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Which brings me back to: "Sermons aren't just made up on the spot." That service was planned days, if not weeks ahead of time.
It's coincidence. Nothing else. That service was also probably relevant to dozens of others in the room in some shape or another.
I think you are missing the point of the question. Partly was God speaking through the pastor to Trump even though the pastor did not know Trump would be there ad did not specifically aim the sermon at Trump, and partly was Trump able to hear what was the voice of God to him?
Sermons aren't just made up on the spot. The theme is often planned out (at least at the churchs that I have been too in the past) at least a few weeks ahead of time. I remember the last service I was at, the priest had even said what the topic was going to be the following week at the end of the service. Viz would probably be able to comment more on this.
Themes for services can revolve around big issues in the community or congregation at the time to be relevant. This doesn't mean that God is speaking to you, just that the planned service may be relevant to your current needs/struggles
This is true, but I would not call it purely coincidence.
A number of years ago, one of my wife's married woman friends confided in her that the friend was dallying with another man. They hadn't "done anything really serious yet," but they had been having secret tete-a-tetes in a number of places around town. This when on for a few weeks with my wife urging her friend to come with her husband to church with us. My wife told me the story just in case the matter came out in public--she didn't want to be seen as being a conspirator.
One Saturday afternoon, the woman agreed to come the next day to church with us, bringing her husband. So the next morning, we met at the church and entered together, taking a seat.
The pastor's sermon was about secret infidelity--the kind of stuff that "didn't do anything really serious" but was, in fact, infidelity. He told of people meeting in secret--and named each place the woman had told my wife about. He did everything but call the woman by name.
My wife said later that her friend was furious with her: "You set me up!"
But how? This was a church of a couple of thousand members, and we were relatively new to it. Plus it had been only hours before that the woman agreed to go.
Often times when you go to church, the sermon just happens to be about EXACTLY the thing you have been dealing with. Sometimes people even say "was he talking directly at me?". It happens all the time when God speaks to us. It seems this happened to Donald Trump, who is not the church going type, but did attend yesterday. The church did not know he was coming, so they had not prepared anything for him specifically.
They spoke about:
- The importance of humility, which is the quality Mr Trump does not seem to possess.
- Being considerate of those who are unwanted, and they named the refugees and illegal immigrants who Trump has spoken harshly about
Maybe he listened, and maybe he learned. In case he is out next presidents, I sure hope he listened.
Well this proves modern miracles do occur. Finally at least a circumstance we can agree upon, Finn.
That exact thing happened to me in my senior year of HS, and only a year after I had committed my life to Christ. The pastor of our SBC church was also the student "dean" at my my HS. I was struggling with the racism in my family (from Louisiana), but still committed enough to separate but equal to volunteer to debate the one and only black kid in our school in the state of Washington, my father's last duty station before retiring from the AF. "Ted" and I were opponents in a debate before our entire student body. We would later become fast friends.
But I tromped him in the debate. I was actually shocked by the number of students that came up to me congratulating me. My arguments involved facts and figures. Ted presented an argument about what was morally right. Apparently students liked facts and figures more than moral conviction.
Anyway, some three weeks later Pastor Freddy (Freddy the Barracuda to students having to go to his office) preached a message about Christ calling a Samaritan "good" and indicated Samaritans weren't to be separated from Jews in Jesus' eyes. He walked into their territory, was kindly toward them, forgave their sins just as He had Jews. Then he drew parallels to the great issue of our time in 1964----separate but equal???
I immediately concluded his sermon was directed at me. I waited patiently in the empty house serving as our church until a building program could be begun. It would later become the parsonage.
As I stood there waiting to have a word with him I was not the least bit concerned with telling him I didn't appreciate him aiming a sermon at me. An "older" widow (younger than I am now) was waiting also. She was the Sunday School teacher and hailed from Alabama complete with strong accent. She asked me if I was waiting to talk to him and I said, "yes, ma'am." She said, "Well, you go first. I'm going to have a strong word with him about preaching at me because I'm from Alabama."
I stood there for a moment more, then turned and walked out the front door. It was the beginning of my realizing that God isn't stuck between the pages of the Bible. He speaks throug other people---no not through my pastor although that sermon was a catalyst, but rather my Sunday School teacher. It was she who gave me the ability to see my own heart.
And that message about Jesus seeing value in people that others don't has been a guiding principle in making me look inward rather than at them when others, for whatever reason, see "sinners" or "lost" people in Muslims or homosexuals or illegal aliens. They become a mirror for me to look at myself---not feed my prejudices.
So, yes, I think God speaks to us when we refuse to look at ourselves. Donald Trump may indeed be getting a message he should not ignore.
"And that message about Jesus seeing value in people that others don't has been a guiding principle in making me look inward rather than at them when others, for whatever reason, see "sinners" or "lost" people in Muslims or homosexuals or illegal aliens. They become a mirror for me to look at myself---not feed my prejudices.
So, yes, I think God speaks to us when we refuse to look at ourselves. Donald Trump may indeed be getting a message he should not ignore."
Just for emphasis.
And thank you, Finn.
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