Sin

Charles Spurgeon used this parable to illustrate the bondage of sin. He said, “There was once a tyrant who summoned one of his subjects into his presence and ordered him to make a chain. The poor blacksmith—that was his occupation—had to go to work and forge the chain. When it was done, he brought it into the presence of the tyrant and was ordered to take it away and make it twice the length. He brought it again to the tyrant, and again he was ordered to double it.

In the 1929 Rose Bowl, the California Golden Bears squared off against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and provided one of the most famous plays in college football history. In the second quarter, California player Roy Riegels recovered a fumble, but instead of advancing it, he got confused and began running toward his own end zone. A teammate finally stopped him at the goal line, but the two points Georgia Tech scored following “Wrong Way” Riegels’ mistake proved the winning margin in the game.

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. When I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.”—Billy Sunday

Source: Great Preaching on the Deity of Christ, Curtis Hutson

Someone asked an elderly Christian lady, “Does the devil ever trouble you about your past sins?” She answered, “Yes.” When the inquirer asked what she did then, she replied, “Oh, I just tell him to go east.”

“What do you do if he comes back?”

“I tell him to go west.”

“And when he comes back from the west, what do you do then?”

She said, “I just keep him going from the east to the west.”

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12

In 1818, Ignaz Philip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women. The finest hospitals lost one out of six mothers to the scourge of “childbed fever.” A doctor’s daily routine began in the dissecting room where he performed autopsies. From there he made his way to the hospital to examine expectant mothers without ever pausing to wash his hands. Dr. Semmelweis was the first man in history to associate such examinations with the resultant infection and death.

A Brooklyn man was once arrested for burglary and sentenced to several years in the state penitentiary. A few years into his sentence, the man escaped from prison and disappeared. Police detectives spent hours searching for him, following leads, and analyzing his escape, but to no avail. Although many detectives gave up on the case after several years, one young detective never gave up. Bit by bit, he tracked down every clue and kept searching for the escapee until one day, many years later, he finally found the escaped criminal.

A man who walked from New York City to San Francisco was asked what his biggest hurdle was. He said that the toughest part of the trip wasn’t traversing the steep slopes of the mountains or crossing hot, barren stretches of desert. He said, “The thing that came the closest to defeating me was the sand in my shoes.”

It is not usually what we think of as big sins that defeat us. Most Christians fall to sins that they do not think are very big.

Source: Our Daily Bread

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

1. I enjoy vomiting.
2. My wife likes my breath and bleary eyes.
3. My children respect me more.
4. I hope to win the safe-driving award.
5. I plan to encourage juvenile delinquency.
6. I want to provide more good citizens such as bartenders and pub operators.
7. I can think so clearly.
8. I collect bottles. Drinking saves the cost of buying them.
9. I look forward to retiring in a “flophouse” on Skid Row.

A Russian countess accepted the Lord Jesus as her Saviour and was open about her testimony. The Tsar was displeased and threw her into prison. After 24 hours with the lowest level of Russian society, in the most miserable conditions imaginable, he ordered her brought into his presence. He smiled sardonically and said, “Well, are you ready now to renounce your silly faith and come back to the pleasures of the court?”

Someone once sent the following words about his experience with alcohol to a newspaper columnist:

Speaking to a large audience, D.L. Moody held up a glass and asked, “How can I get the air out of this glass?” One man shouted, “Suck it out with a pump!” Moody replied, “That would create a vacuum and shatter the glass.” After numerous other suggestions Moody smiled, picked up a pitcher of water, and filled the glass. “There,” he said, “all the air is now removed.” He then went on to explain that victory in the Christian life is not accomplished by “sucking out a sin here and there,” but by being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Walter Wilson, ever on the alert to speak to men about their souls and need of the Saviour, asked an attendant at a service station who had filled his car with gas: “How did sin get in Sinclair?” pointing to the lighted sign atop the gas pump. “I do not know, sir, how sin got into Sinclair; but, sir, I have wished many times that I knew how to get sin out of my life!”

A little boy walked into the kitchen and told his mother that he discovered he was six feet tall. When she asked how he had determined this, he told her he had used his shoe to measure and that he was six shoes tall. With a loving smile she told him that his shoe was not a foot long. He insisted, “But, Mom, it’s got to be ’cause my foot’s in it!”

Many people believe they are pretty good because they are using a faulty standard.

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

“Between an airplane and every other form of locomotion and transportation there is one great contrast. The horse and wagon, the automobile, the bicycle, the locomotive, the speedboat, and the great battleship—all can come to a standstill without danger, and they can all reverse their engines, or their power, and go back.

In the spring of 1894, the Baltimore Orioles came to Boston to play a routine baseball game. But what happened that day was anything but routine. The Orioles’ John McGraw got into a fight with the Boston third baseman. Within minutes all the players from both teams had joined in the brawl. The warfare quickly spread to the grandstands. Among the fans the conflict went from bad to worse. Someone set fire to the stands and the entire ballpark burned to the ground. Not only that, but the fire spread to 107 other Boston buildings as well.

If alcoholism is a disease, it is the only disease that is contracted by an act of the will; the only disease that requires a license to propagate it; the only disease that is bottled and sold; the only disease that promotes crime; the only disease that is habit-forming; the only disease that is spread by advertising; and the only disease that requires outlets to spread it.

Source, The Sword Scrapbook II

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A self-righteous man once boasted to a Christian friend of his, “You know, John, I’m not such a bad fellow. There are many worse than I!” His friend replied, “Ivor, you are measuring yourself by the wrong standard. You measure yourself by the harlots and drunkards you see on Skid Row and you feel quite satisfied by comparison. But go and measure yourself alongside Jesus Christ and see how you make out.” No person’s life cuts much of a figure when placed alongside the perfect life of Christ. The life of the Lord Jesus shows us how crooked and defiled our own lives really are.

An NBA game between the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors was stopped for about five minutes because of a bat that was swooping over the court and flying uncomfortably close to some of the players. The bat was finally caught in a net and released outside.

Just as a little bat could disrupt an entire game, so a simple sin can stop the productive life of a Christian.

Source: USA Today, March 8, 2002

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A great without has been written on heathenism. Men and women are toiling without a Bible, without a Sunday, without prayer, without songs of praise. They have rulers without justice and without righteousness; homes without peace; marriage without sanctity, young men and girls without ideals and enthusiasm; little children without purity, without innocence; mothers without wisdom or self-control; poverty without relief or sympathy; sickness without skilful help or tender care; sorrow and crime without a remedy; and worst of all, death without hope.

A Sunday school teacher was giving her class the assignment for the next week. “Next Sunday,” she said, “we are going to talk about liars, and in preparation for our lesson I want you all to read the seventeenth chapter of Mark.”

The following week, at the beginning of the class meeting, the teacher said, “Now then, all of you who have prepared for the lesson by reading the seventeenth chapter of Mark, please step to the front of the room.”

About half the class rose and came forward.