Sermons Archive

Children are a divine blessing. Contemporary views depreciate the blessing of children, but even a cursory review of the Word reveals that children are a blessing from the hand of the Lord. Children are given to those with whom He is pleased.

Considerable confusion concerning the issue of prophecy reigns among professed followers of the Master. Among some communions, people self-identifying as “prophets” are honoured, adulated, and exalted in the eyes of adherents. Almost inevitably when people speak of prophecy, they are thinking in terms of foretelling future events. This is especially true in those communions that boast of prophets among their number. The reason for this idealisation of prophecy results from a dearth of teaching from the pulpit concerning biblical themes. Thus, untaught people readily confuse prophets with seers. There is a difference, and the difference is significant.

A study of the response of the majority to the land God promised to the people of Israel provides standards for following God in our church and in our lives.

We face difficult times. Great challenges face us as Christians and as a congregation. No one knows what the coming year holds. There seems to be formidable challenges facing the faithful in the year ahead. On foreign fronts, our brothers and sisters are already paying an awful price to follow the Lamb of God. No one can say that we won’t face our own challenges in the year that now stretches out before us. In fact, it seems certain that we will face opposition, we will witness those who seek to damage the testimony of our Master, we will see days that try our souls. It is a tragic truth that almost certainly we will see from among our own ranks men arise speaking twisted things [see ACTS 20:30]. None of us know whether we will be present to see the coming year draw to a conclusion. We have learned to confess to the LORD with the Psalmist,

We know that Christ shall reign and that we shall reign with Him.

We know that God will reveal the perfection of His work in us.

Now, we listen to hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees. We are looking up, knowing that He is moving and that we shall witness His power displayed on our behalf. We anticipate that He shall be glorified in His saints and marvelled at among all who have believed. Our God is leading, and we anticipate victory in the coming year. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen, indeed.

Jesus became a man to deliver us from God’s wrath. His birth does speak of divine justice, of heavenly mercy and God’s love. But, that love delivers us from judgement. If we reject the love of God in Christ the Lord, nothing remains but God’s wrath.

Christ is creator of heaven and earth. He is not, as some, even in ancient times contended, an angel. Christ was not created; He is Creator. Therefore, He is worthy to be praised and worshipped.

“‘You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years ...

Summary: The Letter to Hebrew Christians emphasizes the deity of Christ Jesus. Even long ago, some wanted to reduce His divinity to the status of a mere demigod, by identifying Him as an angel. The Word is quite aggressive in presenting Jesus as the Son of God, Himself very God.

Summary: Christ receives sinners. Just so, the assemblies of our Lord should be noted for welcoming those who are identified as sinners, since we each were once estranged from the Lord until He welcomed us.

Summary: The message is a call for men to be manly, despite knowing the cost that may be required of a man.

Sermon Topics: Courage, Grief, Cost Of Freedom, Remembrance Day, Valour

Summary: The world seeks to do something in order to be blessed. God calls us to be, so that we can enjoy the blessings He gives. Salvation is God’s gift, not a position we earn.

Sermon Topics:  Salvation, Righteousness, Eternal Life, Ten Commandments.

Summary: Study of the revival that occurred during the reign of Hezekiah, focusing in particular on the suddenness with which God moved the hearts of the people and the conditions that preceded that revival.

Summary: God yearns for His people to be on mission with Him. And when we are revived, we will enter into mission with Him. The study of the great revival during the early day of Hezekiah’s reign serves as a model of what happens when we are on mission with God.

Summary:

Some things have no place in the life of God’s people. Our responsibility is to reflect the character of our Heavenly Father.

Summary: Christ Followers can anticipate persecution from the world. However, they are called to live holy, gentle lives in the midst of a fallen world, honouring the Father through righteous lives and by inviting the lost salvation in Christ.

Summary: God’s appointment is seldom to do easy tasks. God appoints us to do hard things, and He equips us to fulfil what He has appointed us to do.

Two years ago, Paul David Tripp published an article bearing the title of this message. [2] His article stimulated me to focus on the difficult tasks God sometimes calls us to undertake. God does not always call us to the mundane, the routine; in fact, He will often call His people to attempt the impossible. Or worse still, God will appoint us to do things that we just hate. God will back us into a corner where we have no choice but to do what He appoints us to do, and we hate it. If we will ever get the job done, it will be obvious that it was God that did the work. We may have been the instrument of grace that He used, but He did it.

Summary: God does judge nations, cities, churches, families. If we refuse to pursue His glory, there is nothing left for God but to hold us accountable.

Summary:

God’s mercy and our anger can often be in conflict. Such conflict can lead to discouragement that in turn can lead to despair. The child of God must guard his/her heart to avoid falling into deep gloom leading to thoughts of suicide.

The context of the Apostle’s instruction is the people of God at worship. Worship is so simple, and yet, the act is complex. How could it be otherwise when we are speaking of ascribing worth to the Creator, the God of all the universe? Worship is simple in that mere mortals are ascribing worth to the Living God; there can be no complexity in that since we have so little to offer. However, worship is, of necessity, complex because it is being offered to God Who is infinite. How can mere mortals exhaust the knowledge of God who gives life to all things? How can man, impure and imperfect as he is in this fallen state, truly glorify and magnify the Living God who is perfect in righteousness, in holiness, in purity?

Summary: The child of God is encouraged to seek His presence and His power so that they can excel in life. We must never permit ourselves to live at less than our best to the praise of His glory.

Summary: Christians must be aware of becoming hypercritical of divine work and of other believers, ascribing what is done as unworthy of Christ. To explore this situation, the message is a study of Jesus’ censure of the generation in which He then lived.

Summary:

Jesus’ first sign was quiet, not at all spectacular as one might have supposed. Yet, what He did at that time anticipates God at work in the mundane. He performs the miraculous in the mundane facets of life on any given day.

We become pretty blasé about those with whom we share worship week-by-week. Seriously, how do you think of those sharing this service with you? Do you see them as friends? Certainly, I would hope that to be the case. Perhaps you see your fellow worshippers as people engaged in the same daily activities that are characteristic of your life. I mean, they live pretty much as you live and conduct their daily routines in a manner not dissimilar from your own life. Nevertheless, what is likely not prominent in your understanding of your fellow worshippers is their identity given by the Lord Himself as “the glory of Christ.” And I would hope that you are included in that assessment as one who is counted among people as “the glory of Christ.”

The gospel of nice will provide a blessing for suicide. The gospel of nice will encourage the discouraged to quit, to give in to despair. The Gospel of Christ will reach out to the weary traveller, endeavouring to lift up the individual with a broken spirit. The Gospel of Christ will strive to encourage the discouraged. The gospel of nice is based on sentimentality, not on love. The gospel of nice prioritises short-term happiness instead of what is good. The gospel of nice leads to blessing self-murder rather than offering the hard, but loving, words, “This is wrong.” The gospel of nice will exalt the individual’s personal desire over the welfare of others.

Taught by the Gospel of Christ, we love people. Because we love people, we seek their welfare. The love of Christ compels us to warn people that abortion takes the life of a child. Abortion is not something to celebrate; abortion is an act to grieve. It is not hate that leads us to counsel a woman to spare the life of the child she is carrying as she struggles to cope with a pregnancy she didn’t anticipate in the aftermath of an illicit affair. It is love that leads us to counsel the young man who impregnated his girlfriend that he must support her and the child, accepting responsibility for his actions. However, progressive churches have raised the gospel of nice to an art form, blessing abortion clinics and even same sex “marriage.” [4] The gospel of nice seeks to make sure people feel good about themselves rather than honouring God.

Summary:

Arrogance kills. Should anyone question that statement, they need but study an incident when a king whom God anointed requested consideration from a wealthy farmer. What happened next is a warming against becoming arrogant.

Nabal thought only of “my bread,” “my water,” “my meat.” Rather than seeing himself as an administrator of the grace of God, he was certain that his hand had acquired everything he possessed. Moreover, he was assured that everything that he possessed was for his own pleasure. There was no consideration that the strength he enjoyed was a gift from God, that the abilities he employed were divinely given or that the opportunities that came to him were permitted by the LORD—Nabal was the centre of his universe.

Key Words: Arrogance, Fool, overabundance

Complacency Kills             2 Samuel 6:5-11

 It was only a momentary slip of the beasts’ feet, but it was enough to rock the Ark which was on the cart they were pulling. The priest driving the cart reached back to steady the Ark so it wouldn’t fall; but the moment he touched the Ark, he fell dead.

While the judgement the worshippers had just witnessed was not as severe as the judgement on the men of Beth-shemesh, Uzzah now lay dead beside the Ark of the Covenant. What wasn’t immediately clear was why Uzzah had to die. All that the people knew, and all we are told in the text, is that “God struck [Uzzah] down because of his error.” We are left to wonder what his error might have been. In fact, that Hebrews word rendered “error” in my translation is very difficult to translate into English. It only occurs once in the Bible, and that is in this seventh verse.

P2 From Men Whom God Killed Series

Anyone Can Serve, Can’t They

Scripture warns believers, “[Divine judgements against God’s people] took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” We ignore the accounts of those who preceded us in the worship of the scripture warns believers, “[Divine judgements against God’s people] took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” We ignore the accounts of those who preceded us in the worship of the Living God at our own peril.e Living God at our own peril.

Summary:

 Among the sins which God judges most harshly and most swiftly are sins dishonouring one’s family. Such swift and terrible judgement speaks to the importance of the family in the divine economy.