Daniel: The Grace to Say No!
Dr. Miles Seaborn
Daniel 6:4
"But they could find none occasion nor fault, forasmuch as he was faithful."
INTRO. For many years, the story goes, the pastor delivered his sermons seek by week for exactly 20 minutes. He wore no watch and there was no clock in the auditorium. Yet his delivery required precisely 20 minutes, no more, no less.
At last the inevitable happened. One Sunday, the 20 minutes came and went and the pastor continued preaching. Thirty minutes, forty minutes elapsed and on he went. Eventually, after more than one hour, the pastor closed his message which had been - the conclusion which had been prompted by the scowls and yawns from his congregation.
On the way home, his wife asked, "How on earth did you happen to preach for more than an hour today?" Until then he had never even told her the secret to his 20- minute sermons. He decided it was time to do it.
"As I walk to the pulpit each Sunday, " he said, "I slip my hand in my pocket for a mint which I put in my mouth as I begin to preach. The mints dissolve in exactly twenty minutes. When it is dissolved I always conclude the sermon."
"And what happened today?" his wife prodded.
"Today?" the preacher retorted. "I got hold of a button."
Someone observed that the bishop's answer to the young preacher's question about what to preach is still appropriate. "Preach about God and about 20 minutes."
My friend Luther Joe Johnson, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Va., has added, "the sermon need not be eternal to be immortal."
Where on this earth and in what Christian conscience do we find the grace to say no. Many of the troubles and the sorrows found in our lives today and in this world in which we live are due to someone's inability to say no. No one who has examined the Lord Jesus Christ and trusted him can ever be accused of following a negative religion. But still, just as the ...
Dr. Miles Seaborn
Daniel 6:4
"But they could find none occasion nor fault, forasmuch as he was faithful."
INTRO. For many years, the story goes, the pastor delivered his sermons seek by week for exactly 20 minutes. He wore no watch and there was no clock in the auditorium. Yet his delivery required precisely 20 minutes, no more, no less.
At last the inevitable happened. One Sunday, the 20 minutes came and went and the pastor continued preaching. Thirty minutes, forty minutes elapsed and on he went. Eventually, after more than one hour, the pastor closed his message which had been - the conclusion which had been prompted by the scowls and yawns from his congregation.
On the way home, his wife asked, "How on earth did you happen to preach for more than an hour today?" Until then he had never even told her the secret to his 20- minute sermons. He decided it was time to do it.
"As I walk to the pulpit each Sunday, " he said, "I slip my hand in my pocket for a mint which I put in my mouth as I begin to preach. The mints dissolve in exactly twenty minutes. When it is dissolved I always conclude the sermon."
"And what happened today?" his wife prodded.
"Today?" the preacher retorted. "I got hold of a button."
Someone observed that the bishop's answer to the young preacher's question about what to preach is still appropriate. "Preach about God and about 20 minutes."
My friend Luther Joe Johnson, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Va., has added, "the sermon need not be eternal to be immortal."
Where on this earth and in what Christian conscience do we find the grace to say no. Many of the troubles and the sorrows found in our lives today and in this world in which we live are due to someone's inability to say no. No one who has examined the Lord Jesus Christ and trusted him can ever be accused of following a negative religion. But still, just as the ...
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