"The sermon is the house, but the illustrations are the windows that let the light in."  Charles Spurgeon.

The background to SID...

Anyone who is involved in preaching, teaching or writing Bible studies, at any level, will know how important adequate illustrations are. While looking recently for Bible illustration software that I could purchase, I came across an amazing database (called 'Kerux' which is the greek word for 'preacher') of sermons and Biblical illustrations compiled by Rev David Holwick. There were literally thousands of sermons and illustrations (and who knows how many hours work!) that were free for download from Rev Holwick's website. This, I felt, was a fantastic resource and was being freely offered for the glory of God! The only real problem was that you needed to have Microsoft Access to adequately search and view the database. That's where, I hoped, we could help!

What is SID?

SID is our effort to help. SID is a free 'front-end' program that we have written to access Rev. Holwick's 'Kerux Database'. It will allow you to search, view, copy and print (amongst other things!) the biblical illustrations and sermons that have been compiled in Rev. Holwick's Kerux database. You do not need Microsoft Access or any other software to use this program. Please note: when you install 'SID', it comes with a database that contains one sermon and one illustration. You will need to download the illustrations/sermons sets themselves from Rev Holwick's site.

If you want to have a quick look at what SID looks like, click on the images below. The first picture shows the search screen and the second shows the results.

Interested? Here is what you do...

Step 1: Download 'SID' here (3.8 Mb)
Step 2: Once downloaded, double click on the download file (SID_Setup.exe) to install SID on your machine.

This will allow you to view the program, but it will only contain one illustration and one sermon.

Step 3: Go to the Kerux Database website and download one or more of the sermon/illustration sets. The files on this site are zipped to compress the data so you will need to unzip the file once it has been downloaded.
Step 4: In the SID program, click on the 'Import' button and use the 'browse' button to select the mdb (Microsoft Access database file) that you have downloaded and unzipped. Finally click on the import button to include these sermons/illustrations in your database.

We hope that you enjoy using the program!

Note for Windows 95 users:

If you are using Windows 95 or have any problems running the SID program, you should install the latest Jet 4.0 pack.

This may be downloaded from Rev Holwick's website under the 'SID' heading.
 

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