A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! No image of the Lord and His relationship with us strikes closer to the core of our being than the one we see as our theme for today: the image of the Lord as our Shepherd and us as His sheep. We sing about this relationship in our hymns for today: “The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want” and “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us.” We hear it in the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” In Revelation: “The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd” (7:17). And in our text for today, John 10:27, Jesus tells us, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”   Shepherd and sheep: Why do you suppose this image has such power for us? Perhaps it’s because we link them together with peace and quiet. “He makes me lie down in green pastures… He leads me beside still waters.” Or maybe it’s because of how we think of sheep. Some people have ...

"John the Baptist Points to the Christ" by Bartolome Esteban Murillo Click here to listen to this sermon. The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because He was before me.’ I myself did not know Him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that He might be revealed to Israel.” And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on Him. I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (John 1:29-34). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Well-versed in Scripture, the disciples of John the Baptist knew all about the lambs. There were stories of one-time...

  "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" by Jan Van Eyck Click here to listen to this sermon. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed ...

"Jeremiah Preaching to His Followers" by Gustave Dor e Click here to listen to this sermon. The Lord made it known to me and I knew; then you showed me their deeds. But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more” (Jeremiah 11:18-19). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s the cry of Jeremiah, surrounded by those who plot to take his life. But it’s worse than that. Reading through the rest of chapter 11, you find that it’s the villagers of Anathoth who plot against him. Anathoth was set aside by God for the Levites—for the priests of Israel; therefore, as the prophet of God declares God’s Word, it is the priests of the land who are plotting his death. It’s even worse than that. Read chapter 1, and you find out that Anathoth is Jeremiah’s h...

"The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" by Jan van Eyck Click here to listen to this sermon. Then I saw in the right hand of Him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that He can open the scroll and its seven seals.” And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And He went and took the scroll from the righ...

"The Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem" by James I Tissot  Click here to listen to this sermon. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! I’m sure you’ve heard that old phrase about March weather that goes, “In like a lion and out like a lamb.” Well, according to the late stargazer Jack Horkheimer, it appears that the phrase got its imagery from the two constellations, Aries—the Ram or Lamb, and Leo—the Lion. A long time ago, someone noticed that their movement in the March skies coincided with the fiercer weather at the beginning of the month and the milder weather at the end of the month. “In like a Lion, and out like a Lamb.” That could describe Jesus’ movement as He comes into Jerusalem for Holy We...