Sermons & Devotionals by Ernest O'Neill

We've been discussing on this page the question "what is life about?" Why are we here? What's it all in aid of? We've been particularly concerned with the question of whether there is any life beyond this one that we are all experiencing here on earth. We have concluded that there must be something ... 阅读更多

Have you ever had to live for a month in a room that lacks the conveniences or orderliness that you are used to? Isn't it uncanny how you adapt so well to your situation that the end of the month finds you much less irritated by the things you missed than the beginning? This is because we human bein... 阅读更多

Have you ever imagined that you were somebody famous or rich? Have you ever dreamed that you could do things far beyond your natural powers? Have you had moments when you thought, "I can be different--I can escape from this narrow, little life I live?" When we do this, the whole world usually implie... 阅读更多

Most of us feel we're on our own! We have felt this way ever since we left the family home. Some of us feel it even before that. We try to become part of somebody else by making friends or marrying, but often we still feel we're alone. This is a downright lie. You Are Not On Your Own You are not on ... 阅读更多

Do you know which book is a perennial best seller, or which kind of book? Brookes has its day, Jonathon Seagull has its day, Blind Ambition has its day, but there is a kind of book that hooks generation after generation of readers. Do you know what kind? It's the 'How to' book. It's the 'How to'. Th... 阅读更多

We believe what we were told when we were young. You're on your own in this world -- it's tough out there -- no one will look after you when your parents die. So get a good education so that you can get a good job and have children and keep yourself secure and comfortable! The result is that we spen... 阅读更多

Life in Space We humans have always imagined a vast "space" world exists somewhere in the universe where beings like us would be capable of travelling huge distances and performing superhuman feats. Of course, we have always smiled at these dreams of space-fiction as simply figments of our imaginati... 阅读更多

Most of us live either to please ourselves or to please others: either way somehow results in our becoming slaves -- slaves to others' opinions and approval or slaves to our own strong desires and inherited attitudes. There is another way -- live the way our Maker intended. Usually we think of that ... 阅读更多

"Oh, often have I washed and dressed, And what's to show for all my pain-- Let me lie abed and rest -- Ten thousand times I've done my best -- And all's to do again!" Houseman's poem expresses the jaded malaise that weighs down many of us today. Life seems to have deteriorated into a dreary rat-race... 阅读更多

Let me give you an example of how what you say shows the real state of your heart. Lets say you have a friend named Stephanie who you think exaggerates and you say to someone, "Stephanie is alright, but she exaggerates a little." Now it is so easy to say that, and you may think that there is nothing... 阅读更多

Either you're a little human animal trying to make your own way through life or you're part of the Son of the Maker of the universe living daily the life He has planned for you. But only one of these can be true - the other is a lie that actually does not exist. This is why the first one is so spoil... 阅读更多

You have known moments when you seemed to live above yourself, haven't you? We all certainly have read about moments like this that have occurred in other people's lives. In war time or at moments of unusual danger, ordinary men and women have surprised even themselves by showing courage, presence o... 阅读更多

You're stupid if you don't believe in God! This is what Psalm 14:1 states in the Bible. The actual words used are "The fool has said in his heart 'There is no God'". Karl Barth, the German theologian, says that such people are stupid because they reject reality and are forced to build a whole system... 阅读更多

What do you think God wants you to do? Most people today have absolutely no idea. Indeed, most of us regard the question as meaningless. Most of us believe in God because such belief is the only reasonable way to account for the origin of the universe (or the origin of whatever made the big bang or ... 阅读更多

INTRODUCTION 1. What are you going to be when you grow up? I don't know how the girls answered, but we guys used to reply - a train-driver or the driver of a fire engine; and perhaps now we would answer an astronaut or R2D2 - but at 7 or 8 years of age, the question sounded exciting and the future s... 阅读更多

INTRODUCTION 1. Will you look at the verse we're studying together today? Romans 9:13. So it seems plain from these words that Our Creator is just as fickle and arbitrary as the Greek and Islamic myths make Him out to be: He sees two little babies, Jacob and Esau, in their mother's womb, and in a fi... 阅读更多

INTRODUCTION 1. Prince Charles of England will come King of the United Kingdom because he is the oldest son of Queen Elizabeth. That's what normally happens - the authority of the father or mother is passed on to the elder son. And that is what we would have expected with the leadership of the natio... 阅读更多

INTRODUCTION 1. Let's talk about "God's Mercy" in connection with the next verse in our study of Romans. Romans 9:15 2. Have you ever questioned God? When something didn't go the way you wanted it to or when someone died in circumstances that were difficult to understand? Last week, you remember, we... 阅读更多

INTRODUCTION 1. I think there are many of us here who want to have a real relationship with God and people tell us all we have to do is "believe"-- so we kind of gulp in breath, screw up our faces and start trying to believe. Then we're told we can't do anything - all we have to do is believe - so, ... 阅读更多

INTRODUCTION 1. During these past few months we've been saying that our lives are not just a combination of time plus chance: the things that you experience are not just lucky or unlucky coincidences, but that God, Our Creator, planned your existence and has in mind a certain design and purpose for ... 阅读更多