Sermon Quotes

“My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative evolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice.

[From the will of GBS]”
― George Bernard Shaw

“When you are posessed by evil spirits, it is crafty manipulations that you follow; but when you are posessed by the Holy Spirit of God, it is wise discretions you pursue!”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“I had to wonder if the Lord above had flashed a heavenly spotlight over my head and whispered, "Preach this sermon just for her. She's not going to get the message otherwise.”
― Janice Thompson, Fools Rush In

“Being the light of the world is about being a broken, exploding, scarred star and shining a light of hope and inspiration to everyone around you.”
― Ricky Maye, Barefoot Christianity

“Conversion must result in a change of attitude and values. Otherwise, it is no conversion. If you say, “I now love Jesus, but I still hate certain people,” you do not really love Jesus.”
― David A. Fiensy, The Journey: Spiritual Growth in Galatians and Philippians

“Suffering comes to us as an interrogator. It asks, “Who are you?”
― David A. Fiensy, The Journey: Spiritual Growth in Galatians and Philippians

“The time has come, it seems to me, when Christian men and women all over the world, should begin to look this evil (race prejudice) squarely in the face, and to set themselves earnestly to combat it, to deal with it as Christian men and women ought to deal with it; as Jesus Christ would have it dealt with.”
― Francis Grimke

“Grace," he said suddenly. "On Sunday I'll talk about the quality of grace, which I suppose is a gift of a kind---of goodness and mercy undeserved, and unexpected."
"That'll do for your sermon," she said. "That's quite enough. Let them go home early and walk in the forest, and find God there.”
― Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent

“Race prejudice is an evil that the church of God ought to grapple with. It ought not to sit quietly down in the midst of it, and do nothing. Its very silence, its lack of effort, its non-interference with, to put it in its mildest form, would be misinterpreted, would be construed as approving of it, or, at least, as not disapproving of it. The church of God can do something.”
― Francis Grimke

“No one is climbing the spiritual ladder. We don't continually improve until we are so spiritual we no longer need God. We die and are made new, but that's different from spiritual self-improvement.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

“Always be prepared. Preparation with the anointing of the Holy Spirit secures success. Not being prepared and not having the anointing of the Holy Spirit, spells utter disaster”
― Pr. Paddick Van Zyl

“They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderer.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Of all the sermons that I heard at church growing up, I can’t remember a single message that was preached in any of them. But I can certainly remember the people who preached them.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The reverend spoke a block of memorized text, nodding his head, agreeing with himself as he went.”
― Catherine Lacey, Pew

“The sermon of your life in tough times ministers to people more powerfully than the most eloquent speaker.”
― Bill Bright

“A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“...Bana söylediklerine göre, bazı Kiliseler, az eğitim görmüş bütün papazlarına her hafta bir vaaz örneği yolluyorlarmış; eh, eğer doğanın bilinen yasaları bu papazlar için de geçerliyse, bunların, kendilerini vaaz kaleme alma derdinden kurtaran bu vaaz örneği için müteşekkir kaldıklarına hiç kuşku yoktur. Bu model vaaz, pek tabii, günün en can alıcı konularına eğilmekte ve bir ucundan öteki ucuna kadar bütün ülkede belirli bir yığın heyecanı yaratmayı hedef tutmaktadır...”
― Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

“La gente sencilla y sincera rara vez hablan de su devoción. En lugar de expresarla con palabras, la muestra con sus actos, que influyen en los demás más que una homilía o un sermón.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Mujercitas

“There are many who occasionally attend church and who are trying experimentally to be Christians, yet are unable to identify well or define accurately the central truths of Christian teaching. The knowledge they have of the Christian tradition may have come chiefly through hymns. Their strong and sincere feelings are not matched with serious biblical or historical reflection on those feelings. Religious feelings are, indeed, crucial to the deeper learning of Christian truth, but they easily become superficial and narcissistic if the mind of Christ is not a mentor to natural religious impulse. The loss of center in Christian education is arguably due to a serious default of pastoral leadership; when the teaching elder does not teach, the effect is felt throughout the entire Christian congregation.”
― Thomas C. Oden, Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry

“Practicing what you preach is the world’s most eloquent sermon.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“Some kind of philosophy undergirds every movie, commercial, lecture, or book. Everything we take into our minds is trying to teach us something about how we should think the world is. (Life Hacks, p.83)”
― Jon Morrison, Life Hacks: Nine Ideas That Will Change How You Do Everything

“The same sermon can be preached to the same audience, many times over, in the same manner, and the Holy Spirit can change it to sound totally different, as He moves and wills.”
― Pr. Paddick Van Zyl

“He mostly preached in the evening, when the college
church was already shrouded in shadow. And he chose subjects that filled the imagination with salutary fear—sin, Hell, death—painting pictures that were sometimes cajoling, more often harrowing, evoking the effects of the fire on the damned. The little group of pupils listened, apprehensive, sometimes terrified, a distraught flock whose black shepherd is gesticulating towards distant flames.”
― Georges Rodenbach, Hans Cadzand's Vocation & Other Stories

“Mighty men of science and mighty deeds. A Newton who binds the universe together in uniform law; Lagrange, Laplace, Leibnitz with their wondrous mathematical harmonies; Coulomb measuring our electricity... Faraday, Ohm, Ampère, Joule, Maxwell, Hertz, Röntgen; and in another branch of science, Cavendish, Davy, Dalton, Dewar; and in another, Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur, Lister, Sir Ronald Ross. All these and many others, and some whose names have no memorial, form a great host of heroes, an army of soldiers – fit companions of those of whom the poets have sung... There is the great Newton at the head of this list comparing himself to a child playing on the seashore gathering pebbles, whilst he could see with prophetic vision the immense ocean of truth yet unexplored before him...”
― Frederick William Sanderson

“I was drunk at the pulpit, I knew it was wrong.
And I left in mid-sermon, tempted by a bar-house song.
The pews they creaked and shifted as they turned to watch me leave,
And I pulled a little bottle from the pocket in my sleeve.”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“No trouble comes to us without divine permission. All the dogs of affliction are muzzled until God sets them free. Nay, against none of the seed of Israel can a dog move its tongue unless God permits. Troubles do not spring out of the ground like weeds that grow anyhow, but they grow as plants set in the garden. God appoints the weight and number of all our adversities. If He declares the number ten they cannot be eleven. If He wills that we bear a certain weight, no one can add half an ounce more. Since every trial comes from God, afflictions are no evidence that you are out of God's way.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“For those of you who still believe two plus two equals four, don't be afraid to walk out that door.'
-Rev. Matthias G. Witherspoon”
― Philip Wyeth, Reparations Maze

“I have long thought that sermons had a center that if you hit it would move anyone or confront them with a decision. I no longer believe that.”
― Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“The Liturgy is not just a sermon. It is not something to be listened to or watched. The Liturgy never grows old. Its cup does not go dry. No one can say he has got to know it or got used to it because he has understood it once or once been carried away by the attraction of it. The faithful are not like spectators or an audience following something that makes a greater or lesser emotional impression on them. The faithful partake in the Divine Liturgy. The mystery is celebrated in each of the faithful, in the whole of the liturgical community.
We do not see Christ externally, we meet Him within us.
Christ takes shape in us. The faithful become Christs by grace.
What happens is a miraculous interpenetration by grace and an identification without confusion. The whole man, in body and in spirit, enters the unalloyed world of the uncreated grace of the Trinity. And at the same time he receives into himself Christ, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The whole of God is offered to man,
"He makes His home with
him" (John 14:23); and the whole man is offered to God:
"let us commend ourselves and each other and all our life unto Christ our God." "God united with and known to gods.”
― Archimandrite Vasileios, Hymn of Entry: Liturgy and Life in the Orthodox Church

“Joy requires at least two conditions: submission and service. If yee abide, submission means staying put when it might seem smart to quit. It means having done all to stand when there is only a toehold. It means believing God when it appears far wiser to believe everybody else. It means defying one's feelings and fears and saying triumphantly, 'Thy will be done.'

Joy comes through service. Most Christians are activists--they get caught up in some kind of church work. But not all of it is good. Not all of it is essential. Even missionaries find themselves tangled in lesser things than winning the lost. Unprayerful souls soon get diverted from the supreme task he appointed for them. This is why submission is also necessary.


Let me summarize it this way: The way to enjoy indestructible peace and joy is to determine 1.) to do whatever God commands, however difficult. 2.) to endure whatever God appoints, however severe. 3.) to obtain whatever God promises, however seemingly unobtainable. 4.) to die daily, however costly the crucifixion. 5.) to love my enemies, however misunderstood in this. 6.) to pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks. This will give one a healthy soul, and a conscience void of offense before God and man.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Revival God's Way