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Truly This Man was the Son of God

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Samuel D. Dean April 3, 1988 Easter Sunday First Baptist Church Clinton, TN If you happened to have been around when Jesus was crucified, you would have had an interesting experience listening to everything people were saying. It would have been a gossiper's paradise. People love to talk, and there were a lot of things to talk about, for Jesus was at the very center of the controversy People were saying all kinds of things. Certainly, you could have heard his accusers making statements over their justification for what they had done. They had succeeded in killing Jesus. Now they were trying to rationalize what they had done. They were probably talking about many of the things that he did that were wrong. He had violated the law. He had been guilty of blasphemy over and over again. They probably cried to lessen their guilt by enumerating the things that were wrong. Pilate probably didn't talk very much at all about it. He had what I would call a disinterested avoidance of ...
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Waiting on the Morning

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Samuel D. Dean First Baptist Church Clinton, TN January 20, 1985 One night as I was a little bit delirious with fever, I longed for the morning to come. When you can't sleep, the night becomes very long. And there is a great deal of anticipation for morning to come. I remember going through moments of grief when the same thing happened. When you lose a very dear loved one and you go to bed, there is something about your psychology that makes you almost rebel against sleep. And if you sleep, you sleep in short segments. It's a restless sleep and you long for the morning to come and for the night to be behind you. The same thing happens when you are wanting to go on a great trip. You can get so excited about the trip, that you anticipate the morning so much. My wife was kidding with me this morning (no...she really wasn't kidding with  me....she was being very honest). My family also gave me a rough time this morning. They said that I acted more like a child than my ow...
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God Works in All Things

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Samuel D. Dean First Baptist Church, Clinton, TN July 21, 1985 I have a friend who has an expression that is precious. He talks about holy smack. In the Bible, people have mentioned the "holy kiss" and he calls it the "holy smack." He says that many times in life we like to put the holy smack on many of our personal ideas and on many of the things that we want to do ourselves. I find sometimes we do that when it comes to the Bible. We try to put a verse of scripture which will put its stamp of approval on our particular ideas or on our particular behavior. We do this sometimes by saying that things are in the Bible that are not in the Bible. There are many old saying attributed to Benjamin Franklin that many people think are in the Bible. They will argue with you and say "That's in the Bible." But good ole Ben probably said it instead of it being found in Proverbs. Other times, people will take a verse of scripture and they will just use a segme...
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Going Home for Christmas

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Everyone wants to know. "Where are you going for Christmas?' How many times are you asked that question this time of the year? Quite a few. And most of the time we will answer, "Well, we are going home for Christmas (wherever home is)." Isn't it interesting that we go home for a lot of things. Whenever someone dies that was very dear to us, we go "home" for the funeral. Frequently, they are buried in the "hometown" cemetery. When there are problems in our lives and we need help, we go "home" and we talk to those people who are very dear to us and we love what they have to say. Most of all, we love their support. We also go "home" to celebrate. The meaningful moments in life are more meaningful if you can celebrate with someone who is very dear. So...when it comes Christmas time, we want to go home and celebrate this most precious time of the year with the people who are so very dear to us. We go "home." We do th...
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The Agony of Christmas

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John 1:11 It was time to go Christmas shopping. Having had some unpleasant experiences with late Christmas shopping, I decided to start earlier. As I made my way through the morning traffic in Johnson City, a sidewalk protester came into view. A large placard was in his hands as he stood on the sidewalk in front of a used car dealer. At first I thought he was on strike; but as I came closer the wording of the sign left little doubt as to his protest. The sign read, "If you want a rotten deal, buy a car here." As I was going my merry way, a fellow pilgrim in life was in misery. He felt that he had been taken by the car dealer. His somber face gave no expression of glad tidings. This experience made me pause and think about Christmas. I came to see that the first Christmas was not without its moments of agony. Consider with me the agony of Mary and Joseph. Supposed you were a teenage girl and were pregnant and unmarried. Or suppose you were a man engaged to a young lady w...
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Living 'Til We Die

What if a man should die before he lives? A fear of death before living provokes anxiety. Sensing that life is supposed to be purposeful, man is frustrated in life unless he discovers how to live. One wants to live before he dies. Purposeful living is not a temporal existence confined to a period of one's life; it is all-encompassing. An old song used to proclaim, "Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey, I cry; If a tree don't fall on me, I'll live 'til I die." This facetious jingle provokes a serious question: Can a man live 'til he dies? Frustrated in his plans, shackled with increasing limitations of life, and thwarted in many pursuits, man is faced with great challenges to live all his days. A beautiful story of one man's undefeatable quest is found in our text. King David had a great dream. More than any other goal in his role as King was his desire to build a house for the Lord. A temple, the center of worship for the Chosen People, was the dr...
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