Sermon Central
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There Once Was A Weak And Sickly Man. The Man Was ...
Contributed by Rick Pendleton on Nov 17, 2008 (message contributor)
There once was a weak and sickly man. The man was so sick and he could not afford going to town to the doctor. The man lived in the deep back woods in an old log cabin, his condition seemed to grow worse. Out in front of his cabin was a huge boulder. The rock was massive in front of his place. One night in a very real vision, God told him to go out there and push the huge rock all day long, day after day. The man got up early in the morning, and with great excitement he pushed the rock until lunch, then he rested a while and pushed the rock until supper time. The man loved pushing against the rock, it gave him meaning. The dream was so real that it was with great excitement he pushed against the rock. Day after day he pushed. Day rolled into week, and week into months, he faithfully pushed against the rock. After 8 months of pushing the rock, the weak sickly man was getting tired of pushing the rock so much, in his tiredness he started to doubt his dream. So one day he measured from his porch to the rock, and after daily pushing the rock, he would measure to see how much he had moved the rock. After two weeks of pushing and measuring, he realized he had not moved the boulder not a 1/32 of an inch? As a matter of fact, the boulder was in the same place as when he started. The man was so disappointed, he thought the dream was so special and now after 9 months he saw his work had accomplished nothing, he was tired and his dream seemed dashed upon the rock. The man sat on his porch and cried and cried, he had invested many hundred hours into nothing. Nothing, it was all nothing! As the sun was sitting in the west, Jesus came and sat down next to the man as he cried. Jesus said, "Son, why are you crying?" The man replied, "Lord, You know how sick and weak I am, and then this dumb dream gave me a false hope and I have pushed with all that was within me for over 9 months, and that dumb old rock is right where it was when I started." Jesus was kind and said to him, "I never told you to move the rock, I told you to push against the rock." The man replied, "Yes, Sir, that was the dream." Jesus told the man to step in front of the mirror and look at himself. As an act of obedience the man stepped in front of a mirror and looked at himself. The man was amazed, he had been so sickly and weak, and what he saw in the mirror was a strong muscular man. The man realized that he had not been coughing all night. The man started thinking of how well he felt for several months and the strength that he had built by pushing on the rock. Then the man realized, that the plan of God was not for the rock, but for the man. So, I suggest to you today, that God is building people. God is building churches. The storms, the trials, the heartaches, the disappointments, are all but part of the process. We should never use people to build the church, we must use the church to build people. Don’t start measuring your success, trust the God that will take the process, and build His people. God is stretching you, God is growing you! Kyfingers@aol.com
I love these words from Gary Parker,“If faith never encounters doubt, if truth never struggles with error, if good never battles with evil, how can faith know its own power. In my own pilgrimage, if I have to choose between a faith that has stared doubt in the eye and made it blink, or a naïve faith that has never known the firing line of doubt, I will choose the former every time.”
Gary Parker as quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 2000), 243
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Illustration: Video clip from The Messenger – Joan of Arc from Videos That Teach 2 Page 108: The Movie France is embroiled in the The Hundred Years War with England, and young Jeanne d’Aragon (milla Jovovich) hears the voice of God telling her to lead the French army into battle and defend ...read more
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Contributed by Philip Harrelson on Sep 27, 2004
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Contributed by Rodney Buchanan on Feb 20, 2005
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All Of The Star Wars Movies Center Around The ...
Contributed by David Dewitt on Sep 19, 2005
All of the Star Wars movies center around the life of one main character, Anakin Skywalker. Episode three tells the story of the demise of Anakin Skywalker. Anakin is one of the greatest heroes of the Jedi order but he allows his personal desires and wants to cloud his decisions. Slowly he begins ...read more
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