Please Visit Dr. White’s
other sermon sites!

Practical Pastoral Counseling

http://pastorscounseling. freetzi.com

http://practicalcounsel.orgfree.com

Pastors can help people face reality
and be responsible.
We can help them to find practical solutions
to their problems.
We can help them by developing a learned
observation and by insight that God
will give us, and them to understand
how they are relating to others,
and how they may need to change
in order to be more adult and mature.

In pastoral counseling, the pastor as
counselor is concerned with spiritual
problems.
In other types of counseling the spiritual
aspect is often totally ignored.

The pastor is also concerned with
psychological problems.
He is also aware that physical problems
may be contributing to a spiritual
or psychological problem.

Pastoral counselors can use some practical
techniques to recognize psychological
and spiritual problems.
Isaiah 50:4: "The Lord God hath given me
the tongue of the learned,
that I should know how to speak
a word in season to him that it is weary
."

These words are so fitting for pastors
who are counseling.

New Sermon Files
http://hlw1932.6te.net

 http://hlwpaw2.angelfire.com

Sermon Series on New Sermon Files:
About God - 12 sermons
About Jesus - 24 sermons
Angels - 9 sermons
Beatitudes - 8 sermons
John 15 - 9 sermons
Acts -27 sermons
Romans 8 -42 sermons
Colossians - 4 sermons
Ephesians - 24 sermons
Psalms of Assent - 16 sermons
Habakkuk - 12 sermons
Psalms 23 - 13 sermons
Psalms 139 - 4 sermons
Book of Revelations - 22 sermons
1 Timothy- 4 sermons
2 Timothy - verse by verse study
Titus - verse by verse study
  The sermons on Sermon Files
 can only be found on Sermon Files

Studies in Genesis
http://genesis11.xp3.biz

This study is a chapter by chapter
study of Genesis.

I can’t imagine anything more
fundamental to our faith than the
opening chapters of the Bible.

Here we find the answer to some very
profound questions:
Where did we come from?
How did we get here?
Were we created or did we arrive
on the scene as the random product
of a mindless evolution?
And if we were created,
who created us and how did it happen?
Where did it happen?
When did it happen?

Genesis is the book of beginnings.
The word means "origins"
or "beginnings."
It sets the stage for the rest
of the Bible, telling us God's plan
for His creation.

Special Sermons
http://special5.freeoda.com

http://angelfire .com/az3/hlw1932

http://specialser7.noads.biz

On Special Sermons are sermons
for special days:
New Years - 17 sermons
Easter - 23 sermons
Mother’s Day - 17 sermons
Father’s Day - 11 sermons
July 4th - 8 sermons
Thanksgiving - 20 sermons
Christmas - 33 sermons
Revival - 29 sermons
Funeral - 16 sermons
Other Sermons - 10
Sermons on Ordaining Deacons,
Graduations, Old Age,
Memorial Day, Installing Teachers
Work Place

Pastor’s Pipleline
http://sermonsdrhlw.ueuo.com

Articles on Pastors

Many churches experience
unhappy situations
due to a misunderstanding
of the nature and work
of the pastor.

I pray that these studies of the pastor and his church members will be used of God to give us
and them a better understanding
of these problems, and will create
harmony and love in the local
church.

Pastor’s are God-Called
Pastor & Church Leadership
Pastor’s Role
And many other articles ...

Preaching:

21 Skills of Great Preachers
Feeding Sheep or Amusing Sheep
Preaching, A Divine Activity
Preaching Without Results
Preach With Authority
Preach With Love And Power
Ready To Preach
And other articles ...

Leadership:

Creative Spiritual  Leadership
Effective Christian Leadership
Dealing With Criticism
Hostile Aggressive Person
Coping With Bullies
Impossible People
Resolving Conflicts
Leadership Qualities

The Church

How to Organize a Church
Officers of the Church

How To Help Your Church
Increase Your Attendance
Doomed Churches

Responsibility To Increase
Attendance
Jesus Is Building His Church
Christian Maturity
Teachers, Be Bridge Builders
Reaching Secular People
Life Cycle of A Church
Christian, You Are Gifted
Deacons -- Body or Board
And others ....

Other Beliefs:

Beliefs of Islam
Islam, Part Two
Islam, Part Two
Islam & Christianity
Scientology
Jehovah Witness
Beliefs of Mormons
Book of Mormons
New Age Movement
New Age & The Bible 1
New Age & The Bible 2
Reincarnatio
n

Evangelism:

W
hat Is Evangelism?
Observation of an Evangelist
Life-saving Station

How To Do:

Marriage Ceremonies
Wedding Suggestions

Conducting A Funeral
Suggestions for Funeral sermons
More to be added on funerals

Baby Dedications
Building Dedications
Dedication of New House
Others to be added ...

Family Sermons
http://angelfire.com/hi5/
hlpawhite

http://familyser.noads.biz

Sermons on:
The Home
Marriage
Parenting
Relationships
Children
Teens

Sermon Preparation
http://drhlee32.tripod.com

The purpose of Sermon
Preparation
is to enable pastors
to fine-tune their sermon
preparation and their preaching.

God is in the business of making
himself known and making himself
heard.
We can know God because God
is making himself known.

The mystery is that He does it
through preachers.
When the sermon is faithful
to God's purposes, God works
powerfully through
the imperfect instrument.
Preaching that proclaims God's word enables people to hear
from God.
Nothing is more important
than preaching that Word.

Let us pray that God will make
preaching the agent
of transformation that He
intended it to be.

From Dr. White:
I have taught a seminary extension
course in homiletics.
Our textbook was "Preparation and
Delivery Of Sermons
, authored by
Dr. John Broadus.
It was first published in 1870.
The latest revision was in 1926.
I also studied that book in seminary.

John A. Broadus (1827-1895),
the pre-eminent American Baptist
of the 19th century, and
a founder of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary and professor
of Greek and New Testament

This textbook has been the standard
 on which many books and studies
on homiletics has been based.
This web site will largely be based
on this textbook.
Sermon Preparation has also taken
 advantage of many resources
that can now be found
on the Internet.

I am still a learner, and I am indebted
to those who have provided me
with the resources and inspiration
throughout my life.”

Sermon Illustrations
http://sermon3232.tripod.com

Sermon Humor
http://hlpawhite.tripod.com

You can Email Dr. White at:
hleewhite@gmail.com

    Welcome To Semon Storehouse -- Site Of Dr. Harold L. White

There are hundreds of free ready to preach Biblical sermons on Sermon Storehouse!

Important - Links - 08/05/14 -- http://hlwstore.noads.biz -- New: http://store334.orgfree.com
 http://storehouse4.freetzi.com -- http://storehousehlee.freevar.com -- http://store822.ueuo.com
It would be good to bookmark two sites -- I never know when a free site will be removed!

Never has our nation and our world needed a real revival more than now!
  All you have to do is check the news, and see the horrible events. 
Our churches are not even planning or having revival meetings.
Our churches need to know that our world is at a breaking point!

Revival must start in the pulpit -- we must preach the need for revival!      

  Sermons below are:  Depending On God -- Wonderful Failures -- Come Unto Me
  Christ’s Secret of Rest God’s Fighting Forces -- Finding Success -- Basis of Beief
  Christians Must Grow Up! --    
       

Depending On God     Psalm 91    ADDED 12/28/14

One of the things that Christian people talk a lot about is dependence upon God.
We sing hymns about it.
We imply about it in our prayers.
We preach about it in our sermons.
But is it possible to be too dependent upon God?

Americans in an adult congregation like this, if they spoke what was really on their minds,
might be a little suspicious of the psalmist who wrote in the 91st chapter of Psalm,
"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust."

They might say it, or read it in unison as part of the service,
but make a mental reservation to themselves that the psalmist might have done better
if he had trusted less in God and and done something about it himself.
So this question, "Isn't it possible to be too dependent upon God?"
This deserves our serious consideration.

Of course, the answer is "yes" and "no."

For instance, if you depend on God and to get you through a test in school
(if you happen to be a student) the following day and have not opened any of the books
through the preceding year and that has to do with the subject of the test,
then you are depending upon God altogether too much.

Or if you depend on God to save a man who has been struck down by a truck and is bleeding to death
and you do nothing whatsoever to stop the bleeding, then you are depending on God far too much.

But if after, and while you do everything you can in a situation you depend on God,
you cannot depend upon Him too much, because everything you are and everything you have
or can ever hope to be come ultimately from God.
Such as receiving from Him your life, your thoughts, your imagination -– all are derived,
and depend up on His energies of which you are completely and utterly dependent.

So this raises another question.
Where does this idea of depending upon God come from?

When you stop to think about it and look into your selves and into what you know about life,
you realize that it comes right out of our human situation, just as spontaneously
as the grass comes out of the earth.
No one thought it up.
It came up all by itself as soon as human beings had the wits to take it in.

We are born completely helpless – no one can question that.
A baby can do nothing for itself, and is completely dependent upon his parents
or up on some older person to take care of its needs.
As we grow up we learn in a marvelous way, and very quickly, to do a great many things for ourselves.

After about 15 or 16 years, when we can do so much to help ourselves, we are sometimes misled into believing
that we are not dependent upon anything, and that we can do everything that is required under any emergency
and do not need to acknowledge any dependence upon anyone or anything outside ourselves.

Of course then, we have to learn all over again while we can help ourselves in many of the daily tasks of life,
we never become completely independent, and the older we grow, the more we realize
how dependent we really are.

The people who have made the most of life are the people who have made the most graceful submission
to the larger forces that mysteriously press upon them from all sides and that they never
completely understand – at least, they never presume to understand them – but with which
they make some satisfactory, secret terms.

You find this, this dependence upon God, this sense of depending upon the larger forces outside oneself,
not only in pious people.
Think of all the creative artists that you have ever known or heard about or read about in the evidence
they have left of the process by which they work.
I believe that we would agree that there is one thing that they have in common.
And the one thing they have in common is that they are in the very nature
of their lives agents of communication.

They are not imitators of anything.
There are channels through which something greater is communicated to the world.
And therefore, they are constantly aware of the fact that they are dependent
upon this source outside themselves.

Another thing that we might notice about it is that you don't grow out of this sense
of dependence upon God, you grow into it.
And the older you get, the more you are aware of it.

Among one of the most interesting persons in American history is Benjamin Franklin.
His friends all thought of him as a freethinker.
He belonged to no church and subscribed to know creed, as far as they knew did not practice
any of the ordinary religious techniques of life.

When the Convention was meeting to draw up the Constitution of the United States,
they were amazed when he stood up in the Convention and made a resolution that each one of its sessions
began with prayer, after which he said,
"The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth; that God governs in the affairs of men."
... MORE

Wonderful Failures       ADDED 12/28/14

"And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and
daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein,
and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink
." (Exodus 2:3).

There is a proverb that says: "Nothing succeeds like success."
This proverb is true in the sense it was used; but should be qualified by the use of other statements,
viz.: "Nothing fails like success," and "Nothing succeeds like a failure."

The history of this world may be read by a careful study of the series of failures
that form steps in the world's progress.
Walking is a series of falls, so we are told.
The child first falls, then learns to catch himself as he falls, and thus takes a step.

Walking is a continuous fall.
The failure of the Sahara desert makes fertile other lands for hundreds of miles around.
The fertility of the valleys of the Nile, Jordan and Mississippi is due to the lack of fertility
of the hill country near these rivers.

In our text, we see a failure, and we might call it a wonderful failure.

The Pharaoh had decreed that all the male babies of the Hebrews must be slain.
They were multiplying too fast to suit the Pharaoh.

While this edict was being carried into effect, a beautiful boy baby was born to slave
parents in the land of Goshen.
"What shall we do with him?" was a question often on the lips of many parents..
"Hide him," was the only reply.

This was done for a few weeks, but every day brought new fears and anxieties.
The rising sun, the shining stars, the neighbors who smiled a knowing smile,
the taskmaster walking continuously by the hut, all seemed to say, "You have failed."

One evening a concerned slave-father entered the humble home with an alarmed countenance,
for he had heard the babe's voice from some distance on his way from his work.
That night was a sleepless night in the cabin.

A bright little girl cried nearly all night, while a troubled father walked the floor,
and a broken-hearted mother held a beautiful boy baby closer to her bosom.
Next morning a son left a home.
This is always a sad thing.

But in this instance it was very sad, for the son was only three months old.
He left in a boat, launched by the parents, conscious of their failure.

Ships have sailed many waters since, and history-making have been the voyages
they made.
But never the Mayflower or Titanic, Lusitania or Spanish Armada ever meant so much
for coming generations, as this little boat sent out from the harbor of parental failure,
lined with a mother's love.

For this boat was floating on the tides of the providences of God.
It was a part of His eternal plans, and while it signified failure on one hand,
it was a wonderful failure.

Looking at this passage, we can see how failures can become wonderful.

I. Failures are wonderful when they become stepping-stones to higher things

Had the parents of Moses succeeded in hiding him, what would have been the result?
Only another slave boy to grow to manhood and who would perish under the taskmaster's lash.
But failure here meant the opening of a gate into a higher life.

The world's possessions are purchased at the price of a failure.
We have automobiles, because horses have failed to travel fast enough.
We have electric lights, because the tallow candle failed to give enough illumination.
We have telephones, because the human voice failed to carry far enough.
We have graphophone records, because the human voice failed to speak after death.

Our language is the monument to thousands of failures, for every time present words fail
to express the shade of meaning intended other words have been coined
until our language has been built like a house a little at a time.
"Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and fail it abideth alone."

Failures are wonderful when they are discoveries of the plan of God. ...MORE

COME UNTO ME -- by Hyman J. Appelman     ADDED 12/28/14

Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father;
to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen"
(Revelation 1:5-6)

There are three facts in this text of Scripture.
The first is, Jesus loved us.
Second, Jesus loosed us.
The word for "washed us from our sins in his own blood" is the same word that the Holy Spirit
uses in the twentieth chapter and the twenty-eighth verse of the book of Acts where He says,
"To feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."

Now the word purchased in that case means to loose from slavery.
I want you to remember that.

The third thing is, He lifted us.
It says so right there.
"And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father."

In Christ we have love.
In Christ we have loosing.
In Christ we have lifting.

There is no way of describing the love of God.
There is nothing to which we can compare it.
We can see the love of a father or a mother for a child.
We can see the love of a husband for a wife, or a wife for her husband.

There is a physical attraction there.
There is blood of one blood and flesh of one flesh and bone of one bone.
They are father and mother, husband and wife, brother and sister, son and daughter.

But Jesus is the creator of the universe, the King of kings and Lord of lords, on His throne in glory.
It would be easier for us to understand how a human being could love a poisonous rattlesnake
than for us to understand bow God could love us with all our sins and our shortcomings.

I want to express three things about that love.

First, it was unmerited.

We were not entitled to it.
We had no claim to it.
We had no right to expect it.

If we got what was coming to us, every last one of us would have been in hell a long,
long, bitter time ago.
There is no righteousness, no consideration, no merit, nothing in any of us
or in all of us put together that would recommend us to the love of God,
either before we became Christians or after we became Christians.

It makes not a particle of difference.
It is unmerited love.

There was nothing in us or about us, any of us or all of us, that drew forth the love of God,
except perhaps our helplessness.
It was unmerited.

Then it was unsought. ... MORE

Christ's Secret of Rest -- By A. T. Pierson      ADDED 12/28/14

"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light
."
(Matthew 11: 28 - 30

It seems a strange thing that our blessed Lord Jesus Christ should invite a weary and heavy-laden man
to get rest by taking upon him a yoke.
A yoke is the symbol of burdens borne.
We associate it with the oxen in the field, which, taking the yoke upon themselves,
draw the plough or heavy load behind them.

Yet our blessed Lord, lifting up His eyes and looking on the multitudes who gave evidence
even in their faces that they were weary and heavy laden, says:
"Come unto Me and I will give you rest. Take upon you My yoke."

Yet that paradox and apparent contradiction leads the way into some of the most delightful
and beautiful truths of Holy Scripture.

Now, I ask three questions:
First, whom does God invite?
Second, what does He enjoin?
Third, what does He promise?.

Whom does God invite?

The weary and the heavy laden.
Now, let us not think that, because these two words are similar they mean the same thing.
Weariness is not the same thing as fatigue.
Fatigue implies exertion.

Weariness may come upon us without any exertion.
Idleness can make us weary, but it can never make us fatigued.

We may weary of our pleasures because they lose their power to charm us,
and they become monotonous and unsatisfying.
We may weary of our treasures when we have heaped them up so that we have a million dollars
at our disposal.

Xerxes went through the entire run of pleasure, and spent his royal resources
on every form of delight known to the sons of men, and then he advertised
that he would give a handsome reward to anybody who would invent him a new pleasure
that he had not yet found.

He was weary of all his indulgences, and he offered a reward for some new pleasure,
just like Solomon the king, who undertook to find something in this world that satisfied him,
and by and by pronounced them all vanity and vexation of spirit,
and said that there was no profit under the sun, simply because he had found that his own soul
was too big for this world, and that when a man has the whole world it is still but a trifle;
for his soul, which was meant to receive God, is quite too big for this world to fill.

Now, when our Lord said, "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and are heavy laden,"
He included every sort of unsatisfied soul — the soul that is unsatisfied with pleasure and treasure,
with self-indulgence and self-gratification, with idleness and with ease,
and the soul that is fatigued by bearing heavy burdens,
bearing them too long without even resting a time.

I am sure that all who have not known Jesus Christ as a Saviour will come under one of those two classes.
They are either among the weary ones, or among the heavy laden ones,
and so Jesus speaks to every one of you, and says, "Come unto Me; come unto Me."

Now look at what He enjoins.


There are three things: "Come unto Me; take My yoke upon you; learn of Me."

"Come unto Me."
That is personal approach to the Saviour.
"Take My yoke."
That is the assuming of work for Him.
"Learn of Me." ... MORE

God's Fighting Forces     By G. Campbell Morgan      ADDED 11/31/14

"By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you." ( Judges 7:7)

In his address from the chair of the Congregational Union last month, Mr. J. D. Jones, of Bournemouth,
uttered these words: "Numbers are not the first consideration with the Christian Church.
We need to be delivered from the tyranny of schedules and from the craven fear
of comparative tables and statistics.
It is possible for churches to lose in numbers, as Gideon did, and to gain in strength
."

These were courageous words in an hour when the passion for figures is paramount,
and when the mention of decrease breeds panic in the heart of the people of God.
They were timely words because on every hand we are hearing of decreases.

The returns of church membership come in at this season of the year in many cases,
and if one note has impressed me in the meetings of this year which we now designate May meetings,
it has been the note of depression consequent upon statistics which declare decrease in church membership.

I have not the ear of all the Christian Church, but I have the ear of those who gather here,
and I desire to utter a solemn and at the same time, I trust, a sympathetic and courteous protest
against this whole business of lamentation.

Yet, we are compelled to recognize the absence of many things which even our eyes have seen
in other days and under other conditions, the absence of many things of which our fathers have spoken,
and of which we have read in the history of the Church.

There does seem to be just now a widespread indifference among multitudes of our people
to spiritual things, and an almost appalling lack of enthusiasm within the Church of God.

If we are not to be depressed by the story of decrease, we are to be anxious as to our own personal,
individual responsibility, not for the decreases, but for the halt which seems to have come
in the march of those enterprises of our Lord and Master which are, or ought to be,
the supreme things in our thinking, in our life, and in our serving.

I am not interested in the causes of decrease.
I believe that the cause -- and I draw the distinction carefully between the singular and the plural
-- is that God is sifting our ranks, revealing weakness as prerequisite to the creation of strength.

It is not against the sense that we have been halted, and that there is a lack of spiritual consciousness,
that I make my protest.
It is rather against the way in which men deal with this sense.
It is against the prevalent idea that decrease itself is a sign of the absence of the working of God.

Not that we are to be less careful concerning the matters of His Kingdom,
but that we should interpret the signs of the times in the light of God's perpetual method with His people.
So far as I read my Bible, so far as I am able to read the doings of God in the history of the Church
for nineteen centuries, I affirm that sifting and decrease are but evidences of His activity.

Let us understand that activity.
I have read these words from the address of my dear and honoured friend Mr. Jones,
and my business this evening is to take the illustration which he gave in less than half a sentence,
and make it the basis upon which we may illustrate and enforce the principle that he laid down
in the course of the brief paragraph I read to you.

Let us remind ourselves again of this old story of Gideon. ... MORE

Finding Success     --   John 21:1-14     ADDED 11/31/14

The only place where success can be found before work is in the dictionary.
We wonder how Simon Peter and his friends would have taken that statement.
You can almost hear Peter argued, "Haven't we tried all night to catch some fish,
and what do we have to show for it but some empty nets.
Work? Sure we've worked – now where is that success you mentioned
?"

Most of us would say that Simon had a point.
If there were fish in the sea, you couldn't prove it by looking at the disciples fishnets.
They would have endorsed the solution of the poet, Arthur W. Bell:
"A man and his motor have brought it about –
The angler must learn, if he hopes to take trout;
The schedule and route of the hatchery truck."

As the first faint glimmer of light appeared in the east, a figure stands on the shore watching.
Then he speaks, His voice carrying clearly and distinctly across the water:
"Lads, have you called anything?"

Notice He didn't ask, "How many hours did you pray last night?"
Or "Why haven't you fasted lately?"
Not that these questions are unimportant.
The point is this – Jesus is interested in everything we do.

His concern is not limited to so-called, "religious," matters.
School pressures, family problems, dating relationships, unpleasant circumstances,
disappointments – anything that is big enough to concern us is big enough to concern Him.

Peter and his fishermen had failed to find success.
Christ was concerned about that.

When Peter recognized Jesus, he calls back, "We've fixed all night and have nothing to show for it."
Instead of criticizing Peter, Jesus instructs him, "Cast your net on the right side of the boat."

Now most of us would have felt that the suggestion of Christ was as timely as the urge to sneeze underwater.
We know how most of us would have taken these instructions.
More than likely we would have replied, "Now wait a minute, Jesus.
We have been fishing here all night long.
If any fish were here, we would have them in our boats by now.
Why not let us try in a different place – maybe down the shore
..."

Isn't that the way it goes?
When we fail or experience difficulty, we start thinking that "things would be different
if only our parents were... or if only I could change schools or teachers, or live in a different place
."
Some may think, "I could be a better Christian if I could go to another church
for this church has too many hypocrites."


Attitude and Altitude

But the way Christ has of helping us is usually that of helping us in our difficulty – not out of it.
Instead of allowing us to run from a problem, He helps us to overcome it.
Jesus, above all others, knows that success is not a matter of where we are, but what we are.
It is not what happens to us and makes us succeed or fail so much as to how we react to what happens.
This is a difficult lesson to learn. ... MORE

The Basis of Belief   --   John 20:24-31; Romans 18:8b – 14, 17   ADDED 11/31/14

Most of my life I have heard the claim that "seeing is believing."
We like to have ideas verified by tangible evidence.
We demand to have "facts," by which we mean "concrete realities."
Like children, we fear the abstract.
We want something that we can see and can handle.

In this message, we will focus on a disciple of Jesus that has been called, "Doubting Thomas."
In this message we may get a picture of our own weak faith, and then lay the foundation
for the beginning of a dynamic, mature faith.

Have A Good Word for Thomas.

Most of us are really cruel in our appraisal of Thomas, seeing him only as a weak,
doubting, half-hearted disciple.
A closer look at his life might reveal some surprising new aspects of his nature.
Basically, he was thoughtful and true at heart.
He wanted to believe, but would not let his emotions run ahead of his logic.

A great sculptor, Thorwaldsen, was given the commission to do a statue of Thomas.
And he shows Thomas to be a grave and thoughtful person who carries a measuring-line in his hand.
The measuring-line seems to be very appropriate for Thomas.
He was a measurer, not a mystic.
He was a logical person, not a lyrical person.

Longfellow's lines could very well described him:
"We have wings, but we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more."

Some Past References to Thomas

Two previous accounts of Thomas revealed to us more of his character.
The first is in John 11: 1-16

In this passage Jesus has just received word of the illness of Lazarus and of his subsequent death.
When Jesus announced His intention of going to Bethany, where Lazarus had died,
the disciples tried to persuade him not to go.
It was a dangerous journey for Jesus because of the hostility of the Jews there.

When Christ persisted in his determination to go,
Thomas said, "Let us also go that we may die with him."

These were the words of a brave and loyal man.
He had joined himself to Christ, and was willing to take the risks of his companionship…
He did not pretend to be convinced of the wisdom of the proposed project.
But, wise or not wise, he was not going to desert His Friend in the hour of danger.

The second occasion on which Thomas appears is in connection with the last words of Christ to His disciples
(John 14), in which He told them of His death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
His disciples could not have understood clearly what He meant.
But for the most part they were acquiescent.
They were willing to wait for more light.

But this was not so with Thomas.
He wanted to understand, and understand now.
The others might remain silent when Christ said, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know."

But Thomas could not accept this statement of Jesus without question.
He was not conscious of possessing such knowledge, and he did not hesitate to say so.
"Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?"

Then Jesus answered him with those words which have been treasured throughout all Christendom:
"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me."

Just think – these great words were quoted by great saints of God for centuries.
They were first spoken to answer the question in mind of "Doubting Thomas"!

Often we do criticize a person with honest doubt.
We need to remember the words of Tennyson:
"There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." ... MORE

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