Shane Trammel posts a boat load of mp3 sermons by Tozer. You can find 10 sermons on the attributes of God here, and 34 sermons on the book of 1 Peter here. As always, enjoy!
Archive for preaching
Some gems from Ravenhill - part 2
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Spiritual exapnsion is expensive and at times excruciating. Are you prepared for vision at this top-price demand - the loss of a friend or a career? There are no reduced rates for revolution of soul. If you only want to be saved, sanctified, and satisfied, then the Lord’s battle hath no need of thee.”
“To be spiritually minded is joy and peace. Yet to be statistically minded in addition can be very disturbing.”
“Let us invite the searching eye of God to locate this corrupted, spotted, stinking Self in us. Let it be torn from us and “crucified in Him, that henceforth we no longer serve sin.”
“It will not do to call sin by some other name, saying, “The other fellow has a devilish temper; mine is just righteous indignation! She is touchy; my irritability is just ‘a case of nerves.’ He is covetous; I am expanding my business. He is stubborn; I have convictions. She is proud; I have superior tastes” There is a cover-up for anything if you want it that way.”
“Today God is bypassing men - not because they are too ignorant, but because they are too self-sufficient. Brethren, our abilities are our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks!”
“If the Church today had as many agonizers as she had advisers, we would have a revival in a year!”
“One place alone will keep the heart in passion and the eyes in vision - the place of prayer.”
Some gems from Ravenhill - part 1
I’m in Panama City, FL for a few days (oh, the persecution!), and I brought along “Why Revival Tarries” by Leonard Ravenhill. I’m going to be doing a few posts over the next two or three days with some quotes from Ravenhill that are definitely worth sharing. Here are a few from the first 2 chapters. Enjoy!
“One does not need to be spiritual to preach, that is, to make and deliver sermons of homiletical perfection and exegetical exactitude. By a combination of memory, knowledge, ambition, personality, plus well-lined bookshelves, self-confidence, and a sense of having arrived - brother, the pulpit is yours almost anywhere these days. Preaching of the type mentioned affects men; prayer affects God. Preaching affects time; prayer affects eternity.”
“The tragedy of this late hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people.”
“Brethren, we could well manage to be half as intellectual if we were twice as spiritual.”
“Unction is not a gentle dove beating her wings against the bars outside of the preacher’s soul; rahter, she must be pursued and won.”
“The prayer meeting is dead or dying. By our attitude to prayer, we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh.”
“Preachers who should be fishing for men are now too often fishing for compliments from men. Preachers used to sow seed; now they string intellectual pearls.”
“The two prerequisites to successful Christian living are vision and passion, both of which are born in and maintained by prayer.”
“Spiritual adolescents say, ‘I’ll not go tonight, it’s only the prayer meeting.”
“The world hits the trail for hell with a speed that makes our fastest plane look like a tortoise; yet alas, few of us can remember the last time we missed our bed for a night of waiting upon God for a world-shaking revival.”
“Happiness is…” weeks 6 & 7
The June 8th message was on “Blessed are the merciful” - Listen or download here.
The June 15th message was on “Blessed are the pure in heart” - Listen or download here.
Related posts:
“Happiness is…” week 5
This week’s message was on “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” Dowload or listen here.
Related posts:
Never Back Down - audio
Our student pastor, Dillon, is teaching through the book of Philippians on Wednesday nights in a series called “Never Back Down.”
This week’s message was called “Pursue Humility.”
You can dowload or listen to the audio here.
BTW, the audio was recorded on my US-122…Just buy one already!
“Happiness is…” week 4
“Happiness is…” week 3
The power of narrative to educate
If you didn’t know, I teach alot. I am the Pastor of Worship at FHBC, but I spend at least half of my (ministry) time either teaching or preparing to teach…and I like it that way. I teach an 11th grade Worldview/Apologetics class in our school; I co-teach a men’s systematic theology class on Friday mornings; I have taught and often still teach in various small groups; and I regularly preach in our elementary and high school chapel services.
And in my teaching experience, no matter what the age or demographic of an audience, there is one thing that will cause even the most sedate person to sit up and listen: a good story.
I initially noticed this fact when I taught on the doctrine of original sin for the second time. You see, the first time out, I had all my proof texts ready to go, all my theological verbage in the right places, and I ’explained’ original sin to a tee…and no one cared. If I were in my audience, I wouldn’t have cared either, because it was dry and wooden and, well, boring. After laying a rotten egg the first time, I decided that I needed to figure out how to illustrate original sin in a way that anyone could relate to while staying faithful to the doctrine itself. So here’s one way I thought of explaining how we are sinners first by nature and then by choice:
“Who has ever had a fever? (everyone either nods or raises their hand)…Well, when you have a fever, is the fever the actual problem? (some indicate yes, some no, some have no clue)…When you have a fever, the fever is not the problem. A fever is really just a symptom of something else that is wrong with you. Think about it…if you have a fever, you could have any number of problems: bronchitis, mono, the chicen pox, the flu, etc. The fever is just telling you that there’s a deeper issue, a more serious problem…and that’s the way sin is. The fact that we commit sins…that we willfully and voluntarily lie and cheat and lust and covet…is a symptom of a much greater problem. And the greater and more serious problem is that we’ve inherited a sinful nature from our father, Adam. The sins we commit are indicative of the sin nature that we were born with…”
And they were actually paying attention. They could relate to having a fever, or having bronchitis or whatever. I took the abstract and made it tangible…through an illustration (a sort of narrative). This works wonders (if you can actually tell a story…another post for another day!) because people possess “narrative intelligience,” which is the ability to perceive, know, think, feel, and explain one’s experience of reality through the use of stories and narrative forms. Put simply, people understand things better when they are presented in stories/narratives. As you probably know, the average pew-sitter doesn’t have a penchant for knowledge and understanding in the same way that you savvy bloggers do…and this is why taking an otherwise stale truth (to some) and setting it in the context of a compelling story is a commodity in commuication and education, and for that matter, advertising and marketing.
At this point, the astute reader likely has red flags going up faster than “Hail Marys” on Ash Wednesday. And there are some legitimate dangers to using stories, some which can quickly lead to damnable heresy, in my opinion; but I don’t have time to address those now. Keep your eyes peeled for a follow-up post!
Happiness is…
My pastor just began a new expository preaching series through the Beatitudes called “Happiness is…” Click here to listen to or download the audio from week one.
