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Click on http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com
to read selected Sermons from
over 50 years of Rev. Wyrick's ministry. Below...other recent Sermon Titles
To view Rev. Wyrick in 4 of his highly
acclaimed One Man Dramas ABRAHAM
LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN CHARLES WESLEY, MARTIN LUTHER (NBC Special) click on the link
below
Below
the thoughts below read a quote from Rev. Wyrick's applauded 9th book THE
SPIRITUAL ARAHAM LINCOLN
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Proverbs 25:28
He that hath no rule of his own spirit is like a city whose
walls are broken down.
How would you like to have lived centuries ago in a small village
whose walls were broken down? The enemy
was coming and all you had to offer for protection was a sign that read, “We
are currently taking bids on how much it will cost to repair these walls.” Wouldn’t have felt terribly safe, would
you? Protected by a wannabe. Protected by a future improvement
program.
Well,
the scripture for these thoughts is a beautifully rendered description of what
a lack of self control is. “Like a city
whose walls are broken down is a man (or woman) who lacks self-control.”
NIV
On the calendar, this is a new year spread before us...and it is all
about control...controlling our lives or letting other people and public
opinion control our lives.
It
may be an old joke, but there really are people who, when you say “Good morning”
to them, basically meet you with a broken-down-wall attitude, “What do you mean
by that remark?”
They are badly in need of some
soul searching, reflection and repentance.
And then there are others whose wall of self-control and Christ-control
keeps out the enemies of anger, envy…oh, the list is long. Glory souls who daily repent, and daily pray
to improve, and daily make people glad they are around. Right now, as you think of some people, you
begin to smile just remembering them....or frown.
Perhaps you think, dear Lord, what can I do to help people,
who are so out of love with life, find more joy in it? Those with a perpetual sneer.
How
can I help them to give up their own private rain cloud for a sunshine
faith that works? The answer, of course, begins with you and me.
Smiling
at the world around us more often than frowning.
Radiating the positive rather than
shading everything with a negative, finding a vibrant faith more often than
vibrant faults.
Edgar A. Guest put it so very well when he wrote…
I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.
The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing, but example’s always clear;
And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their
creeds,
For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.
I soon can learn to do it if you’ll let me see it done;
I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may
run.
And the lecture you deliver may be very wise and true,
But I’d rather get my lessons by observing what you do;
For I might misunderstand you and the high advice you give,
But there’s no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.
One good man teaches many, men believe what they behold;
One deed of kindness noticed is worth forty that are told.
Have you ever
wondered how some intelligent individuals can behave in such a manner they
actually drives away the very people they want and needs? How can anyone smart sometimes act so
dumb?
Well,
actually it is surprisingly simple.
Psychologists tell us that intelligence isn’t everything we think it’s
cracked up to be. It actually influences
only 20% of our decisions - the rest of our actions fall heir to our emotional
responses. Or, let’s put it this way;
when we allow a gut-feeling to take over when we know a God-commandment is ready
to save us from trouble we certainly aren't being a wisdom person.
Several years ago we saw on television or read about in the news a young
man who was sentenced to jail for 30 years for killing his grandparents.
His reason for the deed...he was was angry.
I don’t know how smart he was but his emotions were certainly off
the scale.
His lawyer argued that he was not to blame, his actions were
affected by his medicine.
But whichever side of the courtroom discussion you agree with, we
all know that the commandment, Thou shalt
not kill certainly wasn’t shouting at him.
Certainly didn’t have his attention.
Intellectually he more than likely could understand the words of the
commandment, but emotionally
they meant absolutely nothing to him.
Speaking of emotions out of control.
Do you hold a grudge for days or weeks or years? Do you require that everyone in your family
dislike everyone you dislike, and the list is long?
Does everyone feel they have to walk on eggshells when they are in
your presence? Are you an individual who
cannot manage your emotions, and part of the reason is because it is just you
by yourself trying to manage them?
I’m not suggesting that you should work at being dead in the
water emotionally. You want to be able
to get excited and dance and sing, but you also don’t want to become
permanently hyper and out of control.
Psychiatrists say that anger is the hardest
emotion to master. Few of us need a
doctor to tell us that. Several years
ago, some people were advocating that we should let it all hang out. It was called “Scream Therapy” - that if you
didn’t scream on a regular basis you would perpetually steam. In other words, gain control by losing
control.
The theory, thank goodness, didn’t last. Certainly there is a better way of doing it,
infinitely better than having screaming sessions. It is called “reframing” or “reinterpreting”
what has just happened in a more positive light.
I’ve been doing this for years, I just didn’t have a name for
it. It made sense to me that if someone
gave me a hard time, it was possible that someone had just finished giving them
a hard time, or the night before, or they were just having a bad day.
I concluded it was a waste of time and common sense to take some
aggressive words or actions thrown in my direction personally.
Yes, some people really are nasty and mean on a regular basis,
and they do not like you, along with a host of other people they do not
like.
But
they are in the minority and if you run across someone like that, pray that you
don’t emulate them.
And
there is no doubt that some people are too smart for their own good. They take arrogance to new heights, and
figure because they have reached great heights of success, anyone below them
deserves any rudeness they receive.
Unfortunately, none of us can always be nice anymore than I
could always get a hit when I played baseball or score a touchdown every time I
ran the ball.
Nevertheless, if I simply stood tall, dumb and inactive it was a
guarantee I would never find success.
So it is a given that in the world of niceness vs. nastiness,
you won’t get any better if you allow yourself to be satisfied with worse.
I find it hard understand
why anyone wants to be described as someone difficult to get along with. No one should want that reputation.
But then again, there are some people who are proud of being jerks.
Or, as one man put it, “If I wasn’t a jackass I’d have no personality at all.”
Ah well...and indeed a prayer
and more than one for them...for professional jerks can get the message and
change...really!
There
is a classic story of the artist Michelangelo pushing a gigantic rock down a
cobbled street and being asked by someone why he is going to such extremes and
effort. “Because,” answered the great
sculptor, “there is an angel inside that rock and I am going to let him
out.”
Don’t ever underestimate your potential because, my dear
friends, there is an angel inside of all of us wanting to be let all the way out.
I
love the following story...
His
father was a horse trainer who was constantly on the move from one race track
to the other. Because of this, the boy’s
schooling was always being interrupted. At one of the many
schools in which he found himself, a high school teacher asked his class to
write a paper outlining their goals for their life. The young man took to the
task with great zeal.
He wrote of how he wanted some day to own a
horse ranch. He drew pictures of the
ranch, its rolling hills, with mile after mile of whitened fences. He drew the plans for a magnificent home he
would build on the highest point of his land.
Here he would sit on his porch and look down upon it all.
Finally, he turned in his paper.
When he got it back there was a great big red "F" scrawled
across the first page.
Along with the failing grade was a notation from the teacher that he
wished to talk with him.
The teacher laid it on the line.
He told him he had given
him an F because what he had written could not be considered goals but an
impossible dream for a lad like him.
“Your father is an immigrant.
You haven’t even had a good education.
You have no money. How in heavens
name do you think you will ever be able to buy horses and breeding stock and
pay stud fees? You haven’t a chance to
make what you have written come true.
Rewrite your paper more sensibly and I will consider giving you a better
grade.”
The young boy went home and talked with his father who simply
replied, “It’s up to you, son, not the teacher.
It’s up to you.”
The
young boy went back to school the next day and as he placed his unchanged paper
in the hands of the teacher, he told him, “You keep the F. I’ll keep my dream.”
Am I...Neil Wyrick... better than once I was? I don’t make some of my old mistakes anywhere
near as often, but the Lord is still working with me on my on-going improvement
program.
And neither one of us is
going to give up on me.
Do you trust God? Or let me put it this way, can God trust you?
Can God trust you to put your
best foot forward? To remember and try
with all your strength to obey His commandments?
To stumble because you tripped up but not to lie there, rather get
up and try again?
Just remember this. If
you lie down with dogs you will rise up with fleas said ole Ben Franklin.
If you rise up daily
with Christ by your side, you will rise up a better man or woman because you
will feel eternity poking at your soul.
+++++++++++++
TO GO TO
COLUMNS WRITTEN ON go60.us BY NEIL...CLICK ON THE URL BELOW
http://go60.us/
THEN CLICK ON "VOICE" AT THE
TOP OF THE PAGE...THEN CLICK ON "MEET OUR WRITERS."
++++++++++++++
Below is a quote from Rev. Wyrick's 9th book
THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
It is little wonder that once the war was over,
wretched memories fed anger loud and long.
Neither side could be proud of some things that happened during the war
or at their many prison camps. The
meanness in some men had multiplied.
They felt their uniforms allowed it.
Andersonville, or Camp
Sumter as it was officially known, in
southwest Georgia
is remembered as one of the worst.
By the end of the war, it had held 50,000
prisoners on a piece of land no larger than twenty-six acres.
Some men had called pits in the ground
their home. During its short fourteen-month
existence, 13,000 soldiers who had survived in battle died in captivity under
the most terrible conditions.
When the war was over the superintendent
was hanged.
++++++++++++++++++++
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE BOOK
"Positive,
powerful utterances...skillfully enhancing our understanding and appreciation
of Lincoln
while revealing the Divine source of his strength."
Lt.
Colonel C.A. Olsen (Ret.) Asbury
College (Professor Ret.)
"The Spiritual Abraham Lincoln is
an extremely well written book that investigates what might be
termed the spiritual side of President Lincoln. It's both scholarly and very
readable. I came away impressed at Mr. Wyrick's portrayal of the President and
with an altered and enlarged vision of the man:'
William Hoffman, Award winning fiction writer; author of Blood and Guile, and
Wild Thorn
"Wyrick has authored a wonderful
examination of the spirituality of one of American history's most devoutly
religious leaders...a pleasant and readable book that has a rich depth of
information."
Maynard Pittendreigh Presbyterian
minister
"When it comes to invoking religion in
support of any of their decisions, politicians need to sit at the feet of
Abraham Lincoln. Reinhold Niebuhr once called him 'America's greatest theologian.' Why
so great? Because he invariably distinguished between human works and the works
of the Almighty. As Wyrick says, 'He wore the mantle of humility
easily: because he was more impressed with what God was doing in the world than
with what he, president of the United States in the midst of an awful crisis,
was doing. That is why in his last major speech he distinguished between both
human causes in the Civil War and the Almighty's 'own purposes.' Lincoln would have agreed
that it is better to leave God-talk out of politics than to decorate human
proposals with divinity. This is a book for our American time. Through his
careful study of Lincoln's
career, Wyrick compels us to remember that piety belongs in politics only when
piety transcends politics."
Dr.
Donald W. Shriver
Emeritus professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Author of An
Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics
"V. Neil Wyrick's fine work allows the reader to appreciate Abraham
Lincoln's Christian commitment and his prophetic role in American history.
Should have a wide readership."
James
H. Smylie Professor
of Church History (Ret.) Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia
"Neil
Wyrick's The Spiritual Abraham Lincoln should be read by anyone attempting to understand the man who was probably
the most complex person to ever hold the office of president of the United States.
Dr. Wyrick is intent on demonstrating that the spirituality so often expressed
in Lincoln's
writings and speeches was not merely lip service to a Deity, but rather
expressions of a profound faith in a real God. It was this faith that provided
the wisdom, compassion, insight and sometimes steel that Lincoln would need in full measure as he led the United States through the Civil
War. Dr. Wyrick's clear and unpretentious style of presentation is very much in
keeping with the character ofhis subject, and in so doing, Wyrick makes his
point very well that Lincoln,
his beliefs, and the faith that formed them, are as relevant to a troubled America in 2004
as they were in 1863."
Daniel Allen Butler, author
of "Unsinkable"; The Full Story of the RMS Titanic, The Lusitania and The
Age o f Cunard
++++++++++++++++++++++
Neil also writes for go60.us to check out his writings...
click on
"Voice" on the home page and then on the list of authors click
on Neil Wyrick
Recent articles Rev. Wyrick has written for this web site are:
REFLECTIONS
·
Here Comes Summer (July 2012)
·
Spring
(May 2012)
·
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (April 2012)
·
Wayward and Windy (April 2012)
++++++++++++++++++++++
Some of the sermon titles
posted recently on Wyrick's Writings
+++++++++++++++++++++
BELOW ARE MORE QUOTES FROM NEIL'S RECENTLY POSTED SERMONS
on Wyrick's Writings
++++++++++++++++++
A QUOTE FROM THOUGHTS POSTED ON MY
OTHER BLOG WYRICK'S WRITINGS ENTITLED
Two stores faced each other across a very
busy street. Their owners were in constant competition
with each other. One day, the owner of
one store put out a sign that read – If
you want it, we have it!
Almost immediately the other owner put out a
sign –If we don’t have it, you don’t
need it!
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN
HIS WORLD FAMOUS ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER
To
Order and Read
Neil's 9th book THE
SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN
GO TO amazon.com
QUOTES ABOUT THIS WONDERFUL INSPIRING INFORMATIVE book
STILL RECEIVING RAVE
REVIEWS 8 YEARS AFTER IT'S PUBLICATION.
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