Does God Give You Sermons?

Once, I was asked if the Holy Spirit really gave you a sermon to preach. I had to answer yes, but you must listen and do what the Spirit leads you to do. Many weeks I stood behind the pulpit with a prepared sermon that I was not happy with. I also preached many sermons that I felt were guided by the Holy Spirit. On one particular Monday morning I began to prepare a sermon for the next Sunday but nothing would come to my mind. I realized that I needed to pray for God to lead me in finding a message that was appropriate or needed by the congregation that would be present. I prayed two or three times and nothing would come. Maybe, I needed to study more so I studied hard by reading the Bible and searching it for a sermon but nothing happened. Tuesday came and I repeated what I did on Monday and nothing happened. I had no ideas, no inspiration, and no sermon. Wednesday morning came and I got up early to pray and study but again nothing in the way of a sermon idea would enter my mind.


While at work on Wednesday as we talked about the Lord something came to my mind. It was something that I saw when I was twelve years old. There was a play that was performed at our church called I Searched All Over Heaven For You. This play was interesting and somewhat scary for a twelve year old boy. The people from another church that performed in this play were very convincing. They used lattice boards that they painted white as the pearly gates to Heaven. The women were dressed in white robes and stood in the rear as a choir but were pretending to be angels. A large stand was there in the middle of the stage and on it was a large open book. Later we realized it was representing the Lamb's Book of Life. The man in front of the open book was representing Jesus Christ and the guy in the red suit with a pointed tail and what looked like a pitch fork represented Satan. Anyway it was nice thinking about this play but I can't do anything with this for a sermon. No verse of Scripture came to mind and there is no way I could act it out alone so I just need to forget it.


I worked all day on Thursday and I must have asked God to lead me to a sermon a thousand times but it didn't seem to matter because I had nothing to preach about. I got out my Bible and read and read and read. After many chapters I gave up and retired to bed. Friday and Saturday were the same except I had to drive 180 miles to the church on Saturday. While I was driving to the little town where the church was, I again thought about that play. I remembered how a man came down the middle aisle of the church and approached Jesus Christ. I remember how Jesus Christ looked up his name in that big book and looked down at the man and said, enter ye into the Kingdom of God thy good and faithful servant. The man walked onto the stage that represented Heaven and was welcomed by everyone and the angels were rejoicing. Another man came down the same aisle with a wad of money in his hand. He appeared to be cocky and sure about his journey so he told Jesus to open the gate he was here and ready to come in. Jesus opened his book and told the man I never knew you, depart from me forever more. Satan walked up the aisle and talked briefly to the man and took his money and the man walked back down the aisle boasting that he was glad someone understood his position in life. Later I believe we heard this same man scream form the back of the church. I can't make a sermon out of this so as I reached the destination that night and went to bed after reading many more chapters, but still no sermon.


Sunday Morning was here in a flash as it seemed. I jumped out of bed and got ready and sat down to read my Bible and finally get this sermon taken care of. Nothing would jump out as a subject for me to talk about. It was like my mind was frozen and nothing would sink into it. Sunday School began at 10 am so I went out to teach my lesson to the young mans class. I knew that if nothing else came to me that maybe I could use that lesson as a base for my sermon. For the next hour I talked to those boys and we had a lesson but nothing and I mean nothing would come to my mind for a sermon. We started the Worship Service at 11 o'clock so I took my seat behind the pulpit and still I searched through the Bible for a sermon. We sang and took up offerings and welcomed everyone and sang some more. After the special singing I asked for more singing but no one knew it was because I had no sermon. Do I just get up and announce that I did not have a sermon? Do I dismiss everyone and apologize and explain that God did not give me a sermon to preach to them on that particular Sunday? The singing was over now and it was my turn.


I stood up and grabbed the microphone from the holder and walked to the front of the pulpit. I did not feel right standing behind the pulpit especially because I did not have a sermon. I told them that I had no sermon but I did want to talk to them about a play I saw when I was twelve years old. I told them about the angels and Jesus and the big open book. I told them about the lattice work that represented the pearly gates. I told them about the two men that walked the aisle and how one made it to heaven and how Satan had carried off the other guy. I went on to tell them about other people that came down to see Jesus and how some made it to heaven and how some did not. I explained how the angels came out in the audience and started taking people to heaven. My grandmother was taken and my mother. A great aunt and another aunt was taken to heaven. They came to our aisle and we were scared to death that they would choose us but they did not. They chose my cousin who to this day will not let us forget that he was chosen and he made it to heaven and we did not. I remember that what impressed me the most was that some people made it to heaven and some did not. I remember looking up on the stage or in to heaven and all the people that made it were crying tears of joy and they were hugging each other and happy. I was not with them and I was not as happy. Some people made it and some people did not. I told my congregation to let me show you what I mean. I laid down the microphone and walked to one of my deacons and told him to get up and follow me. He did and I took him to our stage and asked him to walk up and I said welcome ye into the kingdom of heaven thy good and faithful servant. I repeated this with other people some seven or eight of them. I pick the microphone back up and again I repeated that some people made it to heaven and some did not.


What happened next was amazing. I closed the service by asking the congregation that if anyone needed prayer or anyone wanted to make a profession of faith or anyone wishing to join the church could come to the front of the church and we could have prayer. A line formed in front of me that seemed to reach the back of the church. I looked back into heaven or actually on the stage and all the people were crying and hugging each other just like I had seen in the play at twelve years old. That Sunday Morning we had many people ask for prayer and three made professions of faith and three rededicated their lives to the Lord and ten people joined the church. Ten people had not joined this church in the past ten years. It had been years since God had moved in this congregation in this matter. It turns out that this was the most successful Sunday I ever saw at this church. After the service the deacons and many members commented they they had never seen anything like that Sunday service. I do not tell you this to toot my horn because remember I did nothing but tell a story about something I saw twenty-five years earlier. I can take no credit for what happened because I neither wrote this play or performed it. I merely told a story and God could have used anyone to do that. However, if anyone were to ask me if God gives you sermons I would say yes, if you shut up and listen.

Amazing Oil

What makes us do things? I mean, what makes us do things that we would never think of doing but all of the sudden we must do? Could it be that God moves us to do things? After my experience I would have to say I think God does lead us to do certain things.

I was lucky to have a special Grandfather that was the founder and pastor of the church that I grew up as a member. Being a member as well as the grandson of the pastor would give you special privileges and free use of the church when no one was around. I could go into the church and play the piano or organ and sing using the microphone and even preach a sermon if I wanted to. Often, I would be accompanied by a friend or family member. We could rearrange the furniture and play all kinds of games that we created. I would be willing to say that we knew where everything was in that Church. It is a good thing it was a Baptist church and no alcohol was available or we would have found it. We fooled around with everything in that church except the little bottle of oil that was under the pulpit. This bottle of oil was kept under the pulpit for use when Grandpa would use it for an anointing prayer. This type of prayer was reserved for people that were really sick. Grandpa would open this little bottle of oil and would put some on his hand and would reach out to anyone that was helping him pray and touch their hand with oil. They would then lay their hands on the person they were praying for. Most people call this laying on of the hands, or also anointing with oil. All we knew was that this oil was special and we did not feel right playing with it. It always amazed us that this little tiny bottle of oil had so much power. As we grew up in the church we saw many people who were anointed with oil and special prayers offered to God asking for healing and other things. We saw these people healed or at least some of them were healed. We were inquisitive and adventurous but we knew this was special and always left the oil alone.

This little bottle had some kind of power in it that probably scared us at the time. As we grew older we would come to realize that the Bible taught such things. It didn't matter that Grandpa may or may not be doing it as they did in the time of Jesus but what mattered was that they had faith and believed that they were doing as instructed by God. This church was special also and was a powerful force in my life. My first and all my bible school projects were there. My first sermon was preached there as well as my first Christmas play in which I performed. I overcame my fear of public speaking by teaching a child's class as I got older. I won a contest that required us to find bible verses very fast. I even attended Sunday School for thirteen years without missing a Sunday and was awarded lapel pins each year I qualified. I later became choir director and Sunday School director and also a deacon. My children were born while I went to this church. My Grandfather anointed them with oil at a special service when we dedicated them to God. I stayed an active member of this church until my Grandfather passed away even though I lived twenty miles away in another town.

Many years had passed and I had already been a Pastor myself. I had relocated back to my hometown and had another job. I knew that the church I had grown up in was gone. I knew that the building we use to play and worship in had caught on fire and was no longer in use. I did not know that they were going to bulldoze it down until after it had been done. All that was left was a concrete pad and a foundation that was there to hold the concrete. I called my father when I saw that it had been bulldozed and we discussed that the church no longer exist. I could not help but feel sad and to reminisce about the history I had at this place. Christmas was not far away at this time and I had been thinking of a special gift to give my brothers. One day as I passed the location where my Church once stood, I had an idea to get rocks from the foundation of the old Church and pass them on to my brothers. As usual I did not act on it and kept driving on. A few weeks had passed and my wife and I were out shopping. We were on the other side of our town and this thought came to me again. No voice in the sky or inner voice had spoken, it was just a need to go and pick up some rocks for my brothers or so I thought. I told my wife that I felt compelled to do this and she said for us to go and do it now. I could have thought of many reasons why that day was not a good day to do this, however I felt compelled and my wife was willing to put aside what we were doing to go pick up rocks off of someones property. I never for one minute felt that I did not have a right to do this. My past experience with this property should have given me the right to pick up or steal some rocks off of this property. If the police had arrived I would have been in trouble but what happened would have been worth it.

I got out of my car and walked to the foundation and the concrete pad that was still there. I bent down and picked up a few rocks but could not find enough on the ground. At the corner of the slab were some loose rocks and what I thought were some good ones for me to get. I pulled a few stones from this stack of blocks and I saw something sticking out as the sand in the block began to pour out of it. I grabbed the top of what appeared to be a small brown bottle. The bottle was identical to the ones that grandpa would keep in the pulpit. I rubbed away what was probably sand and dirt that had been attached to this bottle for forty years. Very gently I opened the bottle to see and smell that yes it was filled with oil. After a short while I went back to the car and shared this with my wife. I phoned my uncle who was the associate pastor of this church and asked if he remembered a ceremony or celebration or dedication that may have went on that would require putting oil in this foundation. He told me that he did not remember any but that it sounded like something my Grandfather would have done. After sharing this story to another pastor I was told of a verse in Exodus that required things in the church to be anointed with oil. Exodus chapter 40 verse 9 "Then you shall take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and all that is in it..................". Forty years later and after many years of being open as a church and many were successful years of sharing God's word and doing God's will, this foundation gave up the oil that anointed it. As for my brothers, they each got a rock that had been anointed with the oil and placed in a shadow box. They loved their Christmas present and I loved mine. The bottle was my gift and is still in my possession but can be used when needed. I am so glad that my wife and I followed that feeling to go and collect rocks because we ended up collecting something much more special.

The Church Sanctuary was already in existence when Grandpa started his ministry there and so was the parsonage. Two other buildings were added on this property while he was pastor. The Sanctuary and the Sunday School rooms that held the oil for forty years were the two buildings that were bulldozed, but the parsonage and the Fellowship Center is still there. Sometime in the future they will tear down the Fellowship Center that was built during his ministry and I can't wait so I can search through the rubble and see what Grandpa put into this building's foundation. I bet there is some very special oil in a very special bottle in a very special foundation put there by a very special person.