The Safeguards Of Life

Another time, I remember professor Bob Stacy preaching a sermon in chapel. He started that sermon with these words: “YOU OUGHT TO BE DEAD!” Did he ever grab our attention! He went on to preach a powerful sermon about being crucified with Christ.

Sermons like those are a safeguard in life. We need to hear them, over and over.

ILL.- In the paperback book HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY, James Weinland wrote, “A fact once learned may be so interesting, so important, so satisfying, or so shocking that no effort is required to remember it – it seems to be remember itself. But the ordinary run of little facts cannot be recalled without attention and effort.”

Much of the time it’s hard for us to remember spiritual truths. When they are presented in an interesting way or manner, it helps, but otherwise, we must work to remember the good stuff.

Paul said, “It’s no trouble for me to write the same things to you again…” Repetition is necessary in some cases! When it comes to Biblical truth, this truth needs to be repeated over and over.

ILL.- Preacher Ed Bousman used to say, “My desire is to read the New Testament every week or 52 times a year, but being sort of lazy by nature I only read it about 40 times a year or every week and a half.” Don’t we all wish we were that good about reading God’s Word? What a blessing and safeguard it would be!

Ps. 119:11 “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

How can we hide the Word of God in our hearts? Repetition is one good way. We need to hear it over and over. We need to repeat it over and over. We need to read it over and over.

ILL.- The new preacher had delivered the same sermon for three Sundays in a row. The church board and members were getting a bit concerned. One of the board members said to the preacher, ”That’s a wonderful sermon you’ve been preaching, but could you preach a different sermon?”

The preacher fired back, “I will preach a different sermon, as soon as folks in this church starting practicing this one.”

I may repeat a sermon occasionally, because I think we need a certain spiritual truth driven into our minds, over and over.

Repetition of spiritual truths from God’s Word are good for us, no matter how they are repeated! Please don’t get aggravated or irritated when you hear spiritual truths presented to you, over and over. Thank God for them! They are safeguards for your soul!

II. THE RECOGNITIOIN OF EVIL – LEGALISM

V. 2 “Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil…”

ILL.- The ten-year-old boy was walking with his parents on Elm Street in downtown Dallas. Spying a movie theater, the youngster ran off.

His frantic mother found him inside the theater thirty minutes later. Outside, she said to him, “Whatever possessed you go to in that place? You know that our pastor teaches that it’s wrong to go to movies.” “Mama,” he said, “I just couldn’t help myself. I smelled that popcorn, and it smelled so good that I had to buy some. And then the floor of that movie house was so slick I just slid inside.”