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Trusting in the Lord: From Desert Shrub to Thriving Tree

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Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! By repeated and persistent habit, the people of Judah had made sin, faithlessness, and rebellion a way of life. The pieces of evidence were everywhere. Their children gave ample testimony to their idolatry. Everywhere, in every suitable location, even in the temple (2 Kings 23:7), they had set up shrines to Baal and his consort Asherah. She was the mother of the gods. They worshiped her by raising up sacred wooden poles near her shrines and offering themselves to the temple prostitutes. Through these widespread practices, they had turned their hearts from the Lord. Because of that sin, through their own fault, the Lord would surrender them and His temple and all its treasures to the looming enemy. Into this dire situation, the Lord had called Jeremiah to preach and to call the people to repentance, starting with their wayward kings. Jeremiah’s main opponent was Zedekiah, the last ...
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Sinners in the Presence of a Holy God

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Click here to listen to this sermon. 1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple. 2 Above Him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered is face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” 8 And I heard the voice of the...
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An Old Man's Prayer

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Click here to listen to this sermon. 1     In You, O Lord , do I take refuge;                 let me never be put to shame! 2      In Your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;                 incline Your ear to me, and save me! 3      Be to me a rock of refuge,                 to which I may continually come;        You have given the command to save me,                 for You are my rock and my fortress.   4      Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,                 from the ...
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They Spoke Well of Him and Then Drove Him Out of Town

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Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today is our Gospel, Luke 4:16-30, which has already been read. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In our assigned readings for today, we have examples of one of the longest sermons in Scripture and the shortest. Ezra reads the Book of the Law of Moses “from early morning until mid-day”—about six hours. Jesus reads two verses of Isaiah and preaches a one-sentence sermon. When Ezra finishes, the people bow their heads and worship the Lord with their faces to the ground. When the people in the synagogue hear all Jesus has to say, they are filled with wrath, rise up, and drive Him out of town, so that they can throw Him down the cliff. It would seem that in ancient days the longer the sermon, the better it is received by the hearers. But I somehow suspect that would not be the case today, so this one will fall somewhere in between. So, what is going on here? The Old Testament Reading takes us to a...
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