A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.  And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. . .” (Ecclesiastes 1:12-14). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Have you ever stepped back from your work, your possessions, your life—and asked, “What’s the point?” If you have, you are not alone. Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, asked that question in Ecclesiastes. He had it all—power, riches, knowledge, pleasure—and still declared, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” That’s life “under the sun”—life apart from God. But thanks be to God, there is another way: life under the Son —Jesus Christ, the Redeemer who brings purpose, peace, and promise even in a world t...

Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today is Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, & 2:24-26. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Vanitas, Vanitatum by Salvador Dali In the opening words of his book, Lutheran Theology , Steven D. Paulson makes this thought provoking statement: “Lutheran theology begins perversely by advocating the destruction of all that is good, right, and beautiful in human life.   It attacks the lowest and highest goals of life, especially morality, no matter how sincere are its practitioners.”   He goes on to say “Luther said the ‘sum and substance of,’ Paul’s letter to the Romans ‘is to pull down, to pluck up, and to destroy all wisdom and righteousness of the flesh’” (p.1).      As I prepared for today, the thought occurred to me that the Preacher of our text must have been Lutheran.   No, he didn’t hold potlucks in the church basement with egg coffee, casseroles, and lime jello. ...