Sermon Central
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Memorial Day 2020
Contributed by Damien Saylor on Jun 9, 2020 (message contributor)
Summary: Many are alive, many are free, because of the people who are willing to risk, & even lay down, their lives for others.
Sermon Memorial Day 2020
- Tomorrow we celebrate Memorial Day. It is a day that we look back at all that have
fallen in past wars.
- It’s seems our war with Iraq has become as distant as our civil war. As we are
currently fighting such a war as this virus today.
- So many have died on the frontlines, & yet it still doesn’t take away from what
this day stands for.
- Many are alive, many are free, because of the people who are willing to risk, &
even lay down, their lives for others.
- Now think of our faith.
Q- How many lives have been lost for the sake of the gospel?
- Today, I want to give yo an example.
- John The revelator was captured in Ephesus, & was to be martyred for his faith.
Q- Do you know how he was to be martyred?
- He was thrown into a boiling basin of oil!
- He survived being boiled!!!
- He later was sentenced to the island of Patmos. Probably to work as a slave
in the mines.
Q- Why do you think he was miraculously spared?
- God had a vision for His beloved disciple.
- In Revelation 1:18-19 sums up God’s Word for John.
18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;
- The message that John was given, was one that confirmed the Joy of our salvation,
but it also confirmed the terrible truth that judgement must come upon mankind.
- John was the vessel God used to awaken us to this great truth.
- Think of the lives that are changed by the people who are willing to set
themselves aside for another.
Q- Do you think John ever thought he would be thrown into a basin of boiling oil, much
less survive it?
- I know that sounds contrary to us now, but this was common in John’s time.
- Think of what is happening today.
- A Church was burned to the ground, because they violated the stay at home
order.
- I disagree with violating the order, for the sake of keeping everyone safe.
Q- Here’s the question though. Because 40 of these people assembled for
church study, & Easter, you burn their church down?
- The arsonist also graffitied on the parking lot, “bet you stay home now
you hypokrites”
Q- If There’s something going against our faith, could we stand up against it?
Q- Can we be that type of person, like John was?
- Before we pray, let’s think of the fallen soldiers.
Q- How many of them do you think were the die hard Mavericks?
Q- Now, How many of them took a bullet, or blast, because they saw it was going to
hurt someone else?
- We may see ourselves as the shy, sheepish, people, but in the day God has
called to use us. Well, He will use us.
Prayer
- A soldier enlists, many times, because he sees the greater good he can do.
- Listen as Jesus calls out the roll, & the requirements to serve.
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
Q- Did you catch the last verse, Love one another?
- This is what drove the Apostles to die for others, Listen.
- John was boiled!
- Paul, James, & John the Baptist were beheaded!
- Matthew was killed by a sword wound!
- James, Jesus’ brother, (not an apostle) was thrown from the southeast pinnacle of
the temple. That’s over a hundred feet! He survived & was beaten to death with
clubs!
- James The Son of Zebedee, put to death by king Agrippa I.
- Jude was martyred in Armenia.
- Bartholomew (Nathanael) was flayed to death with a whip.
- Peter was crucified upside down.
- Andrew was crucified on an X shaped Cross
