Sermon Central
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Studies In Mark
Contributed by Glenn Pease on Mar 27, 2021 (message contributor)
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1. The Beginning Of The Gospel
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Mark is the only one who tells us that our Savior was a carpenter. Mark tells us more about our Lord's emotions than the other Gospels. He brings Jesus closer to us as a man of like feelings.
The painter Lundwig Richter, tells in his memoirs of how he and three friends set out to paint the same landscape. They each were committed to produce as accurately as possible what they saw. Nevertheless, the result was four different pictures, as different as the four personalities of the ...read more
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2. Objective And Subjective
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
We learn a valuable lesson from this reality of the conflict between subjective and objective truth. The lesson is this: The objective truth always has priority over the subjective.
How wrong can the experts be? Let's look at history and see. Daryl F. Zanuck, who was head of 20th Century Fox, back in 1946 said, "TV won't be able to hold on to any market after the first 6 months-people will soon tire at staring at a plywood box every night." Marshall Foch of ...read more
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3. Conflict Of The Kings
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Every man, including Jesus has to face the universal experience of temptation.
Art Linkletter tells of how when he was 10 years old he was offered a job of tempting people to buy ice cream cones. The ice cream stand owner noticed the dramatic way in which he licked an ice cream cone, and so he offered him ten cents an afternoon if he would wonder through the nearby park ...read more
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4. Descent Of The Dove
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. It was fitting that He take this step of obedience and become an illustration of what all believers are to do.
What a surprise it would be to see a fish climbing a tree. Yet such a sight is possible because of the climbing perch of India. These three to eight inch fish have movable spines on their gills, and by thrusting with their tails and front fins they can scoot up a slanting tree by the water and ...read more
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5. Changing Your Mind
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Mark tells us that the very first message that Jesus preached was that the kingdom of God was near and, therefore, people are to repent and believe the good news. This was the same message that John the Baptist had been preaching.
A mother calling to her son shouted, "Johnny, tell your sister to get in the house out of the rain." "I can't mom," came the reply. "And just why can't you?" demanded his mother. "Because we are playing Noah's Ark mom, and she's one of the ...read more
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6. Know The Foe
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Can a Christian become a weed patch rather than a garden of God? This is the question we were answering last week. The answer this week is the same. It is yes, a Christian can be demonized.
A young Christian woman, after only 8 months of marriage came to a counselor complaining that she was as frigid as a ice burg. She had promised herself as a teenager that she would be a virgin on her wedding day. But then she fell madly in love, and after he gave her the ring, and the wedding day ...read more
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7. Demons Defeated
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
We think demonism is not for today, because we have been brainwashed by our culture, but the fact is, the New Testament is more relevant than modern psychology in explaining why we live in a society so filled with perversions.
Gender Dysphoria is the psychiatric term for what is commonly called transsexualism. This is the obsession that one has been born as the wrong sex. This is so deep-seated that the only cure is thought to be sex change surgery. In all the literature there is only one report of a cure by means ...read more
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8. Intimate Communication
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
The vast majority of Christians would list as one of the weaknesses of their Christian life, their prayer life. We do not spend enough time in prayer. We don't pray for enough people. We don't pray as fervently as we ought, or as persistently as we ought.
If we had as many answers to prayer as we have books on prayer the battle would be won. Unfortunately it is easier to write a book on prayer than to pray effectively. It is easier to preach a sermon on prayer than to pray. It is easier to give a lecture on prayer than to pray. It is easier to ...read more
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9. Tools For Healing
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
We have no example of a disease that Jesus refused to heal. He did not pick and chose, or discriminate against anyone on the basis of their disease.
One of the great wars of all time was a war where all men were on the same side. The enemy was the small pox virus. It made all other foes seem puny in comparison. One of the greatest dangers for the Pilgrims and Puritans in coming to America, was this dreaded pox. They died in large numbers from ...read more
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10. The Medicine Of Forgiveness
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
The greatest healing in the world is to be forgiven, and the greatest healing you can give is the medicine of forgiveness.
Language can be lethal. Dr. Bernard Lown, professor of Cardiology at Harvard, tells of how he learned this, very dramatically. He had a middle age woman as a patient, who had a narrowing of the tricuspid valve on her heart. She had this problem for a decade, but one day a Dr. Levin was leading a ...read more
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11. The Old Or The New
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
All of history is a battle between the liberal and the conservative. One of the most fascinating paradoxes of Scripture is that Jesus was both a liberal and a conservative.
In his book Like A Mighty Army, Halford Luccock tells an interesting story about theatrical history. In the middle of the 19th century the right to produce dramatic performances was limited to a few theaters which had been able to develop a monopoly. Some bright boys of the theater found ...read more
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12. Lover's Are Winners
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Jesus was as stubbornly insistent that he be healed on the spot as the Pharisees were as stubbornly insistent that he not be healed on the Sabbath.
Dr. Richard Selzer, the famous surgeon and author, in his book, Taking The World In For Repairs, tells about Interplast, which stands for International Plastic Surgeon, Incorporated. Since its founding in 1969, this organization has performed over ten thousand free operations on poor people in ...read more
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13. Acceptable Anger
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Is it possible that we eliminate the vice of anger, but in so doing also eliminate the virtue of it? It is obviously not Christ like to be losing your temper and blasting people, and seeking revenge. But on the other hand, it is also not Christ like to never be angry at the forces of evil.
I had an awful temper as a child. When I was in first or second grade I broke a pool cue over the head of one of my brother's friends, and for years after I was reminded that I caused the scar on his forehead. My older brother came close to getting even worse. In one of our fights he picked ...read more
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14. Positive Escapism
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Jesus makes it clear that there is a time to take your stand, and there is also a time to retreat from your enemy so that you can be in control, and not at the mercy of the enemies choices.
Some of history's greatest battles have been won by means of retreat. The 13 colonies won the first day of battle with England in the Revolutionary War because of a wise retreat. When Captain John Parker saw several hundred British Redcoats marching on the double toward his 70 or so ...read more
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15. Privacy
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
In Mark 6:32 Jesus departed into a desert place privately. He thought by going to a remote place He could be alone, but the people ran around the lake on foot, and when Jesus landed the crowd was there already waiting for Him.
Jean Paul Sartre in No Exit has three characters in the play who are one by one ushered into hell. To their surprise it is not a place of punishment. There are no demons torturing and inflicting pain. They are left in a moderate size room with a few articles. There are no widows or mirrors, but ...read more
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16. Puzzling Appointments
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Never did 12 men ever change the course of history like these 12, but never did a noted leader ever have more trouble with His followers than Jesus had with these 12.
Jamie Buckingham is one of the great preachers and authors whose books have sold in the millions. What I like about him is that he makes so many comical blunders in his ministry that he makes other pastors feel less threatened by their human errors. If you sometimes feel like your life is a ...read more
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17. Christ And Criticism
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
There is a legitimate place for expressing critical feelings. It is just that it is a delicate matter. It is almost as delicate as trying to catch soap bubbles on a pin.
Some years back at the University of Wisconsin a group of literary students formed a club. The purpose of the club was to criticize. The members would submit a story, and it would be dissected mercilessly with no punches pulled. The sessions were so brutal that the club members dubbed themselves, ...read more
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18. Ruin Without Remedy
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
The unforgivable sin is not a sin you can stumble into accidentally, or perform in ignorance. You can blaspheme God and Christ in ignorance not knowing what you are doing, but the unforgivable sin is a sin done with clear and certain knowledge.
A certain seer warned Caesar to be on guard against a great peril on the day of March which the Romans called Ides. When the day came and Caesar was on his way to the senate house he greeted the seer with a jest, and said, "Well, the Ides of March are come." "Aye," said the ...read more
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19. Stilling The Storm
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
In verse 39 we see the deity of Christ. Only God can rebuke the wind and calm the sea. The only reason Bible writers could put such contrasting pictures of Jesus side by side is because they were true. He was truly man, and truly God.
About 100 years ago an English clergyman named Whiting was sailing in the Mediterranean when a storm broke of unusual fury, and hurricane winds. The waves were like mountains, and they came crashing against the ship, and all on board felt doomed, for the life boats were useless in such a storm. ...read more
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20. Madness Meets Its Master
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
There are many implications that grow out of this unique demonstration of Christ's Lordship, but the primary lesson concerns that Lordship itself. Jesus makes it as clear as possible that He has come to destroy the works of the devil.
The hero in one of Bruce Marshalls novels is a Benedictine Monk who is shocked at the general disbelief in the supernatural. Even the local Anglican priest argued with him against it. He is so disturbed that he is determined that all shall see a miracle, and he prays that a nearby ...read more
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21. Medical Missions
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
People have to be saved before they can be saved. That is, they have to be delivered from temporal death in order to be delivered from eternal death.
Everyone of us lives with a doctor, and to make it even better the doctor we live with can write prescriptions and get the medicine delivered immediately. If you think you don't take drugs, it is only because you do not know what your doctor is doing. Your doctor is your brain. I have had ...read more
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22. Fear Or Faith
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
The unknown can stimulate either fear or faith, courage or cowardice. By the authority of Jesus the Christian is to choose faith, even in the face of negative evidence.
The Golden Gate Bridge in California got way behind schedule when it was being built. There were so many casualties, and the men were afraid of falling off. A huge safety net was placed beneath the area of operations, but for a time this made no difference. Then a man fell off into the net. When ...read more
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23. The Power Of Touch
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Our text is just one of many Biblical examples of the power of touch. I chose it because it is recorded in all three of the synoptic Gospels, and the word touched is used in this account more than anywhere in the New Testament.
One of the great stories of Greek Mythology is that of Antaeus and Hercules. Antaeus, like Hercules, was of gigantic stature and marvelous strength. His parents were Neptune and Terra-ocean and earth. When he and Hercules engaged in mortal combat, Hercules proved to be the strongest, but every ...read more
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24. Miracles And The Mind
Contributed on Mar 27, 2021
Jesus is practicing psycho-somatic medicine. He is using what is very popular today because it works like a charm-the placebo effect.
Variety is not only the spice of life it is the very essence of life. Consider the bacteria that is all about us and within us. There are about 1500 different basic forms or species of these tiny one celled creatures. If you took 400 trillion of these creatures they would weigh only about 1 pound. ...read more
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25. A Focus On Food
Contributed on Mar 28, 2021
Jesus is the only person in the Bible who is so thankful for food that it becomes a prominent part of His life's story. Here in the record of His feeding of the 4000 Jesus is recorded as giving thanks 2 times in two verses.
Many years ago when Rudyard Kipling was a popular writer it was reported that he was getting 10 shillings for every word he wrote. Some students at Oxford University, who were not impressed with Kipling, sent him 10 shillings with a request that he send them one of his very best words. He cabled ...read more
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26. Loved But Lost
Contributed on Mar 28, 2021
This almost perfect moral young man appeared to be as spiritually healthy as one could possibly be, but Jesus saw something in him that called for radical surgery if he was to ever find eternal life.
This is the story of the rich young ruler who, unlike the rich old ruler, Nicodemus, did not come to Jesus by night, but came to Him publicly in the daytime. All three of the synoptic Gospels tell the story, and each add something extra to the total picture. Matthew tells us he was young. Luke ...read more
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27. Surrender To Win
Contributed on Mar 28, 2021
Life has two kinds of battles. The kind where, when you surrender you lose, and the kind where, when you surrender you win.
There was only one general that threw fear into the mighty warriors of the Roman Army, and that man was Hannibal of Carthage. Carthage was in North Africa, and was the rival of Rome. It was the only power great enough to keep Rome from ruling the world. For over 60 years they fought a desperate ...read more
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28. A Royal Redeemer
Contributed on Mar 28, 2021
Palm Sunday is the King's Sunday. It is the only place in the Bible where we see Jesus surrounded by subjects who hail Him as their King.
We live in a world deeply influenced by kings. We do not have one as the head of our government, but they are a part of our environment. "The time is come the walrus said to speak of many things, of shoes and ships of sealing wax, of cabbages and kings." In the children's world of ...read more
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29. Christian Education
Contributed on Mar 28, 2021
Wisdom is the ability to make right choices in life. Folly is the making of wrong choices. The goal of education in both the secular and sacred realm is to give to people the knowledge and awareness they need to make wise choices.
The Jews loved to tell stories about the importance of choices. Nathan Ausubel tells one of the wealthy Jewish merchant who took his slave on a long journey leaving his only son behind. On the journey the merchant became very ill, and at the point of death he made a will leaving all this ...read more
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30. The Love Triangle
Contributed on Mar 28, 2021
Some need to learn to love themselves before they can love God. Others need to love God to escape a perverted self-love. Still others need to love their neighbor to balance out an inadequate love.
One of the great tragic plays of all time is Shakespeare's Othello. Othello was a general in the Venetian army. He secretly married Desdemona the daughter of a Venetian senator. Desdemona was the most lovely of all Shakespeare's characters. She was a beautiful and ideal wife. Othello was ...read more