The average fundamentalist hears roughly four-and-a-half bajillion sermons in their lifetime. Through some kind of built-in defense mechanism, they also manage to forget having heard most of them.
Today’s challenge is to try to list one or two sermons that you actually do remember and what about them made them memorable.
At SFL we spend a lot of time on examples of the bullying and yelling style of preacher. For a change of pace, today we have a demonstration of the would-be “funny man” pastor in the person of John M. Keeter giving us a description of fat king Eglon…
Back in Israel’s desert-wandering years, there existed a big tent building that housed the various instruments of Jewish worship and sacrifice as well as the divine presence of God himself. God spends seven full chapters of Exodus describing in great detail the building plans, the materials, and the builders. Inevitably, various religious folks have spent countless hours since then missing the entire point of Hebrews 8 and 9 and instead randomly assigning each detail with mystical significance.
Go to any number of sermon series on the Tabernacle and you’ll hear widely varying guesses at how the sewing pattern for the priests’ linen underpants have great significance to the church today. (The robes, however, are completely irrelevant to anybody but high-church sissies)
Do the number of cubits divided by the tribes of Israel and added to the number of chapters in Exodus provide a clue to the length of the Tribulation? Is the table of showbread a symbol of faith promise missions or perhaps a covered dish supper? What exactly were the Urim and Thumim — and more importantly, how did the pastor get the set that he keeps in his study for use in deacon meetings?
Nothing thrills the heart of a fundamentalist pastor more than the opportunity to open the Word of God and discover there some obscure allusion that seems to validates his own opinions. Possibly. Maybe. Almost certainly.
O Fire of Love, O Flame Divine, Make Thy abode in me; Burn in my heart, burn evermore, Till I burn out for Thee. —
Fundamentalists love those lines by Eugene M. Harrison. After all, it’s better to burn out than rust out, amen?
The Christian soldier is never off duty for it was when David left the battle field that he fell into sin! Keep on the Firing Line! Any vacation that is not disguised as a short-terms missions trip is for liberals and apostates.
Work for the night is coming. Get up early and stay late. Give of your best to your fundamentalists masters. Put your heart and soul and strength into the work without a care for your health or sanity. (It’s not like you’ll have the insurance to cover either of those things anyway.)
Hurry up with painting the church, mowing the 37 acres of grass, cleaning all the bathrooms, and scrubbing the fellowship hall with a toothbrush — because you don’t want to be late for choir practice, visitation, and chaperoning that youth group all-nighter.
There is nothing more glorious than falling in the line of duty by dropping dead of a stress-induced heart attack at 43.