Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Bad Sermons

I heard a sermon last night at a gospel meeting that started off good, but ended badly. The guy talked about the "practicality" of scripture and using the Bible as our life-guide. He spoke on and on about how the Bible contains all the answers and gave some great examples from scripture of why we should stick closely to the book, chapter, verse method. Only problem was when he got to the end of the sermon, the guy nullified what he had just said by telling what my wife and mother-in-law have coined a "dead baby story". You have all heard them. They are stories that appeal to the emotions and try to convince people to be baptized for strictly emotional reasons. His "DBS" included a little crippled girl who didn't have long to live telling her Daddy she had a dream she was with Jesus. Then she tells him she will soon be able to laugh and jump and play like all the other children in Heaven, and she wants him to be there to see it. So, he wraps her up in a blanket and takes her to church and as he is being baptized, she dies happy because she knows her Daddy will be in Heaven with her. OK, I have some issues with this. 1) The story says that we should become Christians to make people happy instead of for God 2) The story has no scriptural basis (which was the whole point of his sermon) 3) The story appeals strictly to the emotions. Just kinda irks me. Do any of you have "dead baby stories" to share? I have probably heard them all anyway.

3 comments:

JS said...

I hate those stories... especially the poem that some preachers resort to reading, about a guy at the heavenly gates, being turned away, and looking at you saying stuff like "I saw you everyday, yet you didnt tell me about Jesus, I worked with you, etc..."

Im thinking "So there are guilt trips in heaven?"

bigsip said...

LOL...Exactly my point. I feel like when people have to resort to jokes and dead baby stories to keep your attention, it just draws attention to the fact that they couldn't make up a lesson that was interesting enough from the Bible. There is a fundemental flaw in that line of teaching. Preach the Word, folks!

Diana said...

When I was a senior in high school I was agnostic and I remember when 9/11 happend one of my "christian" friends tried to get me to "ask Jesus in my heart" because the world was going to end or whatever. I remember thinking. You know, If I'm gonna do this, this shouldn't be my reason.