Sermons on Simon The Sorcerer:

Reflection C.8 Does God Have A Purpose In Coronavirus? Summary Of New Testament So Far...

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jun 3, 2020

In the previous seven 'Reflections' I've looked at what the New Testament, excluding Revelation, says about 'End Times'. In this Reflection I try to draw the threads together and show how they are relevant to our question.

Today is a milestone – the end of the second stage of my study. At the end of March, I decided to try to answer the question, ‘Could God be behind coronavirus?’ I knew that people were asking the question and it seemed like a good question. I decided to split the task into three parts. I would ...read more

Scripture: Luke 21:25, 2 Thessalonians 2:3

Denomination: Baptist

Reflection D.1 / Does God Have A Purpose In Coronavirus? Starting To Look At Revelation

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jun 3, 2020

If we think coronavirus might be God's judgement or a part of 'End Times' then we need to know what God's judgement and 'End Times' look like. We now turn to Revelation. This Reflection provides an introduction.

Today we start on Revelation. However, before diving in I’d like to do a quick introduction. When we start to talk about Revelation we quickly find that there are a lot of different views. The main views are ‘preterist’, ‘historicist’, ‘idealist’ and ‘futurist’. Preterists believe that most of ...read more

Scripture: Daniel 7:13-14, Daniel 7:27-28

Denomination: Baptist

Reflection D.2 / Does God Have A Purpose In Coronavirus? Revelation. Checking Our Orientation; The Court Sits.

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jun 5, 2020

There are four main ways people approach Revelation. We need to get our initial orientation right. The start of the process to bring in Jesus' kingdom - the court sits.

When I was in my twenties I worked as an engineer on power station construction projects. On one occasion a colleague was overseeing the construction of a concrete foundation for a very large fan. The foundation was many metres long and approximately rectangular. Unfortunately, after pouring the ...read more

Scripture: Daniel 7:26, Luke 19:27

Denomination: Baptist

God Restores Elijah / Preparation

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 3, 2020

In this first-of-two talks we look at some of the initial things that helped Elijah recover from depression. They are things we can also do. They paved the way for God to address the root cause of the problem: Elijah's sense of failure.

INTRODUCTION We’re now onto the second talk in our series called ‘Bible Stories for Grown-Ups.’ In these talks we’re going back to some of the famous stories in the Old Testament which we may have heard as children, perhaps at home or at Sunday School. The idea is to take a fresh look at them as ...read more

Scripture: 1 Kings 19:1-8

Denomination: Baptist

God Restores Elijah / The Heart Of The Problem

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 15, 2020

To help Elijah out of his depression God needs to reach a point where Elijah is willing to listen to him. He then needs to resolve Elijah's sense of failure and hopelessness. We see how God did that.

1 KINGS 19, GOD RESTORES ELIJAH INTRODUCTION Today we’re returning to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. 1 Kings 18 tells us about Elijah’s confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. In 1 Kings 19, we find that Elijah has become very depressed. He thinks he’s a failure, but God ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

God Heals Naaman

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 23, 2020

The story of God healing Naaman is full of lessons, for example, about opportunity, courtesy, humility, and greed. But the key message must be the one Jesus drew from it. That is, that if we wish to see God's miracles, we must accept his word.

NAAMAN’S HEALING We’re continuing in our series ‘Bible Stories for Grown-Ups.’ Today we’re looking at one of the most famous stories in the Book of Kings. It’s the story of the healing of the Syrian general, Naaman. It’s a great story for Sunday School, because one of the key characters is a ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

God Saves Jonah, Nineveh, And Us.

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 29, 2020

The story of Jonah tells the story of God rescuing Jonah, not FROM a whale, but BY a whale. It tells of God reaching out to one of the cruellest people in history, the Assyrians. And it prefigures the story of God reaching out to us, through Christ.

GOD SAVES JONAH, NINEVEH, AND US We’re in a series ‘Bible Stories for Grown-Ups.’ Today, we’re looking at the story of Jonah. I’m going to assume most of us are fairly familiar with the story of Jonah and not spend time revisiting it. I’m going to look at the story under three headings: the ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

Six Things To Learn About The Holy Spirit

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jun 7, 2025

This is a talk for a family service on Pentecost Sunday, reminding us of some of the most important things about the Holy Spirit, with lots of visual aids.

THIS IS A FAMILY SERVICE SO THIS ‘TALK’ IS MEANT TO BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN AND QUITE INTERACTIVE. The scripture quotations are from the International Children’s Bible. Today’s an important day in the Christian calendar. It’s day for celebrating! It isn’t Christmas. It isn’t Easter. So, what ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

Acknowledging God In The Harvest Festival

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Oct 5, 2024

Why MUST we celebrate harvest? What should we thank God for? When and how should we mark it. And what did David think about it?

Today is our harvest festival. It’s the time of year when we formally thank God for the harvest. I’d like to tell you a couple of little stories as a lead in to the subject of thanking God. The first story is about Christmas when I was a child. A pile of presents would build up under the ...read more

Scripture: Exodus 23:16, Hosea 6:6

Denomination: Baptist

David The King Series

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Oct 19, 2024

We look at David as king. We see that the foundational qualities he needed were justice and righteousness - and he showed them. And we see in David as king a foreshadowing of what Jesus will be like when he fully takes up his rule.

INTRODUCTION We’re in a series titled ‘Learning from David.’ Today’s talk is on David the king. I think today’s talk is the most important talk in this series. That might seem surprising to you. We’ve had ‘David: man of prayer.’ We all hopefully pray. We can relate to that. We’ve had David ...read more

Scripture: Psalm 89:14, Psalm 97:2, Isaiah 9:7, Jeremiah 23:5, Luke 19:11-27  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Baptist

The Armour Of God, Part 2

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Sep 27, 2025

We're in a war. God has provided us with armour. We need to think about it carefully if we're going to use it correctly. This second talk looks at the last four pieces of armour.

I’d like to start by reading two short passages from Sir Walter Scott’s novel, Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe is set in the 12th century, a time when soldiers fought with swords and arrows and knights wore chain mail armour. Ivanhoe is a young Saxon knight. He’s fighting alongside Sir Robin Locksley, who turns ...read more

Scripture: Ephesians 6:13-20

Denomination: Baptist

The King Of Glory Comes In

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Sep 12, 2020

The earth is the Lord's. The Lord will return and enter our world as king of glory and mighty warrior. Ancient doors should lift up their heads in anticipation, and so should we.

Psalm 24 INTRODUCTION This month I’m going to take a look at three psalms: Psalms 24, 69 and 119. Today, we’ll look at Psalm 24. The words of the psalm are really moving: ‘Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in…’ We can ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

Jesus On Adultery And Lust

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Feb 10, 2024

Jesus teaches on lust. It isn't something preachers generally like to speak about but it's really important. Jesus shows how God's commandment on adultery needs to be practised and he tells us how we can do it.

Western society is completely comfortable talking about sex. Most people think a lot about sex. Especially men. The Bible talks a lot about sex too. Most preachers, however, do not like to talk about sex. When preachers preach on the Sermon on the Mount, they talk about the Beatitudes. There ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 5:27-30

Denomination: Baptist

God's Awesome Plan

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Mar 16, 2024

At Easter we think of how Jesus, by dying on the cross, freed us from our slavery to sin. But we can't think, 'I'm saved and that's all that matters to me.' God saves us for a purpose. We need to grasp God's purpose and engage with it.

Do any of you like watching movies? Do you like action movies? How about prison escapes? There are two kinds of prison-escape movies. There are movies like Escape from Alcatraz or The Great Escape. In these movies the hero’s goal is to escape. There is no bigger goal. Then there are movies ...read more

Scripture: 1 John 2:2, John 8:34, Romans 7:6, John 1:29, Revelation 19:9, 1 Corinthians 2:9  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Baptist

God's Power At Work Series

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Sep 18, 2023

Luke starts Acts with, 'In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus BEGAN to do and teach...' Now he's going to talk about what Jesus CONTINUED to do. In Acts 16 we have a great example of Jesus witnessing to himself - and Paul and Silas fitting in.

Acts 16 God’s power at work Let’s suppose you hear God speaking to you, telling you to do something. You do what God tells you. But then, within a short time, the situation looks a complete mess. What would you think? Did you hear wrong? Has God let you down? Let’s suppose God calls you to ...read more

Denomination: Baptist