BY THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING: A collection of sermons preached by Reverend/Pastor Godfrey Sponneck

By Reverend/Pastor Godfrey Sponneck

Let’s just come out and say it! This book as about sermons! Well, not just boring old sermons but maybe the most important book you will ever read in your lifetime. Why? Because most of the messages deal with your eternal welfare and that is important right?

Care has been taken in the choice of every message of many hundreds preached over many years that has been effective in the salvation of not a few. It is sincerely hoped that you will find the reading of this book both challenging and eternally helpful in the conversion and development of a real, living and vital spiritual life in the few years before the return of the King of kings and Lord of lords!


1 Corinthians 1:21
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 1 Corinthians 1:21

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Dec 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669881063

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 by Reverend/Pastor Godfrey Sponneck.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/09/2023

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This book is

dedicated to our living LORD JESUS CHRIST

Who’s Name we honour above all other, for He alone is Saviour and Lord of our lives.

And is for: My two daughters, Dr Beverley Blake (Ph.D. Ed.)

and my younger, Nicole van Wyk (B.Ed.) both Countesses of Sponneck

au.psd

Godfrey von Sponneck was an ordained pastor in Full Gospel Church of God in South Africa from his years in College to leaving the Ministry from 1966 to 1980. He then went on to be District Manager for the ‘Old Mutual Life Insurance Society’ until 1991 when he became an independent broker for a number of different insurance companies. In 2001, he organised the family reunion in Germany at the Castle Sponneck from whence comes their family name. His message on ‘BUT’ was preached here to those who came to the church service on the last Sunday of the reunion.

Godfrey then went on to being a German speaking tour guide in South Africa and took a number German tourists along the famed Garden Route from 2005 to 2015 when he left the shores of South Africa forever. He now is a Permanent Resident of New Zealand where he lives in retirement. No longer able to preach or speak publically due to Parkinson’s Disease, he has decided to put these messages of his over 150 saved message notes to print with the hopes that someone will be blessed by them.

CONTENTS

Preface

To Be or Not To Be

‘Almost, you persuade me to be a Christian!’

For God So Loved

‘For God so loved the World, that He gave us his only begotten Son, so that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life!’ John 3:16

‘The Spirit Within’

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will fellowship with him and he with me.’ Revelation 3:20

As many as received Him, to them He gave the power and authority to be called the Sons of God, even to those who believe on His Name.’ John 1:12

What of the Justice of God?

‘Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool, though they be red as crimson they shall be white as snow!’

But, You Say, What About My Good Deeds?

‘Therefore, being justified by faith, I [or we] have peace with God through my/our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also I [or we] have access by faith into this grace wherein I [or we] stand, and rejoice in hope of the Glory of God [to stand in his presence one day].’

When God Says … But…

‘The wages of sin is death, BUT the Gift of God is Eternal Life, through Jesus Christ.’ Romans 6:23

On The Mountain Top With Jesus

Mark 9:2-13; Matthew 17:1-13 and Luke 9:28-36.

PREFACE

With the encouragement of many of my friends and acquaintances who have sat under my ministry I have at last decided it may be a good thing to publish some of my nearly two hundred sermons I have preached over the years for the benefit and spiritual enlightenment of family, friends and such acquaintances. After I am gone, I think that a collection of sermon notes will not benefit many folk. It has never been my practice to write out my sermons in full before, but to preach from my notes which I have accumulated over the years. While a message may have blessing for more than one congregation, it has also not been often the practice to preach the same sermon over more than once and maybe twice at most.

Since being restored to preaching as a local preacher in the Newton Park Methodist Church, I have been encouraged by my senior pastor to write out in full my message as is the habit of Methodist preachers. In the practice of this I have been greatly blessed in the rereading of my own messages, and so with joy offer something old and something new to you the interested reader. I am grateful to the Methodist Church for giving me the opportunity to minister again from their pulpits in this capacity and in leading of cell groups, preaching at the Old Age homes and in the local congregations.

My Methodist story began with my mother’s family. My grandfather Spencer was raised Catholic and my grandmother Booysen, Dutch Reformed. It is plain to see then that this could indeed cause conflict and so as a compromise, they joined Russell Road Methodist Church in the early 20th century. My mother was then christened there and raised Methodist. Shortly after getting married my parents moved to Newton Park and at this time Newton Park Methodist Church was being planted in the brand new suburb. So it was here that I and my siblings were all christened and send off to the very successful Sunday school from the age of two years.

Having come to faith under the preaching of Claude Cooper from the Durban Tabernacle, my parents then