Wandering Elder

I have been offering a series of sermons at the church I serve during the month of October utilizing the theme of monsters and what they represent.  I offered a similar set of sermons about four years ago at a previous church.  This time I re-wrote two of those old sermons and added two new ones.  One that I didn't go back and re-work was the one on Werewolves.   As Halloween is closing in, here is the text of that sermon from October of 2011 entitled "The Shadow Knows" taken from Romans 7:15-25 which reads as follows: 15  For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.   16  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.   17  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.   18  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to ...

It has been a few weeks since I wrote, dear readers (all three of you).  That has to do more with the fact that I wanted to really get my thoughts together for this one, because it started with a letter I received in the mail a few weeks ago. It was a letter from  a nearby Baptist church inviting me to a “dramatic presentation of the Gospel.”  It then went on to give the title of the presentation, “Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames.” Hmm.   Sounds less like the gospel and more like a scare tactic along the lines of the infamous ‘judgment houses’ that have taken to replace haunted houses and fall festivals in many conservative churches.  So I read on. “’Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames’ is very similar to a ‘Judgment House’ presentation that many youth groups attend during the fall season.” Ahh.  It is a judgment house.  Apparently it  isn't  because instead of moving from room to room, the visitors sit in once place an...