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10,045 illustrations — Lessons from history, biography, and world events
Our relation to Christ determines our relation to the entire universe.
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions.
The same Almighty One who fed Elijah in the terrible days of dearth, and who delivered Daniel from the power of the lions, still watches over and provides for His people.
Little sins are peculiarly offensive to God precisely because they are little—we risk offending Him for what we ourselves care very little about and expect insignificant return from.
All persons are born in a state of ignorance and darkness as to spiritual things; therefore all young persons need instruction.
Its acquisition presents such difficulties that it is seldom truly found in our age.
The branches do not draw strength from soil or seasonal rains; they depend utterly upon the living sap flowing from the vine's root system.
Maracleren observes that all earthly teachers—however towering—accomplish limited, transient work.
Exell's Victorian homiletic unpacks this indictment with surgical precision.
Yet here, God withdraws His all-vitalizing and all-blessing presence.
Our Lord exhorts His disciples to cultivate strength of character—but never at the expense of brotherly love.
The authority of their testimony rested on four unmistakable foundations.
First, the brotherhood of souls demands mutual burden-bearing.
This outburst reveals the nature of evil's opposition to Christ.
He uses a striking geographical image: 'The springs lie close together up in the hills, the rivers may be parted by half a continent.' What begins as unity at the source becomes division at the mouth.
Maclaren observes that this righteous man embodies the very purpose God pursued through millenniums of providential dealing and inspiration.
When Socrates drank hemlock in Athens and Caesar fell upon the Roman senate floor, their deaths remained final.
God's purpose is explicit: "God hath sent His Son into the world, that the world through Him might be saved." Yet formidable obstacles obscure this gracious design.
The juxtaposition reveals the animating principle of New Testament morality itself: devotion to God is the indispensable basis of all practical helpfulness to man, and conversely, practical helpfulness to man is the expression and manifestation of devotion to God.
Critics who say 'Give me his ethics, keep his dogmas' commit a fatal severance that destroys both.
This seems counterintuitive until we understand what Spurgeon observed: the subjects of God's people's joy extend far beyond comfort and blessing.
Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah originated this gathering—they obeyed "a popular impulse which they had not created." This is extraordinary because Ezra, who had labored thirteen years in Jerusalem fighting corruptions among the returned captives, had never before promulgated the law...
Yet Maclaren observes that "as they abode together and worked at their trade, there would be many earnest talks about the Christ, and these ended in both husband and wife becoming disciples." The mundane labor of their craft became the...
The warm-hearted, impulsive fisherman who once denied knowing Jesus now speaks with 'calm, fixed determination, which wastes no words, but in its very brevity impresses the hearers as being immovable.' Maclaren observes that this man—once prone to wrong-headedness—has laid down...
First, He claims boundless power to satisfy human want and longing.