REARRANGED BY GRACE If sin means derangement, grace means rearrangement. From Christian Century, by Douglas Ottati
Sermon Illustrations
A DIFFERENT DRUMMER Once upon a time, In a not-so-distant place, Among a not-so-distant people, There came... a drummer./He was not so much to look at. He was neither tall nor short. He had no…
THE POLITICS OF RESURRECTION Was the resurrection of Jesus Christ a hoax or a conspiracy? Here is the testimony of Chuck Colson which calls these theories to question: With the most powerful office in the…
IN NEED OF A SHEPHERD I have no shepherd. I want and am in need. I have no one to feed me in green pastures. I have no rest. I have no one to lead…
DISCIPLINING THE CHILD A man came up to two boys fighting in the park. He took one aside and began to spank him for his inappropriate behavior. An observing bystander approached the man and asked…
HE KEEPS ON RISING! "He's alive!" cries the Roman centurion in Charles Rann Dennedy's play "The Terrible Meek". "I can't kill him. All the empires can't kill him." Christ is ever rising again. Day by…
GRATITUDE FOR GRACE Thank you for choosing me As the one person Out of all the world To share your life with you. Thank you for loving me In spite of all my frailities And…
NO NEED FOR SHAME During this last Easter, our ministerial association sponsored a community food collection. I was confronted by a man who was offended by the "Steps to Faith in Jesus Christ" on the…
TEAMWORK WITH GOD The little boy wanted to join a church. So the deacons were examining him. They asked, "How did you get saved?" His answer was, "God did His part, and I did my…
WOODPECKER EVANGELISM A woodpecker tapped his beak against the stem of a tree just as lightning struck the tree and destroyed it. He flew away and said, "I didn't know there was so much power…
FORGIVENESS STOPS RINGING THE BELL Forgiveness needs momentum - Corrie ten Boom likens it to letting go of a bell rope. If you have ever seen a country church with a bell in the steeple,…
DEATH IS A USEFUL COMMA Death is not a period, bringing the sentence of life to a close like the spilling of a moment or the dissolution of an hour./Death is a useful comma which…
PHLEGON, QUOTED BY AFRICANUS Phlegon, Chronicles, circa A.D. 140, no extant copies, quoted by others. By Africanus. Africanus says that Plegon referred to the same eclipse when "he records that in the time of Tiberius…
THALLUS, QUOTED BY AFRICANUS Thallus - circa A.D. 52, others at end of 1st century - no extant copies, only known through quotations by other writers (Africanus), "Thallus, in the third book of his histories,…
PLINY THE YOUNGER TO TRAJAN [ Pliny the Younger (Plinius Secundus), letter to emperor Trajan, circa A.D. 112 - shows that by A.D. 112, large numbers of people were convinced of the historical life, death,…
TACITUS: NERO AND THE CHRISTIANS Cornelius Tacitus, born circa A. D. 52-55, senator under reign of Vespasian, A.D. 112- 13 was proconsul, or governor of Asia. Annals circa A.D. 116 - "So far, the precautions…
A BODY WOULD REFUTE THE RESURRECTION "It passes the bounds of credibility that the early Christians could have manufactured such a tale and then preached it among those who might easily have refuted it simply…
ESTABLISHED FACT OF THE RESURRECTION "The resurrection could not have been maintained in Jerusalem for a single day, for a single hour, if the emptiness of the tomb had not been established as a fact…
THE DRIVING FORCE OF THE RESURRECTION "I do not want to minimize the character of the historic mucleus from which Christianity sprang, but, seriously, does this rather heterogeneous body of simple folk, reeling under the…
AN OPEN OFFER Once we begin to know God it is simply unreasonable to think that we should be born only to die... I do not mean to tell you that dying is easy -…
