Welcome to the Gospel Vault! This week's lesson comes from 2013 and the subject is Materialism . It is preached by me, Chris Mentzer

Introduction         Over the last decade many people have become “more religious”. And by doing so they love to express it all over social media. But is this really what God is looking for in one of His children? Are we furthering the gospel or becoming victims of another one of Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11)?   Super Information Highway         The internet is one of the greatest inventions of the late 20 th Century. Information, Friends, and Family at your fingertips. See pictures of your newborn grandchild just moments after they are born or see your favorite band perform live on the other side of the planet! With this kind of technology, it also cuts research time in half.         Of course, the World Wide Web has its dark side. Pornography, gambling, and unsavory dating sites are capturing people’s attention; as well as their souls. Another problem is that it eats up your time faster than any other activity out there. One minute your checking your e-mail

This week's Gospel vault presents another lesson from Brother Marshall Keeble. Blood and Water Sermon

(from 2013) Introduction “Do No Try This at Home” is a phrase generally seen as a disclaimer on certain television shows that feature dangerous stunts or other things in which professionals have been training to do for many years. Teenagers and young adults will attempt to imitate these very same stunts themselves. Why? Because it’s the thrill of the stunt and an opportunity to gain approval of their peers. To them failure is not an option as well as death. It’s a certain level of immortality that young people feel because, to them, their whole life is ahead of them and death only happens to old people. But as a preacher once said, “The Old must die and the young do die.” Definitions of Immortal The dictionary definition for immortal is ‘Exempt from Death’ or ‘Imperishable’.   In other words, you can never die or you live forever. But this is not true and we all, eventually, will die. In addition, the dictionary also defines immortal on the basis of a noun in tha

Introduction                 When your car runs low on gas, you pull into a gas station or, as some call it, a filling station. In addition, you can pick up snacks and drinks to help reach your next destination. When your body runs low on energy, you sleep at night and eat food during the day. This helps you “recharge” so you can continue your day-to-day living. But what do you do when your soul runs low on energy? How does one refuel the body’s spirit? The Full-Service Station         The local church serves as a way of refueling the spirit: Singing; as Paul writes in Eph. 5:19-20, “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” , Prayer; as James writes in Jas. 5:13-16, “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let hi

(from 2004) Introduction         This is a question that most people would rather ignore that to answer: If you were to die tonight, where would you go? Some might instantly say, “Heaven” while others might flippantly, or even proudly say, “Hell”. But what if I told you that, according to scripture, you would not go to neither place when you die? When You Die…         Contrary to what most religious people will tell you, Heaven or Hell is not the next stop after you pass from this mortal realm. They are the places of eternity as stated by Jesus in Mt. 25:46, “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Eternity is your “final reward” but there is a location that every soul will venture into after leaving here. It’s what I’ve referred to as the Giant Waiting Room. Welcome to Hades         If you’ve ever seen the TV series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or Xena: Warrior Princess , you are famili

Introduction         Have you ever looked up at the moon at night and wondered why it doesn’t have a name? Moons of the other planets have names but ours doesn’t. It’s just known simply as The Moon. Have You heard about Pluto?         Growing up as a child of the 70s, we learned in school that there are nine planets in our solar system. Yes, I know that Pluto had been downgraded to nothing more than an asteroid but I’ll acknowledge Pluto as a planet to my dying day. Otherwise, I couldn’t use the phrase: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles to memorize the order of the planets from the sun.         As you think about the other planets, you will recall that each of them has their own set of moons. Mars, for example, has 2 moons; while Jupiter has 63 moons! And each moon has its own name.         Here on planet Earth we only have one moon and it is just called the moon. Sometimes I feel cheated because all of the other planets have moons with

A few decades ago, I took a College Psychology class during the summer quarter and one of the exercises was to write our own obituary.   Actually, we were to write two: one as if we were to die that day and the second if we died in ten years.   We then compared the two to see how much different they were.   I recall the first obituary I wrote; the cause of death was a car accident by a drunk driver.   In the second obituary, I don’t recall the reason for death but I said I was working for the company of Texas Instruments (looking at a calculator at the time, I guess), was married and had kids. But this bears the question to the reader, if you could write your own obituary, what would it say?   Would you talk about your job?   Family?   Social groups?   What about your faithfulness to the Lord? Some Bible Obituaries         Let’s then look at some of the people of the bible and see how they lived their lives and how they died.   This might give you some ideas of