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1. Is everyone's call to preach the same?
2. Father's Day Sermon on "Father’s Image of God" (at bottom of ezine)
3. New sermons, outlines, and illustrations (Some great poems too!)!
4. You could have your own sermon web page on Preachology.com!!

Hello,

Mark Hollingsworth here. I hope you had a great Mother's Day and Memorial Day!

Continuing on the thought of being "Called to Preach." So I'm continuing my questions...Is everyone's call to preach the same?

From John Henry Jowett: Now no man can define or describe for another man the likeness and fashion of the divine vocation. No man's circumstances are exactly commensurate with another's, and the nature of our circumstances gives distinctiveness and originality to our call. Moreover, the Lord honours our individuality in the very uniqueness of the call He addresses to us. The singularity of our circumstances, and the awful singularity of our souls provide the medium through which we hear the voice of the Lord. How strangely varied are the "settings" through which the divine voice determines the vocations of men, as they are recorded in the Scriptures! Here is Amos, a poor herdman, brooding deeply and solitarily, amid the thin pastures of Tekoa. And rumours come his way of dark doings in the high places of the land. Wealth is breeding prodigality. Luxury is breeding callousness. Injustice is rampant, and " truth is fallen in the streets." And as the poor herdman mused "the fire burned." On those lone wastes he heard a mysterious call and he saw a beckoning hand! For him there was no alternative road. "The Lord took me as I followed the flock, and said, Go, prophesy!”

I think he is right again! What do you think? More on the subject next time!!

2 Tim. 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

Happy Father's Day!!
...from the Hollingsworth Family.

YOU are a blessing to me and the ministry!

2 Tim. 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears...

There are new sermons and some great poems on my website...take a look!

Keep praying for us as we minister at the Prison to the prisoners and the officers and pray as Janey and I minister at the church as well.

I am praying for you and your ministry and enjoy hearing from you with your prayer requests.

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Preachology Home Page

Father’s Image of God

(A Father's Day Sermon!)

John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

Research has established that parents can have a significant impact on the religious beliefs and practices of their children. In one recent study it was found that fathers who frequently attend church (over three times per month), discuss religion at home, and are committed to their religion have sons who follow the same pattern concerning religious values and behavior. Interestingly, fathers who did not do these three things had an inconsistent pattern of influence over their son's religious responses. When God created mankind they began to grow further from the Lord. At one point it says they did every sin all the time. It was so bad that the Lord was grieved that he had made man. He decided to destroy the world by a flood. There was only one upright man, one man still to be found in God?s image. His name was Noah, and the Lord decided to spare Noah and his family. For 120 years Noah built on this huge boat, three stories high, and longer than a football field. Genesis 6 says that Noah walked with the Lord. The NT says that Noah was saved by his faith in God.

Noah * Found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Gen 6:7) * Upright man Gen. 6:9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. * Walked with the Lord * Did everything God commanded Gen 6:22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him. * Saved by faith. Heb 11:7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. * Noah: He has 120 years of preaching experience, but no converts. * When Noah was saved he took 7 other people with him on the ark

A beautiful incident occurred in our meetings on Fifth Avenue, New York, that is full of tender memories. I spoke a few minutes to the large Sabbath School before preaching in the morning, and found a very great religious interest through the whole school. All seemed bathed in tears. Among those who wept freely was a bright boy about seven years old, the son of a Broadway silk merchant. This boy was very angry at himself for weeping, and angry at me for being the cause of his weeping.

When the morning services commenced, he took a seat with his father in the pew, and as soon as I commenced reading the Scriptures, he put his fingers in his ears, and refused to remove them for some time. His father asked him why he did so.

"Because, papa, he made us all cry in Sunday School. I don't want to cry."

After a while he looked about, and found the congregation were not weeping, so he ventured to take his fingers out of his ears. Just at that moment I was reading from the seventh of Revelation the account of the angel putting a seal upon the foreheads of all those that wept over the sins of the people. I paused for an instant while reading this, and asked all in the church if they would be willing, then and there, before leaving their seats, to be sealed for heaven. And putting my finger on my forehead, I asked again:

"Would each one of you be willing to go out of this house with a plain, visible seal on your forehead, so that any one looking upon your forehead, would say 'There is a Christian. See the seal.' Would any of you want to hide your face? Do you ever go where you would not go if you had a plain, visible seal on your forehead?"

The boy was so interested with this thought that he whispered to his father:

"What is a Christian, papa?"

The father said:

"I suppose, Charley, it is one that loves and serves the Lord."

Charley replied:

"Why are you not a Christian, papa? I don't see any seal on your forehead."

The father bowed his head, and was deeply moved by Charley's inquiry, for he knew he ought to be a Christian. He declared, afterward, that he thought he could hardly have felt worse if a pistol had been pulled off on him. The effect was so great upon him that he immediately resolved to become a Christian, but not in a protracted meeting. He would wait until Mr. Earle had gone.

That Sunday afternoon he took his usual ride in Central Park, but almost every man he met, he was looking up under his hat for that seal on his forehead.

That evening he came to church so deeply convicted of his lost condition that, as soon as an opportunity was offered, he left his pew, and kneeled in front of the desk for prayer. The pastor kneeled with him, and before he rose from his knees he gave himself to Christ, and soon became an active member of that church, and, I trust, is "sealed for the courts above." -- A. B. Earle, From: "Incidents Used ... In His Meetings," published in 1888

Let me ask all who read this incident, the question Charley asked his father, "Why are you not a Christian?" Is there a seal on your forehead? If not, will you not ask the angel to seal you at once for your heavenly home? "Having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his."

David * Came from ranks - shepherd lad * Best saint; worst sinner * Became soldier and statesman * Success at job * Failed as father

1. Oldest son raped half-sister 2. Absalom took revenge and then was a traitor 3. David repented but consequences endured-Salvation for self but not son

That is a tragedy that has happened times without number. Years ago I had a neighbor who was the father of a large family. He was a drinking man, though not a drunkard. He was friendly toward religion, though he seldom went to church. But when he was between fifty and sixty years of age, he was soundly and happily converted. How hard he tried to atone for his wasted years! How eager he was to reach his children, all of whom had now grown to manhood and womanhood! I have seen him stand up in the little village church to read a bit, only to burst into tears~ But his children were not softened by these tears-they were only shamed by them. They went with him into the far country, but the poor broken father came back alone. May God save us from such a tragedy! That he may do so, let us as parents in the fear of God take the responsibility for the welfare of our children upon ourselves.

A few years ago, at one of our state fairs, a crowd was gathered about a prize hog. That hog was about all that a hog ought to be. His hair was parted in the middle and nicely combed. His hoofs were manicured in such a fashion as to have roused the envy of a movie star. Everybody who saw that hog realized that the man who raised him knew his business. Now, the boy who was set to look after this hog seemed to have been chosen as a foil to further emphasize his perfection. He was a little wizen-faced, hollow-chested, hatchet heeled fellow who seemed bent upon burning up all the cigarettes in the world, and that as quickly as possible. He would not have walked a mile, I dare say, for his favorite brand, for he did not seem to have strength enough. He had too evidently found his unlucky strike. But the most startling fact about the whole situation was this: The father of the boy and the owner of the hog was the same man. In the hog business this father was a huge success. In the boy business he was an utter failure.

The railroad magnate was dying. His son stood by his bedside. The dying man said, "Son, take my hand." This he did, and his father said, "Son, you are holding the hand of the man who has made the greatest failure of any man in all the world." The son replied by saying, "Father, why do you thus speak? You are president of a railroad. You are worth millions of dollars. Your word is as good as your bond. You number your friends by the thousands." Then he replied, "I have lived for time and not for eternity. I have made no preparation for the next world. I must leave all I have. It is all dark and cold." And then he quickly passed into eternity. Yes, he was a poor man. "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" William Moses Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations

John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?

A touching story is told of the child of a French painter. The little girl lost her sight in infancy, and her blindness was supposed to be incurable. A famous oculist in Paris, however, performed an operation on her eyes and restored her sight. Her mother had long been dead, and her father had been her only friend and companion. When she was told that her blindness could be cured, her one thought was that she could see him; and when the cure was complete, and the bandages were removed, she ran to him, and, trembling, pored over his features, shutting her eyes now and then, and passing her fingers over his face, as if to make sure that it was he.

Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Many years ago there lived an elderly couple named Tom and Ella. It happened neither one of them had ever seen a mirror. One day Tom stumbled on to one in an old trunk that he had inherited from his aunt. Looking at the mirror he thought the image was a picture of his long dead father since the image so resembled him. Day after day Tom would return to the barn and lift to his gaze the likeness of his father. His wife, Ella, became suspicious of his long absences and made a search of the barn. When she found the mirror she held it before her face and saw what she thought was a picture of the homeliest old woman she had ever seen. That night she confronted her husband and said, "Tom, while you were at work I opened the trunk and found that picture you've been looking at in secret. I've never seen such a homely old woman in my life! If you're going to waste your time looking at a picture like that then I'm through with you!" Tom insisted that he was looking at a picture of his dead father and not a picture of some old woman. The argument was finally settled when they got the mirror and looked at it together.

He was made in the image of God,' made a little lower than the angels, and in Christ, given the power to become greater than the angels.

Shortly before the turn of the century, a young man from Ohio homesteaded in the wilderness of the Dakotas. He built himself a sod house, and the Indians were his only neighbors. In desperation for companionship, he wrote a lonely hearts organization requesting correspondence with some young lady. Down in the hills of southern Missouri, a newspaper man saw the plea, and as a joke, answered it in the name of his cousin. Without her knowing it, he carried on correspondence with the lonely man in the Dakotas. When the young lady found out about it, she was embarrassed and enraged. She finally consented to read the letters, and as the homesteader seemed to be a man of integrity, she then took up the correspondence. After some time, she received a letter announcing that he was coming to see her. One day, the man who had simply been a name, a phantom figure, arrived and introduced himself. The young people fell in love and returned to the sod house together. They had a long and happy marriage. Now, young people, let me insert here, this is not the recommended method for carrying on a courtship. . . but it does happen on occasion.

Before Christ came into the world, God was real enough but seemed so distant, so intangible, and ill-defined. In Jesus, God stepped off the train, so to speak, and walked down main street for every eye to see and for every person to know. Jesus came saying, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (Jn. 14:9). When Paul said that Jesus was the image of the invisible God, he did not mean that Jesus was LIKE God. He meant that Jesus WAS God.

In San Antonio, there were identical twins whose houses were side by side. Shortly after they were married, one of the brothers took his wife to a beach resort for a brief vacation. When they returned, the other brother and his wife went to the same resort. The landlady at the resort was very bewildered and upset. Finally, she called the wife aside and confidentially told her that her husband had been there the week before with another woman. You can see how that would cause some confusion can't you? But, Christ was IDENTICAL with God NOT ONLY in the sense of SIMILARITY but also in SAMENESS. Christ and God are not twin beings, they are one and the same. In Christ dwelt all "fullness" vs. 19. In other words, nothing of God was missing in Christ.

And in spite of his hopelessness in his cry, “0 my son Absalom, 0 my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee I?”

One day in Texas a farmer was in the field plowing cotton. With him were his two small boys. He looked up from his task to see a large dog coming toward them. This dog was snapping at the cotton stalks, and the farmer saw that he was mad. At once he put himself between his boys and the dog. He told them to run for refuge to a nearby cotton bin, while he kept the dog away. The boys made good their escape. But not so the father. He was forced to fight the dog, and that with no weapon but his pocket knife. As a result he was bitten from his face to his feet. Medical science could do nothing for him. But during his lucid intervals, as death crept upon him, he would look into the face of his wife with a smile and say, “Don’t you worry about me. I saved our boys.” And he went out to meet God unafraid. I think he could have done so, even if the boys had died with him, seeing that he did his best. But to lose when we might have done better, that is “sorrow’s crown of sorrow.” And that is the pathetic plight of David. He has lost his son…lost him hopelessly, and lost him needlessly.