A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! A point of climax and decision has arrived on the Plains of Moab. Moses is nearing death after leading Israel in the wilderness for forty years. The younger generation is about to enter the Promised Land, and he is preparing them for what’s ahead. So, here it is: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in His ways, and by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jorda...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah” (1 Kings 17:14–16). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The times are tough. King Ahab rules Israel, and he is considered to be the worst, wickedest king of all, which is something considering the notorious history of Israel’s kings. To compound his own evil, he has married Jezebel, princess of Sidon; and among other things, Queen Jezebel will be known in history as the one who particularly plagued Israel with the worship of false gods. She will also be remembered as one who “cut off the prophets of the Lord” (1 Kings 18:4), depriving the people of the Word of the Lo...

Click here to listen to this sermon. Parents and educators teach their children how to make good choices. Good choices are decisions that keep you heading in the direction which is best for you and others. Bad choices, on the other hand, end up being counterproductive and can quickly spiral into stress, confusion, and despair. Like any other helpful habit, making a good choice has to be taught. We want to raise kids to make good choices even when we’re not there. Even when there’s no immediate reward or praise. Even when it’s hard. What does this look like in practice? Imagine a child who is getting ready to do something that could cause problems in the future. We might ask, “Is that a good choice?” Or suppose they’ve done something you’ve warned them against and are now suffering the consequences: Instead of saying, “I told you so,” we can ask “What would have been a better choice?” Making good choices is a necessary skill for all ages, but it’s best to start early. These are sk...

"Having become the favorite the Pharaoh, Joseph's  brothers come to Egypt to request food supplies  for  their country suffering from famine. He makes himself  known to them and pardons them (Genesis XLV, 1-8)"  by Marc Chagall   Click here to listen to this sermon. So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45:4-8). Grace to yo...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! In the wake of last Sunday’s mass shooting in Texas, some B-list celebrities found proof of the powerlessness of prayer. One tweeted, “The murder victims were in a church. If prayers did anything, they’d still be alive.” Pastor Hans Fiene responded, “People of goodwill can certainly disagree over the merits of gun control legislation, just as we can disagree over how long we should wait after a tragedy to discuss its political ramifications. However, we should all recognize that pointing to a couple dozen warm corpses and saying, ‘Fat lot of good your Jebus-begging did you’ is an act of profound ugliness. “It’s also an act of profound ignorance. For those with little understanding of and less regard for the Chri...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn’” (Matthew 13:30). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! A man and his wife had just moved from an apartment in a large city to a new home out in the country. It was springtime and he was eager to get outdoors and work in the large flower garden the former owners had made back of the house. But everything was pushing up at once—tulips, thistles, blades of grass, hyacinths, weeds, and dandelions! And then there were those curious, fuzzy leaves that were coming up all over the garden. The garden had to be weeded. But there was a hitch—which ones were the weeds? The obvious ones were no problem. But what about those with the fuzzy leaves? So he asked his neighbor. “Oh, they’re weeds!” the neighbor answered. His wife said, “No, I...