A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! You don’t have to look very far to know if there’s a God or not. Our psalmist begins: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” Part of it is common sense: where there’s creation, there’s a creator. This pulpit didn’t spontaneously appear or construct: someone with a talent for woodworking put it together. Likewise, the heavens aren’t a random occurrence: where creation, there creator. Someone had to be around to make it. So at the very least, the heavens testify that there’s a god out there somewhere. So the heavens declare the glory of God, proclaiming vastness, beauty, power, and order. If nothing else, creation screams intelligent design and a creator, making it rather foolish to say there is ...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “But Ruth said, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you’” (Ruth 1:16-17). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! It seems fitting that on the day of the year our congregation celebrates the faithfulness of the women of the LWML that our text would highlight the faithfulness of a woman—Ruth, a young widow who refused to leave her widowed mother-in-law, or turn her back on the Lord, the covenant God of Israel, even though it meant an uncertain future, a life likely filled with hardship and loneliness. Imagine moving to a foreign country, a place where your people are considered the enemy. A place where you know only one other living person. Not ...