“Consider what sins appear to be most rife in the church and congregation — worldliness, covetousness, prayerlessness, wrath, pride, want of brotherly love, slander, and such like evils. Take into account, affectionately, the trials of your people, and seek for a balm for their wounds” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 87).
Pre-Selected Texts
“It must be burdensome to some, and very easy to others, I should imagine, to find their subject, as they do whose lot is cast in the Episcopal establishment, where the preacher usually refers to the gospel or the epistle, or the lesson for the day, and feels himself bound — not by any law, …
State of the Church 2008
INTRODUCTION: One of our customs is to have an annual “state of the church” message around the first of the year. These messages vary—sometimes they address the state of the evangelical church generally, and other times they are more geared to the circumstances surrounding our particular congregation. This message falls into the latter category, but …
Please Let Us Come
The glory of the New Covenant is of course seen in its nature, but in the prophecies of Scripture we also see that glory in its promised extent — from the river to the ends of the earth, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the name of the …
Just Stand in the Pulpit and Turn the Crank
“Do not rehearse five or six doctrines with unvarying monotony or repetition. Buy a theological barrel-organ, brethren, with five tunes accurately adjusted, and you will be qualified to practise as an ultra-Calvinistic preacher at Zoar and Jireh, if you also purchase at some vinegar factory a good supply of bitter, acrid abuse of Arminians, and …
What God Has Spoken
In this section we see a great emphasis placed upon the word of God spoken. A phrase like thus says the Lord of hosts occurs again and again. In these thirteen verses it occurs eight times. God has spoken, and it is the duty of His people to hear Him. “Again the word of the …
Rumble Tumble Sermons
“Never suffer truths to fall from you pell-mell. Do not let your thoughts rush as a mob, but make them march as a troop of soldiery. Order, which is heaven’t first law, must not be neglected by heaven’s ambassadors” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 77).
The Discipline of Joy and Gladness
As mentioned in the last installment, we have finished the first section of the book of Zechariah. Two great oracles occupy the latter half of the book. The first is contained in chapters 9-11, and the second is in chapters 12-14. But before we come to these oracles, we need to cover the didactic portion …
Preaching Inside a Theology Bubble
“He is great upon the ten toes of the beast, the four faces of the cherubim, the mystical meaning of badgers’ skins, and the typical bearings of the staves of the ark, and the windows of Solomon’s temple: but the sins of business men, the temptations of the times, and the needs of the age, …
Those From Far Off
We now come to consider the conclusion of the first portion of the book of Zechariah. In doing this, we need to make sure we have mastered the import of these visions, so that we will be able to understand the great oracles with which Zechariah concludes the book. “Then the word of the Lord …