#sermon

In later life I have been sometimes praised, sometimes mocked, for my way of pointing out the mythical elements that seem to me to underlie our apparently ordinary lives. Certainly that cast of mind had some of its origin in our pit, which had much the character of a Protestant Hell. I was probably the most entranced listener to a sermon the Reverend Andrew Bowyer preached about Gehenna, the hateful valley outside the walls of Jerusalem, where outcasts lived, and where their flickering fires, seen from the city walls, may have given rise to the idea of a hell of perpetual burning. He liked to make his hearers jump, now and then, and he said that our gravel pit was much the same sort of place as Gehenna. My elders thought this far-fetched, but I saw no reason then why hell should not have, so to speak, visible branch establishments throughout the earth, and I have visited quite a few of them since. ↗

— Robertson Davies

#religion #sermons #business

If thou dost continually draw thine impulse, thy life, the whole of thy being from the Holy Spirit, without whom thou canst do nothing; and if thou dost live in close communion with Christ, there will be no fear of thy having a dry heart. He who lives without prayer—he who lives with little prayer—he who seldom reads the Word—he who seldom looks up to heaven for a fresh influence from on high—he will be the man whose heart will become dry and barren; but he who calls in secret on his God—who spends much time in holy retirement—who delights to meditate on the words of the Most High—whose soul is given up to Christ—who delights in his fullness, rejoices in his all-sufficiency, prays for his second coming, and delights in the thought of his glorious advent—such a man, I say, must have an overflowing heart; and as his heart is, such will his life be. It will be a full life; it will be a life that will speak from the sepulcher, and wake the echoes of the future. "Keep thine heart with all diligence," and entreat the Holy Spirit to keep it full; for, otherwise, the issues of thy life will be feeble, shallow, and superficial; and thou mayest as well not have lived at all. ↗

— Charles H. Spurgeon

#life

When the congregation becomes the norm by which sermons are measured, a minister has put a mortgage on his soul. ↗

— Ralph W. Sockman

#congregation #his #measured #minister #mortgage

St. Peter announced the glad tidings of the Gospel to the people on the day of Pentecost, and converted, by the first Christian sermon, ever preached, three thousand - which formed the primitive Church. ↗

— John Strachan

#christian #church #converted #day #ever

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#books #brooks #everything #exempt #finds

Grace makes us inwardly RIGHT so we walk outwardly UPRIGHT ↗

— John Paul Warren

#christian #church #faith #gospel #grace

Our hope is that the Lord will intervene in our lives, but if not, we will discover whether our faith is real, or only something we hold onto when it appears to be working for our benefit. ↗

— John Bytheway

#faith

The devil can get you through your flesh. He knows the button to press on your flesh and have a way into your mind. The flesh becomes a transport medium for evil things if not killed for God. If Christ makes a home in your mind, satan can't get there. ↗

— Israelmore Ayivor

#bishop #christ #devil #evangelism #evil

I feel that I communicate best when I am not deliberately being linear. Along this same line, I feel some of the best sermons I've ever heard were in the theatre rather than the pulpit - as, for example, in the Theatre of the Absurd. ↗

— Malcolm Boyd

#along #am #being #best #communicate

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible. ↗

— George Burns

#close #ending #good #having #possible