edwards was running for president his wife had recently been diagnosed with cancer. She had it before but it went into remission but it returned while John was on the campaign trail. So everybody was arguing and saying he needs to come off the campaign trail. But Mrs. Edwards was trying to let everyone know that she was ok. She went on the Oprah show to be interviewed. Early in the interview Oprah asked Elizabeth, �How are you doing?� Elizabeth said, �I�m doing better. You know I fell not long ago and I broke my rib. But I�m doing better now.� Oprah said, �No I didn�t know you had fallen. I didn�t know you broke a rib. I was asking in regard to the cancer.� Elizabeth said, �Well, yes I did fall but it�s okay Oprah. I�m glad I broke my rib.� Oprah said, �Wait a minute! How can you be glad you broke your rib?� Edwards said, �When I broke my rib due to my fall, I went to the hospital. As the doctor did x-rays and cat scans to look at my ribs he discovered the cancer had returned. So, had I not fallen and broke my ribs they never would have done the tests and found out the cancer had returned in time for me to overcome it. So, I�m glad I broke my rib. | From the sermon Accessing the Power of God.
Delivered in Indianapolis, Indiana, by Jeffery Johnson. | | | Providence - E. Dewey Smith |
Thank God for the Storm | | In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore up the Gulf Coast region. There was an old grandmother who lived with her grandson in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. They lived in a shot gun house. At night they could lie in bed and see the stars. They were very poor. For days after the storm they had to live on top of their roof because of flooding. Thankfully, a boat came and took them to the convention center. A few days a later a bus picked them up and drove them to Atlanta. The grandmother was interviewed when she arrived in Atlanta. She was asked if she had any children. She said her daughter is strung out on drugs, the boy with her is her daughter�s son and the boy�s father is dead. She went on to say she didn�t have money, didn�t have any insurance and was not gainfully employed. Her interview was played on several television stations. A few days later she was informed that she had a job at Emory University as a receptionist making $60,000 a year. Her grandson had a four year scholarship to Morehouse College and someone was going to build her a four bedroom house with two and a half bathrooms. She immediately started rejoicing. Her grandson heard her and ran to her and said, �Grandma, why are you rejoicing? We don�t have money and we don�t have a place to stay.� She then told her grandson the good news and concluded by saying, �I thank God for the storm and the rain.� | From the sermon Satan will Bless You.
Delivered in 2007, by E. Dewey Smith. | | | Providence - Charles Goodman |
A Broken Leg is Stronger | | The other day I went to the doctor for a check-up. During the check-up the doctor put pressure again both my right and left foot to test their strength. When he finished he told me that my left leg was stronger than my right leg. I told him I doubted that my left leg was stronger than my right leg because a few years ago I broke it playing basketball. He then told me that the fact that my left leg was broken explains why it�s so strong now. He said my body responded to the broken bone by producing more calcium salt to correct the problem. In the end, it produced more than enough which resulted in me having a stronger bone. I left the doctor thanking God because that taught me that there�s a blessing in being broken. What once had me down actually made me stronger. | | Charles Goodman, Augusta, Georgia | | | Providence - Marcus Cosby |
Danger + Opportunity = Crisis | | Crisis is necessary. You need some crisis and challenges sometimes. Now the Chinese do not have letters in their alphabet like we do. Rather, the Chinese use characters and symbols for their alphabet. Their symbol for crisis actually combines two symbols. The two symbols are danger and opportunity. So when they see crisis there is the presentation of danger but there is also the possibility of opportunity. This gives new meaning to the old adage, �Every cloud has a silver lining.� | From the sermon Character in Crisis.
Delivered in 2008, by Marcus Cosby. | | | Public Praise - Frank Reid |
An Undignified Grandmother | | A story is told by the late D.E. King about being at a graduation at Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, and how the people who had come were trying to be dignified. (You know how we get when we go to college graduations. We may shout in church but when we�re at graduations, we have to act like we�re something we�re not.) At the back of the auditorium, there was a voice that could barely be heard in the front crying out, �Nobody but Jesus!� it was a voice that got louder. The woman walked down the aisle just screaming, �Nobody but Jesus!� The ushers grabbed her so that she could not get up on the stage, and Pastor King walked down and spoke to her and discovered she had raised her granddaughter whose parents died when the girl was young. She had applied to many colleges, but they had turned her down because they didn�t have scholarship money which the child needed. But, Lane told her she could come for one semester, and they would see what they could do. Every semester for four years, they found just enough left in the scholarship fund for this girl to continue college. She graduated summa cum laude, and her grandmother told Dr. King, �I know I�m not supposed to do it, but when I think about what the Lord has done, I cannot help myself. All I can say is �Nobody but Jesus!� | Reid, Frank. �Nobody but Jesus!�
The African American Pulpit (Fall 2005): p. 50 | | | Purifying of Christians - George Parks, Jr. |
Polish and Rub | | I spent a lot of time at my grandmother�s house when I was growing up. One thing my grandmother did often was cook and invite people over for dinner. One Sunday, my grandmother asked me to set the table and to get her best silverware from the china press. Like a dutiful grandson, I got the silverware. When I opened the case I was disgusted by what I saw. The silverware was tarnished. I figured the most logical thing to do was throw it away, because no one wanted to use something that was tarnished and looked so bad. However, my grandmother saw me and said, �What are you doing?� I told her I was throwing the silver away, because it was no good. She said, �No, good silver is under all that mess. All it needs is a little polish and some rubbing and then it will be alright.� That�s a word for somebody. I know the world has deemed you useless and tried to throw you away. But I hear God saying, �Just let me rub on you and get the dirt off. You�ll be fine when I finish.� | | George Parks, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee | | | Reaching Souls - Dennis Proctor |
Too Shallow or Too Deep? | | The late Bishop Hickman of sainted memory used to tell a story about one of his preachers at Annual Conference, a preacher who came without one convert or one baptism for the conference year. During a break in the session, the minister began to criticize Billy Graham�s preaching as too shallow. Bishop Hickman responded, �Wherever Billy Graham preaches, thousands of souls come to Christ, and you�ve preached all year and not one convert. You say Billy Graham is too shallow, but maybe you�re too deep!� | Proctor, Dennis.� � Prophet With a Problem.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2004-2005): pp. 55-56 | | | Redeemed - George Champion |
The King�s Dog | | �Frederick the Great,� Prussia�s great king, died. His death ignited a large funeral procession. People lined up along the streets to pay homage to their great leader�s home-going. As the king�s casket passed, on top of it sat a Mongoloid dog. The sight of the ugly dog caused much uproar and rebuttal from the onlookers. Prussia is known for breeding great dogs such as the German Shepherd and Doberman Pincher. But this dog was not one of Prussia�s fine dogs. Suddenly, an onlooker dashed to the casket to remove the dog, but he found an attractive metal collar around the dog�s neck that read, �If found please return to the king.� Word quickly spread. The ugly dog was alright because he belonged to the king. It doesn�t matter how ugly your past has been. If you have been redeemed by Jesus Christ, the word will go out, �That believer is all right because she belongs to the King!� | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 27 | | | Redemption - Walter Carter |
Clean Up All the Toys | | When my sons were younger they used to love to go outside after school and play with their toys and their friends. I allowed them to go out only after all of their homework was done. One particular day they went outside and they pulled every toy, car, football, baseball and basketball they owned out into the yard. I allowed them to do it on the condition that they couldn�t come back inside until everything was put away. This particular day my oldest son wanted to come inside but all the toys were not put away. When I ask why he said, �I put back the toys that I played with.� I told him that he could not come back inside until he cleaned up his brother�s mess too. Jesus on the cross of Calvary said, �It is finished.� We can celebrate because Jesus cleaned up our mess even though he didn�t make it. | | Walter Carter, Chicago, Illinois | | | Redemption - Reginald Bell, Jr. |
Falling 33,333 Feet | | The sole survivor of an airplane explosion at 33,333 feet (6.3 miles),Vesna Vulovic holds the world record for the highest fall without a parachute. While she was initially paralyzed from the waist down from her injuries, she regained her ability to walk in less than a year. Like Vesna, you can never fall too far to not get up and walk again. | | Reginald Bell, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee | | | Redemption - Timothy Jackson |
Buying Ugly Houses | | As I drove down the street one day I noticed a sign that read, "We buy ugly houses." I began to wonder why anyone would want to buy an ugly house. I mean who in their right mind would want to live in an ugly house? This perplexed me until I found out that an investment company specialized in purchasing unsightly houses that needed repairs. Once purchased, the company takes their resources and works on the houses until they are transformed into beautiful and desirable homes. I�m so glad Jesus is like that company. Over two thousand years ago Jesus hung on a cross with a sign over his head that essentially said, �We Buy Ugly Houses.� | | Timothy Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Relationship with God - James Jackson |
The Flying Dog | | My family and I have a dog named Tyson who is a boxer. Tyson is a very interesting animal. Once when I picked him up from the groomer he did something that amazed everybody, even me. When I arrived a worker went to get him. As the worker carried him from the back, somehow he caught a glimpse of me. The minute he saw me he took off running towards me. What�s interesting is that there was a door between us that was about five feet high. Somehow my dog was able to clear the whole door without touching it. Everybody was stunned. The groomers asked how I taught him that. I told them I thought they taught him how to jump like that; I didn�t. Later, I concluded my dog was able to do what he did because when he saw his master he was so excited he did whatever it took to get closer. I wonder if there is anybody who can testify that you will do whatever you have to do to get closer to Jesus. | | James Jackson, Indianapolis, Indiana | | | Relationships - R. Janae Pitts |
Relationships | | When I was in high school my chemistry teacher taught us about chemicals. First we learned the basic chemical elements. Then our instructor began to teach us about chemical combinations, and the outcomes of mixing the basic elements. We learned that when you take two molecules of oxygen, you get a chemical combination known as carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of the human respiratory system. We breathe in oxygen. That oxygen is carried through our lungs and converted by our blood into carbon dioxide, which is then pushed back through our lungs into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide we breathe out is absorbed into the skin of plant life and combines with water from the soil. It is fueled by light from the sun to produce sugar in the leaf, and that leaf releases oxygen into the atmosphere through what�s called photosynthesis. And the cycle just keeps repeating. But the instructor also taught us about carbon monoxide: one molecule of carbon, one molecule of oxygen. Carbon monoxide is poison, a toxic gas. It is still carbon and oxygen, but in a different combination the same elements result in a different outcome. Amazing, isn�t it, how one combination of elements brings life, but another combination of the same elements bring death? It�s the same with people. You must be careful when you see certain people together in certain combinations. Some folk are harmless when they�re by themselves, but when they mix with certain other folk what used to be harmless becomes deadly. | | R. Janae Pitts, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Remade - Derrick Hughes |
The Pieta | | The Piet� by Michelangelo is a marble sculpture in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. This famous work of art depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion. The Piet� has sustained much damage. Four fingers on the Mary�s left hand, broken during a move, were restored in 1736 by Giuseppe Lirioni and scholars are divided as to whether the restorer took liberties and slightly changed the statue. The most substantial damage occurred on May 21, 1972 when a mentally disturbed geologist named Laszlo Toth walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a hammer. The best marble sculptor was sought. The Vatican wanted to make sure that the statue would be restored to its original state without a flaw. Once a sculptor was located, he did not begin the work until he spent months studying the original masterpiece. He wanted to be certain he understood every nook and cranny, right down to the smallest detail. He would look at the picture. Then he worked. He worked, and then he looked back at the picture. He would work some more, then look back at the picture, all in an attempt to be sure that when he finished, one would see a perfect statue just like the one the original creator made when he first carved the sculpture. You know, that is what we have to do in order to get our lives to look like what our Creator had in mind. We have to look at the Word of God, and then work on ourselves. Work on ourselves, and then look back at the Word of God. Work; keep looking back at the Word. Work; look back. If we keep working, when he appears we shall be what our Creator had in mind when he first created us. | | Derrick Hughes, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Remembrance - D. Darryl Griffin |
The Parishioner Who Turned Her Back to the Preacher | | I remember, when I began pastoring my first church, there was an old mother who greatly disturbed me. Every Sunday when I really started preaching hard the old mother would stand up and turn her back to me. She did this every Sunday for several weeks. Since I was new I didn�t want to say anything to her; trying to keep down confusion. One Sunday I was fed up and decided I would speak to her about this. As she shook my hand to leave that Sunday I said, �Mother I think you�ve been very disrespectful. It�s not right for you to stand up when I�m preaching and turn your back to me. Not only are you disrespecting me but you are also disrespecting God.� The mother became very apologetic and said, �No pastor, I�m so sorry. I wasn�t trying to be disrespectful. You see I have so much going on in my life. My husband is sick. My children are giving me problems. My money is short. Pastor, when you really start preaching hard it makes me feel good and it gives me hope. When I stand up and turn around, I�m actually looking back over my life and remembering where God has brought me from and I�m holding on to that.� | | D. Darryl Griffin, Chicago, Illinois | | | Reprobation - George Champion |
Wallowing in Mud | | One Sunday morning a mother dressed her son in a nice suit and sent him to church. It rained that Sunday, and on his way back from church the little boy did all he could to avoid the puddles, but somehow he fell into one and messed up his nice suit. As he sat in the mud puddle he thought to himself, �Well, since I have messed up this suit I might as well play around in this mud puddle.� So he began to play in the mud. A few minutes later his mother walked up and saw him playing in the mud. She got a switch and began to whip him out of the mud puddle and back home. As she was whipping him he cried, �Mommy, Mommy, I didn�t mean to fall in that mud puddle!� She responded, �I�m not whipping you because you fell, I�m whipping you because you wallowed and wallowed in the mud.� | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 66 | | | Resilience - Frederick Douglass Haynes, III |
Bounce | | My daughter Abeni was outside bouncing a rubber ball. She said, "Daddy, the harder you throw it down, the higher it bounces back." I thought about that. When you throw down a plate, it breaks apart. And if you throw down a sandbag, it just thumps to the ground and stays there. But if you throw down a rubber ball, the harder you throw it down, the higher it will bounce back. I thought about the plate. I thought about the sandbag. And I looked at Abeni with her rubber ball. And I thought, sometimes when we are thrown down, we break apart like the plate. Sometimes we're thrown down and stay down like the sandbag. But sometimes when we're thrown down we bounce back even higher like a rubber ball. What makes the difference? The difference between the plate, the sandbag, and the ball is in what they're made of. | | Frederick Douglass Haynes, III, Dallas, Texas | | | Resilience - Frederick Douglas Haynes, III |
Faithfulness of God | | After Hurricane Katrina, I called a friend of mine who lived in New Orleans and when I was finally able to reach him, I was helped by his wonderful spirit and testimony. He told me that when the hurricane came he started to gather all of his things, thinking he'd leave. Then he discovered something he thought he had lost. It was a Bible that had been given to him by his late grandmother. When he picked up the Bible, the pages fell open to this passage: When Thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. (Isaiah 43:2, KJV) When he read that Scripture, my friend decided to stay. And as a consequence of going through it he has come out a better man. He said to me, "Pastor Haynes, let me share something with you. First, I'm still here. God is good. And I discovered something. What I've lost I can replace, but what I found is what I really can't get along without." | | Frederick Douglas Haynes, III, Dallas, Texas | | | Revival - George Champion |
Not in the Fire, On fire | | I learned an interesting lesson once when I was barbecuing. To start the fire I put the coals in the grill with some chips. I then saturated the coals with lighter fuel. I let it sit for a while and then I lit the coals and let them burn for a few minutes. When the fire was burning well with the coals, I began to put my ribs and chicken on the grill. However, a few minutes later, the coals began to smoke and the fire died out. I was frustrated! �What happened to my fire?� I thought. In the middle of my frustration my wife asked what happened. I told her when the fire was burning well with the coals I put the meat on the grill. She said, �No, George, you don�t barbecue with the coals in the fire, you wait until the fire is IN the coals, making them red hot.� That made me think about the church and how we like to have revivals. We should remember that a church is not revived when members come to a revival service. No, a church is revived when the revival fire gets into the members. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 40 | | | A Right Relationship with God - Clarence E. Moore |
Steak And Stew | | I grew up in a little country town and we used to have cows. Every evening we had to milk our cows. If the cow didn�t provide milk we made special arrangements for that cow. Milk is all we wanted from the cow. No milk meant we were having steak soon. We also had hens. If a hen didn�t lay eggs then we took care of that hen. That night we had stew! We were only interested in what we could get out of the cow and the hen. When we couldn�t get what we wanted from them, we were through with them. Many of us are that way about God. God�s all right as long as he�s blessing. But when we think God has messed up, we�re through with God. | Moore, Clarence E. �The Nature of Acceptable Worship.�
The African American Pulpit (Winter 2005-2006): p. 66 | | | Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth - Napoleon Harris |
3D Glasses and Bad Theology | | I saw an animated movie that was broadcast in 3D. After paying the admission I was given a pair of 3D glasses that intensified the movie watching experience. Once the movie was over, I attempted to use the glasses outside of the theater but they didn�t work. I soon reached the conclusion that the glasses were useless outside of the theater. Experiences such as death and wrestling with other major life issues have taught me that bad theology is a lot like my experience with those glasses. It works fine inside narrow-minded, biblically unknowledgeable churches. But the second we try to understand the world through its lenses we realize it�s useless. In fact, it only makes things worse. | | Napoleon Harris, Norwalk, Connecticut | | | The Safety of God - Eustacia Moffett Marshall |
Miles and the Big Dogs | | My family has a dog. His name is Miles. He is a little twelve-pound Shih Tzu dog. One day, Miles was taking a walk with my mother when he noticed two big dogs in his path. When Miles saw the big dogs, he slowed down out of fear and began shaking. Observing his reaction, my mother picked Miles up and put Miles in her arms. When Miles knew that he was in my mother�s hands, his fear subsided. As mother walked past the two dogs, Miles also began barking like he was bigger than the big dogs that had just made him shake! All of us will face some big dogs on our journey, but when you know that you are in the Master�s hand you don�t have to fear. Like Miles, you can behave like you are up to any challenge of any size. | | Eustacia Moffett Marshall, Charlotte, North Carolina | | | Sanctification - Romel Williams |
Extreme Make Over | | There�s a television show called Pimp My Ride. I love the show. It�s interesting to me how the host shows up at somebody�s house, the owner of the vehicle turns over the keys, and the mechanics take the car to a shop called West Coast Customs. The guys at the shop immediately begin work. The guys don�t just work on the outside, they also work on the inside. They do what is called an extreme make over. What I love most is how at the end they show before and after photos, and most of time the before and after photos look like two totally different vehicles. All of us need to turn the keys to our life over to God and allow him to do an extreme makeover. By the time he finishes with you, the before and after clips of your life will be extremely different. | | Romel Williams, Chicago, Illinois | | | The Scarlet Letter - Phillip Pointer |
New Creatures in Christ | | In the famous book The Scarlet Letter the leading character is a woman named Hester Prynne. Hester Prynne is caught in the act of adultery and the community in their effort to shame her put a big �A� on her chest for adultery. Everywhere she went she had to wear that �A� on her chest. Everyone she encountered knew what she had done because they saw the �A� on her chest. From her adulterous relationship she had a daughter and her daughter grew up only recognizing her mother by the �A� on her chest. One day Hester took the �A� off and her daughter was afraid of her own mother because she only recognized her with the �A� on her chest. Later, Hester Prynne dies with the mark of her shame still attached to her chest and they even put the �A� on her tombstone, which means even in death she continued to carry the shame from the one mistake she made in her life. My brother and sisters I want to tell you that the good news in Jesus Christ is that while other people will staple labels to you and sew letters on your life of the things you have done, when you connect with Jesus he will wash away the shame of your past and make you a new creature. | | Phillip Pointer, Washington, DC | | | Servanthood - Frederick Douglas Haynes, III |
The Service Elevator | | Mohammed Yunus, a businessman from Bangladesh, was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 2006. Yunus is convinced that the way to bring peace to the world is by eradicating poverty. So, Yunus makes loans to people who are in poverty. As a consequence of his conviction, he loans money to poor people so that they can operate their own businesses and escape poverty; he has served his way to the top. A few years ago I was in an African hotel, and my room was on the top floor. The sister who was showing me how to get to my room said I had to use the service elevator because no other elevator was working. That's what Muhammad Yunus has done. He has recognized that in this life if you want to reach the top, you have to take the service elevator. That's what's going to take you up. You don't have to connive. You don't have to scheme. You don't have to stab anybody in the back. The way to reach the top is through the service elevator. | | Frederick Douglas Haynes, III, Dallas, Texas | | | Serving Others Pays Well - Samuel D. Proctor |
The Great Rewards of Earning $50 a Month | | I learned a significant lesson during my brief tour as associate director of the Peace Corps. We set high standards for volunteers, but to our surprise we could have filled all of our available positions with volunteers from Los Angeles and New York alone. The finest college graduates in the country wanted a chance to engage in hard work on another continent in a developing country without modern conveniences among persons of another culture, sharing the local fare with mostly poor and illiterate people, for a salary of fifty dollars a month! They found the challenge so fulfilling that when their two-year tour ended, they had to be forced to return home. In this experience I saw many of Christ�s teachings fulfilled. When we give freely, we receive freely. When we seek to save our own lives, we lose them; but when we lose our lives for Christ�s sake, we truly find them. | Samuel Proctor in Proctor, Samuel D., and Gardner C. Taylor.
We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor�s Vocation.
Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1996. p. 42 | | | Silence Shows Wisdom - Joe Ratliff |
Never Said a Mumblin Word | | I�ll never forget what I witnessed as a teenager in rural North Carolina when my grandfather talked with our pastor, who had recently been accused in a scandal. My grandfather had defended the preacher, and the preacher had survived the scandal. But what I remember most is the conversation between my grandfather and the pastor one day on the porch. My granddaddy said: �Elder, you didn�t say anything in the meeting. We could have squashed this if you had spoken up.� Then the pastor said these words: �You can�t quote or misquote silence.� | Ratliff, Joe. �What Do You Do When Your Name Is Caught Up in a Scandal?�
The African American Pulpit (Spring, 2006): p. 21 | | | Sin - George Champion |
The Monkey Jar | | Once, a man took his family to the city zoo. They went to the monkey section and saw many monkeys. Knowing how crafty and agile monkeys are, the man asked how they were able to catch so many. The zoo attendant responded, �We use monkey jars!� The man asked, �What is a monkey jar?� The attendant responded, �A monkey jar is a jar that�s large enough for a monkey�s hand to go through. We find out where monkeys live in large numbers and place many jars in that area. The jars are half-filled with peanuts. The monkeys come to put their hand down in the jar and grab a handful of peanuts. When they do this, they have a problem. The only way they can get their hand free of the jar is to let the peanuts go. But being the monkeys they are, they hold on to the peanuts and ultimately become captured by zoologists. We get ourselves trapped in sin the same way. Jesus comes and says to us, �Let go of your sin and follow me.� However, many of us act just like those monkeys caught in the peanut jars. We don�t let go of our sin, which ultimately brings us captivity. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching
and Speaking. Orlando, FL:
Self Published, 2001. p. 25 | | | Sin - Linda Guy |
Sin | | If you know about airplanes then you know that the most important instrument in the cockpit is the altimeter. The altimeter determines the altitude of the plane. It lets the pilot know if he or she is either flying too high or too low. When a plane is flying too high and too fast it runs the risk of stalling out in mid-air and crashing to the ground. When a plane is flying too low, it has the risk of running into things. It could run into a tall building, power lines, or even houses on the ground. So, as you can see, it is dangerous to fly too high or too low. So it is in our spiritual lives. If we fly too high, which means we are trying to get above God, we will stall and fall to the ground. If we fly too low, we�re liable to run into anything (infidelity, lies, drugs), so we can�t fly too low or too high. | | Linda Guy, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Sinless - George Champion |
Indian Joe | | Down in the Florida Everglades many tourists are given an up-close view of this natural habitat by a popular tour guide named Indian Joe. During each tour Joe tells the tourists to stay a few feet behind him because the jungle-swamp is filled with dangerous, poisonous snakes and other hazards. As one particular group followed Joe down a narrow trail, a rattle snake suddenly jumped out and latched on to Joe�s right leg. Joe quickly grabbed the snake by the head, killed it, and continued the tour. The tourists were amazed that their tour guide showed no sign of illness or weakness. At the end of the tour, one of the tourists confronted Joe and asked, �Are you okay? We saw that rattler bite you, but you acted as if nothing had happened.� Joe then rolled up his pants leg and showed them the many snake bites he had received. He then said, �I�ve been bitten so many times by so many snakes that I have a built-in immunity to poisonous snake bites.� I�m so glad that Jesus, our tour guide through life, has been bitten by all sins and is immune to sin and can take care of anything that may bite us. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and
Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 61 | | | The Sovereignty of God - Gardner C. Taylor |
Paying the Cost to be the Boss | | The years have not erased from memory a story my father used to tell publicly. With a merry twinkle in his eyes, he would describe a man hired by a property owner to cut the grass around his house. The employer said he would give the hired man seventy-five cents to cut the grass. When the man who owned the house came back he found that the man he had hired had in turn hired two other men who were cutting the grass. �How much are you paying these men?� asked the surprised landowner. �Forty-five cents apiece,� said the new employer and contractor. Astonished, the businessman said, �If I am paying you seventy-five cents and you are paying eighty cents, you are losing money.� �Ah,� said the other, �but I get to be the boss.� Being the boss was more important to him than making a profit, even than breaking even. The same is true for God. God is not concerned about making a profit or breaking even, God has and continues to pay astronomical prices to be in charge. | Taylor, Gardner C., from the sermon �Making a Great Promise Reasonable.�
The Words of Gardner Taylor Volume 2.
Ed. Edward Taylor. Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2000. p. 27 | | | Sovereignty of God - Keith McGhee |
The Nature of the Force | | I�m a big fan of science fiction. Some of my favorite science fiction movies are part of the Star Wars series. In episode four �A New Hope� we are introduced to Luke Skywalker. Skywalker is aboard the Millennium falcon Starship with the character Obi-Wan Kenobi. At the time, Kenobi was introducing Luke to the ways of the Force, which every Jedi prodigy had to know. Kenobi�s explanation of the Force informs Luke that it is an energy field that is made up of all living things. Luke chimes in and asks does the Force control one�s action. Kenobi�s response was, �Yes, but it also obeys your command.� This seems to be the stance of many people when it comes to God. We expect God to control our actions but at the same time obey our commands. | | Keith McGhee, Chicago, Illinois | | | Spiritual Light - Lorenza Pharrams |
Not Blinded by the Light | | While driving down the interstate with my wife and two young daughters, we encountered a severe thunderstorm. The rain, although relentless, was not my major cause for concern as I struggled to reach my destination. The greatest problem that I experienced was not caused by the rain, but resulted from the lightning that caused temporary blinding with each flash. My eyes strained as they attempted to make the adjustment from extreme darkness to blinding light in a second�s notice. Desperately, I attempted to continue because I felt even greater perils were likely if we waited on the side of the road. In the midst of this storm, my youngest daughter became hungry and cried out for food. My wife turned on the dome light located inside of the car to retrieve food from the baby bag. While she was searching, another blinding bolt of lightning came hurling from the sky. Much to my surprise, it had no effect on my eyes and I was able to continue driving. I discovered that my eyes had adjusted to the dome light that was in side of the car. As a result, the lightning on the outside was futile. Make certain that the light on the inside is brighter than the light on the outside. If we will heed our charge of letting our spiritual �light shine� then we will avoid being blinded by anything that the world throws our way. | | Lorenza Pharrams, Phoenix City, Alabama | | | The Stature of God - Cory Jones |
Upgraded to First Class | | I was flying to San Francisco from Norfolk, Virginia, one year. There was a situation with my flight so I had to fly standby. I was uncomfortable with the situation, because I don't like flying standby when flights are in great demand. When I arrived at the airport, my worst fear came to pass. The flight was full. The ticket agent told me that the best thing to do was to go to the gate and wait, maybe something would happen and I would be able to get on the flight. I was nervous as the passengers boarded the flight. I started praying. I said, "God, you know I can't be stuck in this airport today. Please let me get on this flight." As I waited for the agents to call the standby passengers, I heard "Cory Jones, will you please report to the desk." I said, "Thank you God. You sure do know how to make a way out of no way." But when I got to the desk they told me something strange happened. One of the first class passengers didn't show up. They told me they were going to place me in first class! So not only did I get on the plane, I got upgraded. I looked up to the sky and I heard God tell me "You don't understand. I'm a first class kind of God. I do exceeding and abundantly above anything you can ask or think. When I show up. I show out!" | | Cory Jones, Atlanta, Georgia | | | Staying Close to Christ - Anthony (Tony) Evans |
Mercury Christians | | Mercury is very hot and Pluto is very cold. Why is Mercury hot and Pluto cold? Mercury is real close to the sun and Pluto is very far away. The further you get from the sun the colder things become. But the closer you get, the hotter they get. Well, you may say you are neither a Mercury Christian nor a Pluto Christian. Then maybe you are an Earth Christian where things get hot and cold in your life. Maybe you are a kind of seasonal Christian: fall time, spring time, summer time, and winter time. But God is looking for some Mercury Christians. People who want to get close to the Son and stay hot all the time. | From the sermon The Concept of Fellowship.
Delivered in Dallas, Texas, by Anthony (Tony) Evans. | | | Success - John McKinney |
When You Pass I Pass | | When I was in the third grade I had a teacher named Ms. Dixon who used to call us to the front of the class to recite our times tables. When my turn came I recited everything from one to twelve without making a single mistake. I knew I was the man! When I finished Ms. Dixon said, �Okay McKinney, you pass.� She then called the next student, Jimmy Smith, to the front. Jimmy did well until he said four times four was twelve. I instantly laughed out loud. Ms. Dixon took her ruler and smacked me on the back. The class was completely quiet. Ms. Dixon then went and grabbed Jimmy by the hand and brought him over to me. She stood over me and said, �Mr. McKinney I told you you passed but you just showed me you don�t have what it takes to pass.� She then put Jimmy�s hand in my hand and said, �Until Mr. Smith passes, you don�t pass.� My third grade teacher taught me a very important lesson that day. You can never claim victory in your life while you�re laughing at another brother or sister who is failing. A true winner will take their hand and help them pass too. | From the sermon Let�s Go to the
Other Side. Delivered in 2001,
by John McKinney. | | | Surrendering to God - Eugene Gibson |
The Untied Shoes | | God is worthy of our praise because God is God, and because he can do that which we cannot do. When my daughter Taylor was two she wanted to do everything her sister Trinity did. However, Trinity, who was five, had mastered something that Taylor just could not do, tying her shoes. One day as we were going to play Trinity tied her shoes and ran outside leaving a discouraged two year old behind. From the doorway I watched as Taylor unproductively tried to tie her shoe again and again. She couldn�t see me but I could see her. Just when she was about to give up I entered the room and motioned for her to give her foot to me. She looked at her foot and then looked at me. She looked back at her foot and then back at me. All of a sudden, with all of her two year old might, she screamed, �Yeah Daddy!� I don�t know about you, but when I think of the situations that I could not handle and the fact that God came in and worked it out, I look at the situation and then look up to Him and say, �Yeah Daddy!� | | Eugene Gibson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Tackling Gorillas - George Champion |
Co-laboring with Christ | | A pygmy was looking at the height and majesty of a 7�4 Watutsi Warrior. He then said, �Why don�t you go up on that mountain and conquer those gorillas?� the Watutsi Warrior replied looking down at the pygmy, �There are some baby gorillas up there, too!� We all can do something great for Christ regardless of our limitations. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching
and Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 60 | | | Temptation - Stephen Hall |
Picked On | | How does God know when to take us out of the fires of life? Well, God told me that this process is similar to when my grandmother used to bake cakes. She would first put the eggs, flour, milk, butter, and sugar into a bowl and mix it all together. It would all be mixed together. Before putting the cake in she would set the oven to her desired temperature. Then she would place what she mixed together into the oven. While in the oven the cake would begin to rise. Outside the oven it only sat dormant but the heat in the oven made it rise. Only in the oven can it rise! After a while, to see if the cake was ready, she would pull the cake out the oven and get a toothpick. She would stick the toothpick in the cake and if batter came up on the toothpick then that meant it wasn�t ready. I don�t know who I�m talking to but God will let some people pick on you to see if you�re ready. If anger, malice or grief comes up when they pick on you, then you�re not ready. God will put you back in the oven and take you out later. | From the sermon Go Home or Higher.
Delivered May 16, 2008 at
New Hope Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia, by Stephen Hall. | | | Thirsting for God - George Champion |
Wanting Something Badly | | A wise teacher of the Orient was stopped by one of his students who asked him, sincerely, how could he get to truly know God? The wise teacher responded by saying, �Walk with me!� They soon came to a pool. The teacher then asked the student to stoop down and look closely into the water. When the student began looking, the teacher pushed his head into the water and held it there. After a few seconds, he pulled his head up and asked, �When your head was under water, what was the one thing you wanted most?� The student replied, �I wanted to breathe!� The wise teacher then responded, �When you want to know God as badly as you wanted to breathe, then you�ll truly know God.� | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and Speaking.
Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 45 | | | The Tradition of Throwing Fathers into Volcanoes - George Champion |
Under Grace not the Law | | There once lived on an island in the Pacific Ocean a tribe of people who had a peculiar tradition. The tradition was that when a man reached a certain age his son would take him up a certain mountain and throw his father over into a volcano. One day, a son who had a great relationship with his father, went to his dad and said, �Father, it�s time to go up to the mountain.� His father consented. As they started up the mountain and got half way, the father started crying. The son said, �Father, why are you crying? You know this is the tradition of our tribe.� The father replied, �Son, I�m not crying for myself. I am ready for my fate. I am crying for you, when the day comes and your son will be walking you up this same mountain to throw you into the volcano.� As they took a few more steps up the mountain, the son said, �Wait a minute, father. You have a major point. My time is coming. Father, let�s go back and meet with the tribe and change this tradition. We must be agents of change against evil and not pass it on to another generation because what goes around comes around. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching
and Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 83 | | | Trials - Reginald Bell |
Where Gold was Found | | There is a place in Alabama called Moundville. It is historically a place where several Indian tribes lived. Thousands of people travel to Moundville each year, because Moundville has mountains and people enjoy climbing to their tops. These mountains are Moundville�s biggest attraction. A short while ago, I heard on the news that excavators recently found gold at Moundville. Before the anchorman finished, I instantly thought someone at the top of one of those mountains found gold. I just knew that�s where the gold was found because that�s where everyone hangs out. To my surprise, the anchorman said the gold was found in one of the valleys between the mountains. All this time there was gold on the premises, but the gold wasn�t on the mountaintop, it was in the valley. Somebody needs to stop complaining about their valley experiences and start looking for the gold nuggets of wisdom God has deposited in the valley. | | Reginald Bell, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee | | | Tribulation - Anonymous |
The Goat in the Well | | Some farmers became fed up with an old goat that roamed the countryside chasing cows and chickens. In anger they decided to get rid of the goat by throwing him in an abandoned well and burying him with dirt and sand. When they began throwing dirt in the well, an amazing thing happened. As the dirt would hit the goat�s back, he just shook it off and packed the dirt under his feet. They threw dirt all day and all night. As the goat continued to repeat this he kept rising until he had enough dirt under his feet to climb out of the well and walk away. When your enemies throw dirt on you have at least the sense of that goat, and shake it off. Use the dirt to rise above your enemies, and walk away victoriously. | Anonymous. Versions of this illustration have
been used by many. | | | Trust God�s Instructions - Selwyn Bachus |
The Assignment of the Agent | | I used to get up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. I loved to watch cartoons with secret agents. One particular episode I remember involved an agent going into his supervisor�s office to get his assignment. The supervisor told him to board a plane in New York City and fly to Moscow. The agent asked, �Before I go I need to know what�s going on in Moscow. Why do I need to go there?� The supervisor said, �When we hired you we hired you on a need to know basis. All you need to know now is that you are to get on a plane in New York and fly to Moscow.� When he arrived in Moscow he was met by a car that took him to an apartment which had everything he needed for the Moscow assignment. What the agent didn�t know was that his supervisor had already made all preparations. All he needed to do was trust the instructions. Sometimes what God tells you to do may seem risky but trust he has already made all the preparations. | From the sermon Walking His Way Psalm 37:23-25.
Delivered Sunday, March 6, 2008 at
Beulahland Bible Church, by Selwyn Bachus. | | | Trust in God - Gardner C. Taylor |
Truly Educated | | Back in my student days we were taught that a truly educated person is not one who knows all the answers. We were taught that a truly educated person is one who knows where to find the answers. Well, I for one lay bold claim to being a religiously educated person; better still, I lay strong claim to being educated as a Christian. I know not, I confess, the answers, but thank God, I do know One who knows the answers, who knows the end from the beginning and who does promise to answer if we call upon him. | Taylor, Gardner C., from the sermon �A Cry for Guidance.�
The Words of Gardner Taylor Volume 2.
Ed. Edward Taylor. Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2000. p. 25 | | | Trusting God - Eugene Gibson |
A Day at the Swimming Pool | | My daughter Trinity had been begging me to take her to the pool. Being the only swimmer in the house I should have been excited and would have been had my week not been so hectic. Needless to say, my fuse was short and I did not have a fair amount of patience; so the timidity of my daughter in the water quickly began to frustrate me. I said, �Don't you trust me?� She said, �Yes Daddy!� I said, �Then go ahead and float. I got you Trinity.� She tried but immediately she became afraid and in my disgust I ordered her out of pool. Fearing I would never let her come back she said, �Daddy give me one more chance!� As she lay back in the water with my hand under her she was whispering something to herself. As I let her go and bent down to hear what she was saying I heard these words, �I Trust Daddy, I Trust Daddy!� Even when we�re fearful, we can float in deep waters if we can just tell ourselves, �I trust my Father. I trust my Father. Oh for grace to trust him more! | | Eugene Gibson, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Unfettered - Mark Jefferson |
You Pay for Extra Baggage | | I recently flew home to Virginia on Northwestern Airlines. While I was at the check-in counter the attendant told me I had to pay an extra fifty dollars for my suitcase. I told her that�s impossible because I had already purchased my ticket and paid all related fees to travel. The attendant told me that Northwestern had a new policy. The new policy requires that travelers pay an extra fee for every bag after the first bag. The more bags a person has the higher the fee. So it is in life. Bringing baggage from our past along on life�s journey is expensive; it�s cheaper to leave it. | | Mark Jefferson, Atlanta, Georgia | | | Unison - Jeremiah Wright, Jr. |
Geese Sense | | When a flock of geese flies, they fly as a team. They fly as a unit. They fly with one goal: to get from Point A to Point B. If you notice, the formation of a flock of geese is always in the shape of a �V,� and there is one goose that is at the point of that �V.� That is by design. The goose at the point of the �V,� the lead goose, is creating a pocket of air current that makes flying for the rest of the flock much easier. The lead goose is hitting the headwinds straight on. The lead goose is being buffeted by the crosswinds, the down winds, and the wind shears. The lead goose is taking the punishment so that the other geese behind him or her can have an easier path through which to fly. They all are on the same team. They all have the same goal. They all fly with the same purpose: to get from Point A to Point B. When the lead goose has been beat up too much, has been beaten down too much, or gets too tired to stay on the point and be buffeted any longer, it gives a signal and whoosh–a teammate, an ally, another goose, shifts position with it to take the point and give the leader some rest. But they do not stop flying. They are all on the same team. They all have the same goal. They are all flying with the same purpose: to get from Point A to Point B. If a goose gets sick, if a goose gets tired, if a goose gets hurt, or if a goose get wounded, they don�t let that goose go down to the ground all by itself. Two other geese at a minimum, sometimes three, sometimes four, go down with the tired goose or the wounded goose, and they stay with the one who had to drop out until that one is strong enough to get back up and resume flying again. Or they will stay with the goose until it dies so that it will not have to die alone. Geese got more sense than people! Whenever you hear all of that infernal noise coming from a flock of geese, moreover, it is not just background noise. It is not just needless noise. The geese in the back of the �V� formation are honking their encouragement to the goose that is up on the point. They are saying, �Honk! Go ahead. Honk! You are doing a good job. Honk, honk! We got your back. Honk, honk! Let us know when you need some help or you need some rest.� Don�t you wish church folk had as much sense as geese? | Wright, Jeremiah. �Fighting the Wrong Enemies.�
Sound the Trumpet! Messages to Empower African American Men. Ed. Darryl D. Sims.
Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2002. pp. 16-17 | | | Unity - Reginald Bell, Jr. |
Dancing Birds | | I recently read a very interesting article about buzzards. It said that they understand the benefits of dancing. It was reported that these robust, medium-sized birds have a habit of jumping up and down in open fields, and making a noise that sounds like rain. The noise is important because it lures worms to the surface to be eaten. The article went on to say, and this made me want to shout, it is not unusual for groups of buzzards to perform this �dance� at the same location; up to forty birds have been seen in a single field. The birds understand that they have more options when they dance together. Somebody needs to look at their neighbor and say, �Neighbor, may I have this dance?� | | Reginald Bell, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee | | | Value in All Creation - J. Lawrence Turner |
Crying after Hearing a Great Preacher | | One of my close friends went to hear one of the great preachers of the 20th century. He was in awe of this great man of God. After the sermon, instead of leaving happy about the exceptional message heard, he walked out the church with his head down. He went and got in the car with his father and tears began to stream down his face. The father looked over and saw his son�s head was hanging down and tears were rolling down his face. The father said, �Son, what�s wrong?� The son said, �Daddy, why can�t I preach like that preacher? Didn�t you see the way he moved the congregation, the way they received him and the way everybody rejoiced over the Word. Why can�t I preach like that?� The father, who had grown up on a farm, responded this way, �You may be an apple and he may be an orange but always remember that at the end of the day both apples and oranges have great nutritional value. | From the sermon Don�t Count Me Out.
Delivered in 2008, by J. Lawrence Turner. | | | The Value of a Christian - George Champion |
Diamonds Shine in the Dark | | A woman was given a necklace that contained a large stone, and she wondered if it was real. One day she decided to take it to a jeweler to have it appraised. The jeweler took it to the back, assessed it, and then returned to tell the lady the stone was not a real diamond. He told her it was glass. She asked how he determined it was glass and not a real diamond. The jeweler told her he knew because when he wants to be certain about a stone, he takes it into a dark room and looks at it. There he can tell the difference because glass shines only when hit by outside light, but diamonds carry their own inner light. Diamonds shine in the dark. Maybe somebody is in a dark season because God is trying to show you your value; you�re a diamond if you shine in the dark seasons of your life. | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching and Speaking.
Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 84 | | | Vision and Faith - Van Moody |
The Kid With the Funny Looking Body | | I watched an interview the other day about Michael Phelps. In the interview Phelps� mother talked about how difficult her son�s life was. She talked about how he had ADHD and the kids in Phelps� class teased him about it. She also talked about how he always had a skinny body with big ears. He used to be teased constantly about his awkward looking body. Phelps was teased all his life. After hearing his story the interviewer turned and asked Phelps, �How have you, who endured so much hardship as a child, become an Olympic champion? Why didn�t you give up a long time ago?� Phelps responded, �I didn�t give up because as a child I saw myself doing what I�m doing today. I always knew I was a champion.� | From the sermon Your Future Depends on It.
Delivered in Birmingham, Alabama by Van Moody. | | | The Voice of God - Jamison Hunter |
The Voice of God | | My family was scheduled to get up at 6:00 a.m., get ready, and drive an hour and a half to a funeral we had to attend later that morning. I must admit that I am not an early riser. In fact, I can easily sleep until 2:00 pm. So, it was about 5:45 a.m. when my sister tried to wake me up, but I didn�t budge. Around 5:55 a.m. my mother entered and started pushing me and begging me to get up so we could get on the road. But I still laid there like a knot on a log. Well, 6:00 a.m. rolled around and my father decided to wake me up. Interestingly, he didn�t come to my room or try to push or pull me out of bed. All he did was call my name from his bedroom on the other side of the house and his voice was enough to make me instantly jump up and get ready. Well, just as the voice of my earthly father made the difference, the same holds true for our Heavenly Father. The voice of God has the power to make you move, even when you don�t want to move. | | Jamison Hunter, Dayton, Ohio | | | Walk in Step with God - Ralph D. West |
Dancing with the Stars | | Dancing with the Stars helped me with walking with God. I like looking at Dancing with the Stars. One of the things you notice with some of the people is their asking why didn�t they get a better score because their performance was better than that. It might have been, but the judgment is based on the foot movement. Synchronicity is what they�re looking for. I don�t care what dance you do. Whether you�re doing the waltz, the two step, whether you�re doing whatever it is—they�re looking for synchronicity...Are they timed and moving together? And so the more time or synchronicity, sameness, exactness, simultaneous movement, the more attractive the dance looks. Well, likewise you have to look at your walk with God. If God is moving north and you�re going east, it doesn�t look pretty. If God is moving left, you move left. He�s always the lead in the dance, step in fulfilling the worthy walk of God. | West, Ralph. �A Prayer for Informed Behavior.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer 2007): p. 93 | | | Walking by Faith - Gardner C. Taylor |
The Marvel of How we gained our DNA | | Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) carries the secrets of genetics transmission from one generation to another with faithful accuracy. It is hidden in a sperm or an egg cell, and at conception it goes to work unseen, untouched, unmeasured, operating by its own mysterious microscopic power, reaching back generations and picking up such minutiae as the color of eyes, the timbre of the voice, the gait of the walk, the size of feet and hands, together with God only know what else, giving shape to an embryo in its mother�s womb. Long before.....the mysteries of DNA were discovered....and ancient Bedouin had the intuitive hunch that behind the rhythm of tides and seasons, planting and harvest, and the slow movement of the sun from one horizon to the other, there was a God somewhere. This intuition was not subject to empirical demonstration, but Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees and went looking for a city with foundations whose builder and maker was God. | Gardner C. Taylor in Proctor, Samuel D., and Gardner C. Taylor.
We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor�s Vocation.
Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1996. pp 47-48 | | | Warnings - Takisha Strong |
Major Magic Trick Interrupted | | Years ago, when I was in college, my roommate and I were excited about watching David Copperfield. For weeks, commercials came on and talked about how Mr. Copperfield, a magician, would magically make himself leave the studio where the audience was and appear on a beach in Jamaica. I just knew I had to see this memorable event take place. On the day of the show, my roommate and I, along with other friends and lots of popcorn, sat down at my house and anxiously waited to see Copperfield disappear and reappear on a beach in Jamaica. Well, Mr. Copperfield did not perform the main trick first. He started by cutting a woman in half, and then he floated through the air. Finally, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, Copperfield was about to perform the great trick. However, just when he was about to do it, the television flickered and a voice came on that said, �We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you a special announcement.� I couldn�t believe it! I didn�t want my regularly scheduled programming interrupted. I was mad! However, as I listened to the message I realized the importance of the message. The message told us to prepare for a storm that was in our area. Doesn�t this sound like God? Every now and then, God interrupts our regular scheduled programming so that he can help prepare us for the storms in life. Though I didn�t like how that message interrupted my plans, I do recognize it was designed to save my life. | | Takisha Strong, Memphis, Tennessee | | | Washing Dishes - Marie Taylor |
Sanctification | | Though I have a dishwasher, I prefer to wash my dishes by hand; they just seem cleaner to me. When I wash dishes, I try to get the water as hot as I can, I add a little bleach and dish washing liquid, and then I put my towel in the water. I make the water as hot as possible because it cuts the grease on pots and pans without me having to do much scrubbing. However, regardless of how hot the water is, I still have to do some scrubbing. Some dishes require little to no scrubbing, while other require I exert a lot of effort in getting them clean. When I finish, I place all the dishes in the dish rack. What shouts me is that regardless of how much I put into making them clean, everything in the dish rack is clean and ready to be used. All I�m trying to say is that when God cleans you up and places you on display, it doesn�t matter who tells you how bad your past was. | | Marie Taylor, Memphis, Tennessee | | | We Are Co-Laborers with God - Noel Jones |
Something Priceless: The $250,000 Education | | I have three children, and my oldest son went to Cornell—Ivy League. My second son went to Claremont—Ivy League. Now what happened was that I was the benefactor, and I paid twenty-seven thousand dollars a year for each one of those two boys. I have paid, not to mention cars and clothes and all the other things that go with going to college. So I am out of $250,000 for two boys� education. I want you to notice with $250,000 I could have bought a degree. I could have said, �Here children, here is yours, here is yours, and here is yours. Here it is—you�ve got it. but the first day they go to work the boss would understand that they had bought a degree, but they don�t know a thing about the job. I paid, and they studied. I told one son, a quarter is too much if you don�t study. A hundred thousand is not too much if you do your work, because the benefactor has to cause the recipient to share in the sacrifice. | Jones, Noel. �Do Something With It.�
The African American Pulpit (Spring 2003): p. 55 | | | What God Has Next for You - Raumone V. Burton |
Upgrading | | At first, cell phones were only to be used for a limited amount of minutes, and they could only be used in certain places. As jobs and people became more mobile, phone companies offered an upgrade. Now you have unlimited minutes, and you can talk to people in mountains, valleys, and below sea level. As people needed more ways to communicate, phone companies offered an upgrade. Now you can use your phone for email, text messaging, and online banking. As people began traveling more, they would find themselves waiting in places for long periods of time. Once again, phone companies offered an upgrade. Now you can use your phone to download music, watch TV, take pictures, and even as a Palm Pilot and laptop. It is still a phone, just upgraded. There is no telling what else they will come up with. When we first come to Christ, we are excited about worship but we need to learn more about God and the church, so God gives us an upgrade. We have Bible Study and Sunday school. We start having families and children � and they need to have something to do in church, so God gives us an upgrade. We get nurseries, scouting, and camps. Then we want to learn more, so God gives us an upgrade. We get community based ministries and continuing education programs for adults. We are still worshipers; we have just been upgraded to reach more people for God. "Eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him (1 Corinthians 2:9)." The next upgrade is coming. | | Raumone V. Burton, Houston, Texas | | | What�s Important to Hold on to - Ralph D. West |
The Story of Mr. and Mrs. Hardy Jackson | | Recently, 54-year-old Hardy Jackson taught the world how to hold on while at the same time having to let go. Hardy is a Katrina survivor whose harrowing experience captures the horrifying tale of every Alabamian, Mississippian, and Louisianan. The sound of the hurricane was deafening as it played its bass sounding thumps upon the roof of Hardy and Tonya Jackson�s house. Suddenly the storm began ripping their house in two. The dividing house rendered Hardy helpless as he tried to hold his family together. With his left hand Hardy held on to his children and grandchildren. With his right hand he held on to his wife as the raging water desperately tried to separate them. Hardy was determined to hold on to what was left of his life. Everything that was important to him was in his hands. Then he was faced with the unimaginable as Tonya said to Hardy, �You have to let me go.� Hardy said, �Don�t say that, we can make it together; hold on. How can life move forward without you, my wife, my friend, my children�s mother?� Coursing through his head were the vows he had made twenty-nine years earlier. �I promise to love, cherish, and protect you. In sickness and health until death separates us.� This was not the way the script was to be written, he thought. We are supposed to live until natural death takes one of us! Our life is not ending like this. �Hardy,� Tonya, said, �you have to le me go. But hold on to the children and grandchildren. Take care of them.� Tonya Jackson knew something about holding on by letting go. She made the decision to preserve the Jackson�s posterity by demanding that Hardy let her go. If the children had been lost, her future would have been canceled. But she will live on in the life of her children and grandchildren�� | West, Ralph. �Don�t Give Up on God.�
The African American Pulpit (Summer, 2006): p. 65 | | | The Whole Armor of God - Raumone V. Burton |
Basic Training | | Veterans have something called basic training. The commanding officer orders you to put on all of your gear: your helmet, boots, weapons, and backpack–all of your gear. You have to hike up mountains and trudge through waters with your gear on. Crawl through trenches and swing through trees, with your gear on. Run many miles and jump over countless things with your gear on. At the end of the day, you are tired and feel like you are about to die. But a few weeks later, you look at yourself in the mirror – you have muscles coming out of your arms, you have a washboard stomach, and your legs don't shake when you stand. You can run longer distances without getting tired, and you are ready for the next battle. The trials of life are basic training. God orders us to put on, the helmet of salvation, our boots of peace, our breastplate of righteousness, our shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, and gird our loins with truth. We go through divorce and sickness, with our gear on. We go through unemployment and failing grades, with our gear on. We go through bankruptcy, confusion, and anger, with our gear on. When it's over, we feel as if we are about to die. But when the next battle comes, we find our prayer life is much deeper. Our Bible Study is richer. Our worship is sweeter. God, our Commanding Officer, took us through basic training and we are ready for the next battle. | | Raumone V. Burton, Houston, Texas | | | Wise use of Money - Herman H. Watts |
Economic Highs and Lows | | A college boy wrote home to his father asking for money. The father, whose resources were limited, wrote back that high living was worth low living. He was saying that for a boy to live up to high ideals of promise and sacrifice, he must be willing to let his economic standard fall. | From the sermon �What is Your Name?�
Watts, Herman H., Best Black Sermons.
Ed. William Philpot. p. 75 | | | Work of the Holy Spirit - Anthony T. Evans |
On-Going Assistance | | When someone has health problems they call for an ambulance. When the paramedic arrives he identifies the problem and then administers help to save the life. For example, if you have a heart attack the paramedic comes and he ministers because he wants to save your life. When he stabilizes you then he puts you on the cot and puts you in the ambulance. One thing I�ve noticed is that the paramedic always rides in the back with the patient. He administers help to you before you�re placed in the ambulance and he rides along side you all the way to the hospital. You see the paramedic�s concern is not merely stabilizing you at the moment but sustaining you for the whole trip. Jesus didn�t just come to save you. He�s going to ride along side you until you reach your intended destiny. | From the sermon Basis of Fellowship.
Delivered in Dallas, Texas, by Anthony T. Evans. | | | Worship - Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. |
Why You Go to Church | | When all of the controversy was going on about some of the political criticisms I made in my sermons, almost every day reporters and cameras were outside of Trinity. They were especially there for Sunday morning services trying to interview our members. One Sunday I told our members that when reporters question their presence at Trinity they should say, �We�re not here because of Jeremiah, we�re here because of Jesus.� | From the sermon Putting Limits on the Lord.
Delivered in 2008, by Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. | | | Worship under Threat of Persecution - George Champion |
True Worship | | In a small town in Russia during the Communist rule of the 1960s, a group of believers formed an underground Christian church. One day, while worshipping God, a group of soldiers entered their place of worship with guns in their hands and announced, �All who would leave this place of worship, leave now! You know your assembly here is unlawful. Leave now or be arrested!� Almost two-thirds of those who had assembled got up and left leaving a faithful few who were willing to face persecution. The commanding officer then shut the doors, told his fellow soldiers to put down their guns, and said to the remaining believers, �I wanted to purge this group so that only the true believers would be left. My comrades and I along with you are true believers in Christ Jesus. Now, let�s praise God like we know how!� | Champion, George. 100 Illustrations for Preaching
and Speaking. Orlando, FL: Self Published, 2001. p. 44 | | | - HOME
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