Category Archives: Sermons

Sermons

Getting Sermons “From God”

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If you’ve ever listened to a preacher claim that after hours of fruitless sermon preparation he was supernaturally given three alliterated points and an amusing story about a chinchilla during the final verse of the last hymn before the message…you might have been a fundamentalist.

Although fundamentalists will all claim that the the completion of the Bible ended direct revelation from God, they don’t bat an eye at a pastor who claims that God has divinely inspired his choice of text, interpretation of said text, and all associated illustrations, pontifications, magnifications, and ululations. Evidently, direct revelation isn’t as over as all that.

The job of any preacher undoubtedly to proclaim “thus saith the Lord.”  A preacher who claims to be a cessationist while proclaiming “thus saith the Lord to me right before I got up here this morning” is worth a second glance.  And that’s all the Lord has laid on my heart to say on the matter.

Sermons

Illustration: Detecting Counterfeits

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It’s time now for another widely used illustration from the halls of fundamentalism…

When an aspiring agent of the U.S. Treasury is going to learn how to detect counterfeit money, how do you imagine that they are taught to tell the fake stuff from the real stuff? Do they look at counterfeit bills? Do they learn about color-shifting  inks, watermarks, ultraviolet glows, and fiber quality? Certainly not! Their training consists of one thing and one thing only: endless hours of touching, ogling, and sniffing real money. For if a person knows what the genuine article looks like then they’ll never accept a counterfeit.

With this story the fundamentalist proves once and for all that it’s not necessary to ever study another point of view other than the one held by other like-minded fundamentalists. Indeed studying other religions, sects, or factions could be extremely dangerous and cause evil questioning. Only the very strongest fundies may risk exposing themselves to such ideas and then only for purposes of maligning, mockery, and misquotation.

If your beliefs cannot hold their own in the vast arena of ideas, are they really worth having? Thankfully for fundamentalists, they’ll never have to find out. They’ll be safely hiding from the world, sniffing their money.

education, Preachers, Sermons

Just Making Stuff Up: PCC Style

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campuschurch

A little background: The Campus Church (Pensacola Christian College’s church that most staff and students are required to attend) recently lost its third pastor in five years leaving long-time resident professor and vice-president Dr. Joel Mullenix to fill the pulpit.

In the most recent telecast of Sunday’s morning service, Dr. Mullenix dispensed such a classic example of all that’s wrong with fundamentalist preaching that I could not help but put it here. Without further ado, I give you the SFL summary of “Pictures of Laodicea from Mount Sinai” broadcast December 6th.

After a brief intro explaining that the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 are representative of seven church ages and that we are now in the last age of Laodecia, the good doctor dives right into the drawing seven parallels between Mt. Sinai and our current church age. They are as follows:

1. The children of Israel waited 40 days and nights for Moses to return. This is just like the current church waiting for Jesus to return in the Rapture. And if we really believed that he was coming back and rapturing us all we’d live a lot differently than we do.

2. Aaron didn’t stand for the truth at Sinai. Neither to Neo-evangelicals, Neo-orthdox folks, or basically anybody else with Neo in their name. Mark and avoid them.

3. The Children of Israel used music that sounded like the sounds of war. THIS IS JUST LIKE ROCK MUSIC IN THE CHURCH! (No, I’m not kidding, listen to it for yourself).

4. Israel was naked just like the church in Laodeciea. Which reminds us that people no longer dress up and wear their best clothes for church. Because that’s exactly like being naked. Right.

5. Idolatry made the people claim they were worshiping God while doing the world’s work. Just like people today who live and worship like the world does and call it God’s work.

6. God was angry at Israel and wanted to destroy them. LOOK AT ALL THE HURRICANES, NATURAL DISASTERS, DISEASES, AND PLAGUES THAT HAVE NEVER, EVER HAPPENED BEFORE EVER EVER EVER. IT’S ALL BECAUSE WE’VE ALL GONE LIBERAL IN OUR CHURCHES. God is obviously angry at us too. Turn or Burn.

7. God moves away from the people just like Jesus is found outside the church in Revelation 3. Evidently he’s standing out there because he doesn’t like the music inside. Oh, and doctrine too. And other stuff.

Conclusion: Who is on the Lord’s side? Are you on the Lord’s side? Well are you? Then please stand to your feet. No, really. Stand up. Are you standing yet?

I for one am not only standing, I’m saluting too. One wonders what preacher boys learn in Homiletics classes at PCC other than how to properly use hairspray. I’d also like to take this opportunity to invite those who claim that SFL only covers the lunatic fringe of fundamentalism to explain to me how this sermon from a mainline fundy organization fits into that theory.

Sermons

Illustration: Black Fire

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green-fire-black-flamesIf you believe that the hottest fire burns pitch black…you might be a fundamentalist. Here we have one of the classic examples of psuedo-scientific babble providing the perfect ‘proof’ for a point that needs no proving. The illustration transpires thuswise…

The fundamentalist preacher while bellowing out his message on hell will inform us that hell is both a place of fire and a place of darkness. But how can there be both darkness and fire??? The preacher then breathlessly reveals that unnamed “scientists” have discovered that the hottest flames burn PITCH BLACK! Here is scientific proof that not only will hell be dark but it will contain the hottest fire imaginable! What an amazing thing.

Of course people like physical chemist Vince Calder have never actually heard of black flame. Invisible flame is theoretically possible but if flame is burning invisibly it means it’s actually on the lowest end of the heat spectrum not the highest.

Fundamentalists, however, know better than to trust those Berkley-educated academic types — they’re probably just lying to protect their own evolutionary agenda.

Sermons

Standing For The Reading Of The Text

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neh85

Nitpick warning: This post is going to be a nitpick about something that really doesn’t matter. It seriously doesn’t matter even a little bit. Probably even less than that. If you’re looking for a weighty discussion about deep things…what on earth are you doing here anyway??

Why do some fundy pastors have people stand for the text out of “respect for the word of God” (often citing Nehemiah in the process) but then let people sit for the rest of the Scripture passages?

If it’s necessary to stand for the text to avoid any disrespect, is it then allowed to disrespect verses that aren’t the text?

Of course, some fundamentalist pastors cleverly avoid this problem altogether by never reading any other Scripture during the sermon.

This has been a nitpicky post about something that really doesn’t matter. If you attempt to build a theological case about why it does matter, I will in all likelihood inform you that you really shouldn’t be on the Internet and instead should be hanging out in some place where everything is taken very, very seriously.