Don’t Quit!

Exodus 6:1-9 At the first Pastors Conference my wife and I attended was in 1969 and the speaker was Dr. Howard Sugden, pastor of South Baptist Church in Lansing, MI from 1954-1991, his entire ministry. During one of the question and answer times at the conference, he was asked...

Naaman’s Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the overflow of our hearts when we come to see our desperate need and God's gracious deliverance. In this Thanksgiving sermon we learn three lessons from Namaan, whose thankgiving was a response to God's grace, a confession of God's glory, and a rejoicing in God rather than a repaying of him.

A Gift The World Cannot Give

Galatians 5:19-26 Not many months ago I read about a poll that was done by radio listeners and disc jockeys concerning the #1 Rock "N" Roll song of all-time. Since the roots of that kind of music stretch back to the time of my own teen-age years I wondered if my idea about the #1 song of that era would...

How To Recognize A Gospel Message

I Corinthians 1:20-25 Most Thursdays last winter, I went to a classroom and listened to sermons. Does that sound like fun or what? I teach a class on preaching. Each of the class's 24 students had to submit two manuscripted sermons. They had to preach one sermon before the whole class - and me! I enjoy the...

The Overthrow Of Survivor Island!

What would happen if today's reality TV producers got ahold of the Passion Week story? This Easter sermon creatively contrasts God's way of doing things with the dog-eat-dog rules of Survivor, The Apprentice, and the like.

Making The Wrong Decisions

Ruth 1:1-5 Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi; and ...

Got Fish?

During the past decade our family has vacationed several times on a small island in northern Lake Michigan.

Surprise!

Ephesians 2:1-10 I know lady who was in a hurry to get to work. I won't say she was flying low, but the birds were flying a little higher than normal that morning - to keep out of her way! She topped a rise, glanced to her left, and there he sat - John Law. The lead in her foot turned to water. She braked,...

Corpses in the Sand

Exodus 2 Egypt has been called the Gift of the Nile. It is the land of the Sphinx and the pyramids, a nation of thirty-one dynasties which covered almost three thousand years before the Roman domination of Egypt began in 30 B.C. The psalmist referred to...