Word of Salvation – Vol. 47 No. 02 – January 2002   God and Herod   Sermon by Rev. J. De Hoog on Acts 12 Scripture Reading: Ephesians 6:10-20 Suggested Hymns: BoW: 2; 438; 186:1,3; 468   Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts chapter 12 is about God and Herod.  The chapter chronicles a dramatic reversal of fortunes.  It opens up with James dead, Peter in prison and Herod triumphing.  It closes with Herod dead, Peter free and the word of God triumphing.  Human plans that are hostile to God may have their day and may seem to succeed for...

Word of Salvation – Vol. 42 No. 37 – October 1997   The Upside-Down Values of the Kingdom   Sermon by Rev. J. De Hoog on Matthew 20:1-16 Scripture Readings: Matthew 19:13-30; 20:17-28 Suggested Hymns: BoW 113; 434; 247; 214   Dear Congregation, There is an old saying that you can't tell a book by its cover.  That saying, however, does not always apply to a letter, does it!  You often can tell a letter by its cover, by its envelope.  Perhaps you receive quite a bit of junk mail – different companies trying to sell you things to help you...

Word of Salvation – Vol. 40 No.39 – October 1995   Is Your God An Idol?   Sermon by Rev. J. De Hoog on Psalm 115 Scripture Readings: Psalm 96:1-6; Exodus 20:1-6; Isaiah 44:6-23 Suggested Hymns: BoW 96; 115; 157   Brothers and Sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ. We have read the first two Commandments again today, and we often say that the Ten Commandments are just as relevant for us today as they were for the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai four thousand years ago.  But let's think about the first two commandments.  What are they about?...

Word of Salvation – Vol.43 No.47 - December 1998   “O Little Town of Bethlehem”   A Christmas Sermon by Rev J De Hoog on Micah 5:1-6 Scripture Readings: Matthew 2:1-18; Micah 5:1-6 Suggested Hymns: Bow 247, 261; 253; 272 (before the sermon); 264   Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. "O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!" A poem, a Christmas carol we have sung since childhood.  And the only way most people remember Phillips Brooks, the author of this lovely hymn.  Brooks was a nineteenth century American preacher who became so well known that he...

Word of Salvation - January 2012   GLORIOUS REVERSAL; GRACIOUS RENEWAL, John de Hoog (Sermon 4 in a series on Micah)   Text: Micah 3:1-4:4 Singing: BOW 90a, PsHy 166, Consider Christ, Ancient of Days   Mt Zion is raised to be the highest of the mountains. People from all nations are streaming to it, and they are coming so that they can learn from the Lord. There is total peace over the whole world, and every man sits under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one makes them afraid.   Psalm 87 paints the same...

Word of Salvation - June 2011   Two ways in which prophecies of judgment can do people good, and two ways in which they can be fulfilled” By Rev. John de Hoog (Sermon 3 in a series on Micah)   Text – Micah 2   In September 1981 the Rev Jerry Falwell was speaking somewhere in America, and he suggested that God could judge America, perhaps with Soviet military might, unless the nation repented of its sin and turned to him.   Now remember the context. The Soviet Union was still intact and was the great enemy. Jerry Falwell, who died...

Word of Salvation - May 2011   LAMENTING GOD’S JUDGMENT, John de Hoog (Sermon 2 in a series on Micah)   Text – Micah 1:8-16   Many of you will have some idea of what true Middle Eastern lament looks like. You will have seen snatches of it on TV, from widows in Iraq mourning the senseless death of their beloved husbands to pictures of Jews lamenting as they are being dragged out of their settlements in the Gaza strip. In Micah’s day, when people mourned, they often shaved their hair, wore sackcloth, sat in ashes, wept, and sometimes even employed...

Word of Salvation - April 2011   KNOW THAT GOD IS HOLY; HE JUDGES SINNERS By Rev. John de Hoog (Sermon 1 in a series on Micah)   Text- Micah 1:1-7   What do you think of Psalm 137?   “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land? If I...

Word of Salvation - March 2011   BE UNDONE! (THE TENTH COMMANDMENT) – John de Hoog, 11-03-2 (Sermon 11 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: Matthew 23:1-32 Text: Exodus 20:17; Matthew 19:16-26   I’m sure you know that when Jesus explains the law he always applies it radically to our hearts. He takes what could possibly be seen as descriptions of behaviour that we must avoid and makes it clear that God looks not just at our behaviour but also at our motives and attitudes. Jesus constantly emphasises in his teaching that God’s law never deals with just...

Word of Salvation - February 2011   THE POWER OF TRUTH WITH LOVE, Rev. John de Hoog (Sermon 10 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: Deuteronomy 19:15-21; Proverbs 6:16-19 Text: Exodus 20:16; Ephesians 4:15   Human beings are made in God’s image. That basic fact about us gives the Ten Commandments all their power. A couple of examples:   “You shall not murder”. When we murder or attack another human being, it involves attacking God, because we are tearing up God’s image in that other person.   “You shall not steal.” God made human beings to own and...

Word of Salvation - January 2011   DON’T STEAL; GIVE LIFE INSTEAD By Rev. John de Hoog (Sermon 9 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: 1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-21 Text: Exodus 20:15; Luke 12:13-21   The reading from Luke 12 contains the famous story of the rich fool. A simple story with an obvious meaning - don’t put too much value on earthly goods for you cannot take them with you. Don’t be greedy for more all the time, for you will lose it all in the end anyway.   Let’s think briefly about this parable. Notice three...

Word of Salvation - December 2010   PROPER DELIGHT IS THE KEY, John de Hoog (Sermon 8 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: Ephesians 5:21-33 Text: Exodus 20:14; Proverbs 5   Most people in Australia have not thought deeply about God and sex. If you were to ask people in the street what God thinks of sex, what kind of response do you think you’d get? “I guess he’s pretty much against it,” one person might say. “I suppose he tolerates it for married people, but not because he thinks it’s a good thing; it’s got to be...

Word of Salvation - November 2010   SACRED LIVING, John de Hoog (Sermon 7 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: Matthew 5:17-30 Text: Exodus 20:13 & Genesis 9:1-7   When faced with Law, our natural human response is to try to shrink it. We treat Law like the edge of a small circle. Here’s the line you can’t cross, but everything outside the line is fair enough. And we try to shrink the circle.   It’s natural for us; it starts when we are very young. Your children are fighting and you put a stop to it. You...

Word of Salvation - October 2010   WHAT’S YOUR IMMORTALITY STRATEGY?, John de Hoog (A sermon for Reformation Sunday)   Reading – Luke 12:13-34 Text – Psalm 49   In Luke 9 Jesus asks his disciples this haunting question: “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?”   It’s not a very polite question, is it! In Australia today, it’s an offensive question. What good is it for a man to gain fabulous riches, power and prestige, have a perfect family... and yet lose himself?   It’s a question...

Word of Salvation - September 2010   HONOURING YOUR PARENTS, John de Hoog (Sermon 6 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text: Exodus 20:12 Reading: Ephesians 5:22-6:9 Music: BOW 9, 369, “Have faith in God”, “Your grace is sufficient”   Many people see the fifth commandment about honouring your parents as the softest commandment. A sermon on this commandment is going to contain lots of warm fuzzies about family and good kids, and the preacher will tell us to get our act together with the way we are raising our kids, but generally speaking it will all be rather...

Word of Salvation - August 2010   RESTING FROM, RESTING FOR, John de Hoog (Sermon 5 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 20:8-11 Reading – Hebrews 4:1-11 Singing – BOW 346, 474, “Jesus is our Song (Percival)”, “I am Carried (Bullock)”   How is your day going? What are your plans for today?   Here we are, gathered together as a church for our regular Sunday morning service. Why do we do this?   If an alien from outer space were to observe the world from his space ship, one bit of evidence that there are...

Word of Salvation - July 2010   BEARING THE NAME, John de Hoog (Sermon 4 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 20:7 Reading – Daniel 9:1-19   God has invited you and me into a covenant relationship with him. In that invitation, he says to us, “You can have my name upon you.”   Have you thought about that?   If you adopt a child, you give that child your name. [Take some examples of adopted children that you and the congregation know about.] You can have my name upon you. That’s what the Lord God...

Word of Salvation - June 2010   THE SECOND COMMANDMENT, John de Hoog (Sermon 3 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 20:4-6 Reading – Colossians 1:13-23 Singing: – BOW 95a, 379, 116a, 388, “Ancient of Days”, “You are my all in all”   One of the most important questions you can ask yourself is how you are going to relate to God. How is your relationship with God from day to day going to be defined? It’s OK to have knowledge about God; that’s really important. And it’s crucial that you decide that God is going...

Word of Salvation – May 2010   BE A FALSE GOD BUSTER, John de Hoog (Sermon 2 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 20:3 Reading – Psalm 115 Singing – BOW 115, 146, 436, “Exalt the Lord our God”, “No foreign gods”   In the First Commandment, God says, “You shall have no other gods before me.”   Is this a command for Christians?   I understand that the Second Commandment is for me – don’t make idols or bow down to them. The Third Commandment is for me – don’t use God’s name in vain....

Word of Salvation – April 2010   NO OTHER GODS, John de Hoog (Sermon 1 on a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 19:9-20:3 Reading – Isaiah 46:5-13 Singing – BOW 170, 161, 515, “God and God alone”, “There is none like you”   Sermon on Exodus 19:9-20:3 “No other gods”   In the 1980s I worked at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Canberra. For a while I worked on the Census. The ABS conducts a Census every five years; it's a reasonably accurate way of measuring the population of Australia, and of gaining some basic information...