Sermons and Biblical Studies

To teach that the spirit of the once-born is at enmity with the Spirit of the twice-born is to bring down upon one’s head every kind of violent abuse. No language is too bitter to hurl against the conceited bigot who would dare to draw such a line of distinction between men. Such malignant ideas … Continue reading “TOLERANCE/INTOLERANCE;
CHRISTIANS: IN THE WORLD”

Immediately someone is bound to protest. “What arrogance! What intolerance! I do not believe Christians should be intolerant!” Well, I can startle such a person a little more. I believe in Christian charity, but I do not believe at all in Christian tolerance. The person who hates the name of Jesus, who believes that He … Continue reading “TOLERANCE/INTOLERANCE;
ABSOLUTES”

Jesus hated the devil and He hated those evil spirits that He challenged and drove out. We present-day Christians have been misled and brainwashed, at least in a general way, by a generation of soft, pussycat preachers. They would have us believe that to be good Christians we must be able to purr softly and … Continue reading “TOLERANCE/INTOLERANCE”

To each one it is given to occupy his own spot in history. He must, like David, do the will of God by serving his own generation. It is in his own day that he must meet God in satisfying encounter. It is in his today, not in some pensive yesterday, that he must explore … Continue reading “TODAY;
GOD: HIS GRACE”

It is not a cheerful thought that millions of us who live in a land of Bibles, who belong to churches and labor to promote the Christian religion, may yet pass our whole life on this earth without once having thought or tried to think seriously about the being of God. Few of us have … Continue reading “THOUGHTS;
WONDER”

As the needle of the compass has an affinity for the north magnetic pole, so the heart can keep true to its secret love though separated from it by miles and years. What that loved object is may be discovered by observing which direction our thoughts turn when they are released from the hard restraints … Continue reading “THOUGHTS;
VALUES”

We all live in two environments, the one being the world around us, the other our thoughts about that world. The larger world cannot affect us directly; it must be mediated to us by our thoughts, and will be to us at last only what we allow it to be. Three men walking side by … Continue reading “THOUGHTS;
PERSPECTIVE”

The church today is anguishing fr men who can bring to the problems of religion reverent, courageous minds intent upon a solution. Unfortunately Fundamentalism has never produced a great thinker.… Let it be understood by everyone that I am now and have always been an evangelical.… Yet it is my painful duty to record not … Continue reading “THINKING:
NEED FOR; FUNDAMENTALISM”

I knew of a young man who was hospitalized and forced to lie quietly for a time. He implored his father, “Dad, bring my record player or something to keep me busy. Otherwise I just have to lie here and think.” Then he added his own commentary on the nature of his personal life, “And … Continue reading “THINKING:
AVOIDANCE OF; SOLITUDE”

We being what we are and all things else being what they are, the most important and profitable study any of us can engage in is without question the study of theology. That theology probably receives less attention than any other subject tells us nothing about its importance or lack of it. It indicates rather … Continue reading “THEOLOGY;
MAN: ALIENATION FROM GOD”