The greatest sermon I ever heard

It was a little white country church somewhere out in the countryside between Knoxville and Jefferson City, TN. The year was 1980. Maybe. Time and distance can change - unbeknownst to us - even our most certain and cherished memories.

Because. We are human. And emotion rules us humans at least as often as does fact. Yep. All of us. Whether we know it or not.

But some memories stay so searingly etched within our hearts and minds that they seemed to have just happened, though they initially took place decades ago.

Such a memory I have of the greatest sermon I ever heard preached from a pulpit in a church.

I don’t know why the preacher made his sermon that day so astonishly brief. It sure didn’t seem to be the norm, particularly for country Baptist preachers.

Maybe someone had suggested he keep his sermons a bit briefer.

Maybe he was following the old time-proven adage regarding communication by either the spoken or the written word; that often “less is more”.

Maybe there was some discord percolating within the flock; therefore, the three particular words he chose.

Maybe he was truly divinely led to say his simple words that day. I’d be willing to bet that every soul in attendance that day could have quoted his entire sermon for years thereafter.